Forever Rose, by Hilary McKay: The last of the Casson books, and a rather disappointing ending. It continued the switch to first-person narration begun (detrimentally, as I noted last month) in Caddy Ever After, and worse, this one was written entirely from Rose’s point of view. The series has become more and more Rose-centric with each passing book, and here I found her especially annoying—verging on pathologically self-centered in the first half. (It didn’t help that she hated books; how could I sympathize with that? Even though she learned to like reading later on, it made me want to shake her in the meantime.) As usual, I was most interested in what was happening to Caddy, and as usual, Caddy made the fewest appearances. It was still a pleasant enough read, but it paled in comparison with the first three. Now I guess McKay is blogging from Rose’s POV, so apparently Rose is a hit with the youngsters, if not with me. I might try reading McKay’s older series, The Exiles, next, but my library only has one of the three books, so it will entail a trip downtown first.
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume 2, by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill: Entertaining, although again I had to rely heavily on online annotations to explicate all the references because I simply have not read enough (any?) H.G. Wells. The most engaging part was the whole Hyde story arc; the most genius part was the absolutely brilliant explanation that all the anthropomorphic talking animals of literature (Mr. Toad, etc.) are horrific experiments created by Dr. Moreau (of Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau)—and they are very, very creepy.
Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones: This is my other favorite novel (I can’t believe I have two—pure chance) retelling the Tam Lin and Thomas the Rhymer legends, so of course I felt compelled to reread it after rereading Tam Lin. I don’t love it as deeply as I love Tam Lin, but it made a huge impression on me as a kid, not only because I like the story but also because it was so dark, complex, and sophisticated that I could never understand why it was shelved in the Juvenile section. I read other Wynne Jones books, but this one seemed like it was in another league. It took on an almost magical quality in my mind. I never knew anyone else who had read it and it went out of print for about 10 years, so I couldn’t even obtain my own copy. I would have started to think I had dreamed the whole thing(this in itself echoes the plot of the book, in which Polly comes to realize she has two sets of memories, one false and one true) if the Dakota County Library hadn’t hung on to the old copy I used to read. Finally, the book was reissued a few years ago and I was able to buy it for myself. It still holds up just as well (even better, in some places) upon adult reading (except for the climactic scene, which still makes as little sense to me as it did back in the day), and I still have a crush on Mr. Lynn.
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens: Finally! It was a long slog, but I loved it. Definitely my favorite Dickens novel.
Bertie Wooster Sees It Through, by P.G. Wodehouse: Blogged here.
V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd: Yet another step in my descent toward possible comic-book nerddom. Especially the fact that after enjoying the book, I rewatched the movie, a movie I had previously liked, and couldn’t stand how different it was from the book. Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, and Stephen Fry were great, and the segment where Evie is in prison was quite faithful to the book, but everything else—I get that you might have to simplify the plot, maybe remove a few characters and take out the LSD sequence, but so many huge, unnecessary changes! Like, oh, the entire political context? And the ending? And…wait, Evie and V are in love? Ack. Thanks for ruining my multimedia experiences with your superior writing, Alan Moore. (Luckily, I will not under any circumstances be watching the League of Extraordinary Gentlement movie, since the consensus is that it’s dreck anyway. I mean, Mina is a vampire and Tom Sawyer is part of the League? Puh-leeze.)
Friday, June 12, 2009
Friday, June 05, 2009
THERE GOES MAY
I just had a massage and am feeling all floppy like a ragdoll, my neck about four inches longer than it was before. So that’s where my shoulders are supposed to be? Not up around my ears? Imagine that! Thanks to yoga, pilates, and strength training, my posture is much better than it used to be, but I still face the significant challenges of being a top/front-heavy gal who toted around backpacks full of heavy books in college, huddles over a computer all day, tends to be tightly wound, and is always just a little nervous around other people—namely, I droop and hunch my way through life. I could use a professional massage every single day, if only I could afford it. Luckily, I at least have the opportunity to get a 20-minute one every other Friday when my company brings in this lovely woman to unclench its poor cubicle drones. We still have to pay for it—I don’t work at Google, people—but it sure is convenient, and a delicious way to start the weekend.
Anyway, I seem to have not written anything about anything except books in a long time, and if there was anything else going on in my life in the month of May, I have completely forgotten it by now. Oh, right, we went to Minnesota for a long weekend to see A’s cousin graduate from Macalester College (A’s alma mater). It was tough to choose that event over our respective 10-year college reunions (both taking place this past weekend in St. Paul), but the deal was sealed when we realized that most of A’s family would be attending the graduation, so we could not only see them but also finally introduce them to my parents after nearly 12 years. (CRAZY, I KNOW! What can I say, we are a very geographically dispersed people.) Not to mention that one of my BFFs, E, was giving birth to a brand-new human being that very week. So: I love you, St. Kate’s, but reunion, schmreunion.
