Breakthrough

My reader's block has mercifully lifted. Unable to finish anything of substance for the last month or so, I was really starting to feel agitated. A stab at Richard Russo's Straight Man did not do the trick; although wickedly funny it also contained too many wickedly depressing characters. Not my cup of tea after all. Thankfully I misplaced my copy of it before feeling any more self-imposed pressure to finish it. Hope it doesn't turn up any time soon.

This past week I brought The Glass Castle with me to the beach (mistake) and then made a terrible impulse buy at the Charlotte airport: Jodi Piccoult's new Change of Heart (even bigger mistake). For those of you who haven't read either of these, the first opens with the true story of a New York woman on her way to a party who happens to pass by her homeless mother sifting through garbage on the side of the street. The latter opens with four men in prison, one dying of AIDS and another waiting out his death sentence.

Thankfully two dear, smart people saved me from these books by recommending Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: A Life and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. My breakthrough came with the biography of Austen. It is simply wonderful. Written in a way that appeals to both scholarly and popular audiences, it chronicles the little we know of Jane Austen's life and the roles that reading and writing, dancing, traveling, and family must have played in her life. Although I loved all the biographical stuff, I particularly enjoyed Tomalin's analysis of Austen's works. Here is a snippet of her take on Mrs. Bennet in Pride & Prejudice:
"Mrs. Bennet dominates the book from its opening sentence. We read it as a piece of resounding irony -- "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of good fortune, must be in want of a wife" -- whereas in fact it is something like a choral statement of the view she shares with every mother in the neighborhood. As the book proceeds, we see Mrs. Bennet proved right more than once. The single men do line up, wanting wives. Her silly predictions about Bingley marrying one of her daughters are justified. Her maddening manoeuvres to leave Jane alone with her admirer are indeed necessary to bring him to the point. Her restored faith that Lydia and Wickham will turn out very well is wonderfully brought to pass. Indeed, her belief that it is better to have ten thousand a year than five, better five thousand than one, and better something than nothing, is also well founded..." (165).

And here she sheds light on Lizzy's reaction to Lydia and Wickham:
"Wickham's prize is a particularly interesting one. Lydia, presented as a bad girl, spoilt by her mother, who sees her as a surrogate self, is selfish and stupid; but her outrageous energies propel her into getting what Elizabeth also wanted - i.e., Wickham - and Austen shows that Lizzy cannot quite forgive Lydia's success. It is not only her superior morality at work, you feel, but a touch of envy that makes her so prim and bad-tempered with Lydia, whose careless vivacity and amorality have allowed her to bag the desirable Wickham. Lydia is the id to Lizzy's ego..."(166).

I had never before considered Lizzy as envious of Lydia, only embarrassed by her. But of course this is a highly plausible reading.

Wonderful book! Highly recommend to anyone who feels the least little bit of affection for Austen. Looking forward to Kingsolver next.

Obama=Daniel Day-Lewis. So true.

Here is a snippet of George Clooney's recent interview in the NY Times Magazine. The newspaper is about all I'm reading at the moment, sad to say, but this was a wonderful find:

Q: Why don’t you run for elected office?
A: That would be a terrible idea. I would be the worst candidate. I’m supporting Barack Obama, and I don’t even think it’s a good idea for me to stump for him. They can pull out some old video of me saying something crazy, and then it suddenly becomes about defending something that I’ve said that has nothing to do with the campaign. I think Huckabee has been incredibly effective, but the least smart thing I’ve seen him do is stand there with Chuck Norris. It’s like, What — can’t you get your own fans? I’ve met Hillary several times, and I like her very much. I think the problem is sort of like this: I’m having a good year with ‘‘Michael Clayton,’’ but this is Daniel Day-Lewis’s year. He’s the actor that all actors are jealous of. I don’t have any understanding of that kind of acting. For me, it’s like a foreign object. And that’s Hillary and Obama.

More American Dreams through Gatsby

I thought I would post this article on The Great Gatsby here in case anyone missed it in the Times this weekend. It is always wonderful to hear that the novel is alive and well in the classroom.

this and that

First of all, what is up with all these Elizabeth Gilbert bashers? According the latest press, readers find her "self-centered" - this after buying her book by the droves for the last eight months. The other night I was completely outnumbered at my bookclub discussion where someone argued that any redeeming moments in Eat, Pray, Love were likely pure fiction on her part. ?

Maybe the idea of someone finding pure joy in Italy, India, and Bali is just too much for some people. I would suggest, as Gilbert does in her book, that anyone who reacts that strongly to Gilbert's personal journey reflect on his or her own Puritan anxieties. Isn't that what Gilbert is trying to escape in the first place? Kudos to her. Secondly, a memoir is what it is. Personal. I'm wondering if people are reacting to her or reacting to the genre.