Our visit was just about perfect. In true Minnesota fashion, the weather ricocheted from the high 40s the morning of the outdoor graduation ceremony (like a true Minnesota girl, I wore cut-off silk long underwear under my skirt) to the mid-90s on the last day of my visit, but it was generally beautiful and springy, with the lilacs in full bloom everywhere I looked (dear lord, I have missed lilacs—they only grow in the mountains here and cost $14 per small bunch at the farmers’ market). The graduation and the meeting-of-the-parents dinner went smoothly (no bitter feuds or overturned tables ensued, anyway). In addition, I:
- Met E’s Baby K (cute!) and also S’s Baby E (cute!)
- Saw as many friends as I could squeeze into a few days
- Visited a number of my favorite Twin Cities places, including Moscow on the Hill (I love you, cherry vodka gimlets! Call me!), Café Latte (for cupcakes and sandwiches to supply a couple of impromptu picnics), Cheapo (where I scored a used copy of Haley Bonar's Lure the Fox), Ax Man (where A bought a dozen baby-doll arms and legs), my old apartment on Portland Ave (awww), and the Goodwill Outlet (where I scored a nice corduroy jacket for just a buck)
- Was introduced to a few new places, including the Blue Door (primo tater tots and nice beers, though I secretly just wanted Leinie's on tap), Prohibition (the bar atop the Foshay Tower--swanky 1920s-ish decor, nice view, fancy cocktails [you can even get bowls of champagne punch to share--must do this next time], a tasty if pricy plate of local cheeses, fig compote, flatbread crackers, and berries), and Brasa (corn cakes, creamed spinach, cornbread with honey butter, black-eyed peas, fried yuca--and they're opening a location in my parents' neighborhood; is it sad that I'm already planning what I want to order next time I go?)
- Went to Anvil!: The Story of Anvil, which turned out to be the best documentary I've seen in a long time--and one of the best movies I've seen this year
- Celebrated my mother’s 60th birthday
- Spent some quality time with the parents, including pizza-and-movie night, a picnic in the park, yoga at the YWCA, and a trip to the Arboretum.
So I had a bit of a tough re-entry back to real life, but I've recovered and been in a sunny, summery mood of late: enjoying my return to the CSA, going nuts with my new ice-cream maker, drinking some beers (I found Leinenkugel's Sunset Wheat at the Whole Foods in El Segundo!--sure, I'd rather see regular Leinie's nationally available, but I'll take what I can get, and the Sunset Wheat is a nice, fruity, summery beer with an interesting coriander flavor), basking in a renewed love for my bike (aided by a long-delayed tuneup, a new helmet, and an awesome new rear-view mirror), and relishing the freedom of nothing good being on TV for a few months (we were getting to be slaves to our favorite shows for a while there). Oh, and reading! May reading report will appear later this week.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
BERTIE WOOSTER SEES IT THROUGH
Background: Published in the U.S. in 1955 (originally published in the U.K. in 1954 as Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit)
This is the one where: Bertie grows a mustache, Florence Craye and Stilton Cheesewright break up (for real this time), and Aunt Dahlia sells Milady’s Boudoir
The action takes place at: Brinkley Court
Bertie accidentally gets engaged to: Florence Craye, Aunt Agatha’s stepdaughter (“She is one of those intellectual girls, her bean crammed to bursting point with the little gray cells, and about a year ago, possibly because she was full of the divine fire but more probably because she wanted something to take her mind off Aunt Agatha, she wrote this novel and it was well received by the intelligentsia, who notoriously enjoy the most frightful bilge.”)
But she’s really in love with:
Other characters include:
Jeeves disapproves of Bertie’s: mustache, which Bertie grows while Jeeves is on vacation (“Round about the beginning of July each year he downs tools, the slacker, and goes off to Bognor Regis for the shrimping, leaving me in much the same position as those poets one used to have to read at school who were always beefing about losing gazelles.”)
First paragraph: “As I sat in the bath tub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar,’ it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy. The evening that lay before me promised to be one of those sticky evenings, no good to man or beast. My Aunt Dahlia, writing from her country residence, Brinkley Court down in Worcestershire, had asked me as a personal favor to take some acquaintances of hers out to dinner, a couple by the name of Trotter.”
Bertie fashion moment: None, except another reference to the article he once wrote on “What the Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing” for Milady’s Boudoir
Slang I’d like to start using: “pipterino,” apparently an attractive woman (or man?): “Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is not a man who usually slops over when speaking of the opposite sex. He is cool and critical. He weighs his words. So when I describe this girl [Dahphne Dolores Morehead] as a pipterino, you will gather that she was something pretty special.”
Bertie gets no respect: As in any book featuring Aunt Dahlia, the insults fly toward Bertie left and right, but let’s restrict them to the digs at his mustache this time:
Best bit of description: “‘Me too,’ [Aunt Dahlia] said, picking up the Agatha Christie and hurling it at a passing vase. When deeply stirred, she is always inclined to kick things and throw things. At Totleigh Towers, during one of our more agitated conferences, she had cleared the mantelpiece in my bedroom of its entire contents, including a terra cotta elephant and a porcelain statuette of the Infant Samuel in Prayer.
[Later in the same scene] “‘This isn’t good,’ she said, picking up a small foot-stool and throwing it at a china shepherdess on the mantelpiece.”
Best bit of dialogue:
Aunt Dahlia: “Did you notice how he looked when he said ‘Florence’? Like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.”
Bertie: “And did you notice...how he looked when you said ‘Bertie Wooster’? Like someone finding a dead mouse in his pint of beer.”
My review: Meh. Three stars. Any Wodehouse is better than no Wodehouse, and I liked some of the individual elements here (Aunt Dahlia is my favorite recurring non-Jeeves-or-Bertie character, plus it features the surprise return of Roderick Spode, now Lord Sidcup), but overall, this one just didn't do it for me. The plot was pretty weak and meandering, with a lot of potentially funny elements introduced but then quickly discarded without being used (the Drones darts championship, Mrs. Trotter trying to steal Anatole away, L.G. Trotter refusing a knighthood). Jeeves doesn’t even get to do much to fix things, really; they just sort of work themselves out. It’s far from the twisty, tightly woven cleverness of The Mating Season. The characters are mostly forgettable--Florence Craye is pretty funny (particularly all the descriptions of her melodramatic writing), but I don’t like Stilton at all and really hope he doesn’t pop up again later. The best thing in the entire book is Bertie’s mustache; Florence is the only person who likes it, which becomes Bertie’s adorably backwards rationale for finally shaving it off: “Recalling the effect of its impact on Florence Craye, I saw clearly that it had made me too fascinating. There peril lurked. When you become too fascinating, all sorts of things are liable to occur which you don’t want to occur, if you follow me.”
Had I read it before? I think so, because I remember the mustache. I must have only read it once, though, because I didn’t remember anything else...but on the other hand, it wasn’t that memorable of a book, so who knows?
Next up: Jeeves in the Offing
This is the one where: Bertie grows a mustache, Florence Craye and Stilton Cheesewright break up (for real this time), and Aunt Dahlia sells Milady’s Boudoir
The action takes place at: Brinkley Court
Bertie accidentally gets engaged to: Florence Craye, Aunt Agatha’s stepdaughter (“She is one of those intellectual girls, her bean crammed to bursting point with the little gray cells, and about a year ago, possibly because she was full of the divine fire but more probably because she wanted something to take her mind off Aunt Agatha, she wrote this novel and it was well received by the intelligentsia, who notoriously enjoy the most frightful bilge.”)
But she’s really in love with:
- G. D’Arcy “Stilton” Cheesewright, a jealous rower and former policeman with a “head like a pumpkin” (“in addition to bulging in all directions with muscle he was glaring at me in a sinister manner, his air that of one of those Fiends with Hatchet who are always going about the place Slaying Six”)...but after they break it off, she ends up with
- Percy Gorringe, a poet who wants to produce a play of Florence’s novel Spindrift, secretly writes detective novels (with titles such as The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish, which Bertie is reading) under the name “Rex West,” and has “a face disfigured on either side by short whiskers and in the middle by tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles”
Other characters include:
- Aunt Dahlia Travers (“A girlhood and early womanhood spent in chivvying the British fox in all weathers under the auspices of the Quorn and Pytchley have left this aunt brick-red in color and lent amazing power to her vocal cords...If Aunt Dahlia has a fault, it is that she is inclined to talk to you when face to face in a small drawing-room as if she were addressing some crony a quarter of a mile away whom she had observed riding over hounds. For the rest, she is a large, jovial soul, built rather on the lines of Mae West, and is beloved by all including the undersigned.”)