Okay. Whew. Now that I have that out of my system, I can say that I am smack in the middle of a page-turner right now: Three Cups of Tea. This is the story of a former mountain climber, Greg Mortensen, who finds a way to build schools in rural Pakistan after failing to scale K2. If you are fending off the winter blues or are in need of a diversion on President's Day, go buy this book and start reading it. Good stuff.

All the Pretty Horses

It just doesn't get much better than this. Listen to the Faulkner in McCarthy's opening par:

"The candleflame and the image of the candleflame caught in the pierglass twisted and righted when he entered the hall and again when he shut the door. He took off his hat and came slowly forward. The floorboards creaked under his boots. In his black suit he stood in the dark glass where the lilies leaned so palely from their waisted cutglass vase. Along the cold hallway behind him hung the portraits of forebears only dimly known to him all framed in glass and dimly lit above the narrow wainscotting. He looked down in at the guttered candlestub. He pressed his thumbprint in the warm wax pooled on the oak veneer. Lastly he looked at the face so caved and drawn among the folds of funeral cloth, the yellowed moustache, the eyelids paper thin. That was not sleeping. That was not sleeping."

This guy is the master of the prepositional phrase, and I mean that as a high compliment. I read this to my students yesterday and asked them to write the rest of the story. They came up with such imaginative plots. According to one student, the dead person in above passage also has a solid gold arm.

Saw No Country for Old Men this weekend and it has made me want to read every single Cormac McCarthy novel in one sitting. I'll confess that I haven't read the first one yet, but I'm ready to go now. Admittedly I watched most of the movie with my sweater pulled up over my eyes - couldn't bear seeing the violence. But I'm sure I'll have a lot less trouble reading about it. I thought the movie was brilliant. Which one should I start with?

In other news, and not that surprisingly, Toni Morrison and I are on the same page about two very important things: Obama and the Kindle. Just read this interesting blog about both on Papercuts.


Also, I found this questionnaire on another blog and felt like answering it. I'm not certain about the whole mischievious fairy bit, but I'll go along with it for kicks (see below):


Which book do you irrationally cringe away from reading, despite seeing only positive reviews? Um, The Joy Luck Club? And it was wonderful! I am sure there are others...anything by John Updike. Although I did just read a great short story in the New Yorker by him. I'm about to turn the page on that one, I think.

If you could bring three characters to life for a social event (afternoon tea, a night of clubbing, perhaps a world cruise), who would they be and what would the event be? I'd be up for that cruise. I don't know about the characters. I'm much more interested in authors. Thomas Wolfe, Virginia Woolf, and Tom Wolfe. They would probably be better for tea.

(Borrowing shamelessly from the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde): you are told you can’t die until you read the most boring novel on the planet. While this immortality is great for awhile, eventually you realise it’s past time to die. Which book would you expect to get you a nice grave? Ulysses.

Come on, we’ve all been there. Which book have you pretended, or at least hinted, that you’ve read, when in fact you’ve been nowhere near it? Emma by Jane Austen.

As an addition to the last question, has there been a book that you really thought you had read, only to realise when you read a review about it/go to ‘reread’ it that you haven’t? Which book? nope

You’re interviewing for the post of Official Book Advisor to some VIP (who’s not a big reader). What’s the first book you’d recommend and why? (if you feel like you’d have to know the person, go ahead of personalise the VIP) Interpreter of Maladies or The Namesake or Bel Canto or Midnight's Children. Depends on the person. Does such a job exist? If so, can I have it? Wait! Definitely The Kite Runner. Everyone needs to read this because it is beautiful, heartbreaking, and real. Right now real.

A good fairy comes and grants you one wish: you will have perfect reading comprehension in the foreign language of your choice. Which language do you go with? Spanish

A mischievious fairy comes and says that you must choose one book that you will reread once a year for the rest of your life (you can read other books as well). Which book would you pick? Moby Dick

I know that the book blogging community, and its various challenges, have pushed my reading borders. What’s one bookish thing you ‘discovered’ from book blogging (maybe a new genre, or author, or new appreciation for cover art-anything)? How much I love book reviews

That good fairy is back for one final visit. Now, she’s granting you your dream library! Describe it. Is everything leatherbound? Is it full of first edition hardcovers? Pristine trade paperbacks? Perhaps a few favourite authors have inscribed their works? Go ahead-let your imagination run free. Lots of light, lots and lots of books, signed or unsigned - doesn't matter. And an orange cat.

The Kindle: a new frontier

Have you heard of Amazon's new electronic reader? I had not until yesterday, when my school's librarian showed me her new purchase. The Kindle allows you to carry around 200+ books at time without any of the weight. Easy to download and cheap to purchase, electronic books may be the new wave of the future. After holding this Kindle device for all of about 30 seconds I found myself utterly coveting it. What might such a tool mean for me? Could I feasibly read five different books at once, wherever I felt like reading them? The prospect was pretty tantalizing, but the pricetag is steep: $399 at the moment. Here is a link to a recent review in the NY Times on its advent.