- Uncle Tom Travers (whose middle name is revealed in this book to be “Portarlington”), “a man with grayish hair and a face like a walnut”
- L.G. (which turns out to stand for “Lemuel Gengulphus”) Trotter, Percy’s stepfather, a newspaper publisher from Liverpool, “a little man with a face like a weasel”
- Mrs. Trotter, Percy’s mother, “a burly heavyweight with a beaked nose who talked all the time, principally about some woman she disliked named Blenkinsop”
- Daphne Dolores Morehead, a well-known novelist with “a figure as full of curves as a scenic railway,” whom Stilton falls in love with
- Lord Sidcup, aka Roderick Spode, a silver collector, jewelry expert, fascist, and seller of ladies’ underclothing under the name “Eulalie Soeurs” (“a man about seven feet in height with a square, powerful face, slightly mustached toward the center”)
Jeeves disapproves of Bertie’s: mustache, which Bertie grows while Jeeves is on vacation (“Round about the beginning of July each year he downs tools, the slacker, and goes off to Bognor Regis for the shrimping, leaving me in much the same position as those poets one used to have to read at school who were always beefing about losing gazelles.”)
First paragraph: “As I sat in the bath tub, soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, ‘Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar,’ it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling boomps-a-daisy. The evening that lay before me promised to be one of those sticky evenings, no good to man or beast. My Aunt Dahlia, writing from her country residence, Brinkley Court down in Worcestershire, had asked me as a personal favor to take some acquaintances of hers out to dinner, a couple by the name of Trotter.”
Bertie fashion moment: None, except another reference to the article he once wrote on “What the Well-Dressed Man Is Wearing” for Milady’s Boudoir
Slang I’d like to start using: “pipterino,” apparently an attractive woman (or man?): “Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is not a man who usually slops over when speaking of the opposite sex. He is cool and critical. He weighs his words. So when I describe this girl [Dahphne Dolores Morehead] as a pipterino, you will gather that she was something pretty special.”
Bertie gets no respect: As in any book featuring Aunt Dahlia, the insults fly toward Bertie left and right, but let’s restrict them to the digs at his mustache this time:
- “A dark stain like mulligatawny soup.”--Jeeves
- “Revolting. You look like something in the chorus line of a touring revue.”--Stilton
- “I always say that a man who can lower himself to wearing a mustache might just as well grow a beard.”--Daphne Dolores Morehead
- “That mustache of yours is the most obscene thing I ever saw outside of a nightmare. It seems to take one straight into another and a dreadful world.”--Aunt Dahlia
Best bit of description: “‘Me too,’ [Aunt Dahlia] said, picking up the Agatha Christie and hurling it at a passing vase. When deeply stirred, she is always inclined to kick things and throw things. At Totleigh Towers, during one of our more agitated conferences, she had cleared the mantelpiece in my bedroom of its entire contents, including a terra cotta elephant and a porcelain statuette of the Infant Samuel in Prayer.
[Later in the same scene] “‘This isn’t good,’ she said, picking up a small foot-stool and throwing it at a china shepherdess on the mantelpiece.”
Best bit of dialogue:
Aunt Dahlia: “Did you notice how he looked when he said ‘Florence’? Like a dying duck in a thunderstorm.”
Bertie: “And did you notice...how he looked when you said ‘Bertie Wooster’? Like someone finding a dead mouse in his pint of beer.”
My review: Meh. Three stars. Any Wodehouse is better than no Wodehouse, and I liked some of the individual elements here (Aunt Dahlia is my favorite recurring non-Jeeves-or-Bertie character, plus it features the surprise return of Roderick Spode, now Lord Sidcup), but overall, this one just didn't do it for me. The plot was pretty weak and meandering, with a lot of potentially funny elements introduced but then quickly discarded without being used (the Drones darts championship, Mrs. Trotter trying to steal Anatole away, L.G. Trotter refusing a knighthood). Jeeves doesn’t even get to do much to fix things, really; they just sort of work themselves out. It’s far from the twisty, tightly woven cleverness of The Mating Season. The characters are mostly forgettable--Florence Craye is pretty funny (particularly all the descriptions of her melodramatic writing), but I don’t like Stilton at all and really hope he doesn’t pop up again later. The best thing in the entire book is Bertie’s mustache; Florence is the only person who likes it, which becomes Bertie’s adorably backwards rationale for finally shaving it off: “Recalling the effect of its impact on Florence Craye, I saw clearly that it had made me too fascinating. There peril lurked. When you become too fascinating, all sorts of things are liable to occur which you don’t want to occur, if you follow me.”
Had I read it before? I think so, because I remember the mustache. I must have only read it once, though, because I didn’t remember anything else...but on the other hand, it wasn’t that memorable of a book, so who knows?
Next up: Jeeves in the Offing
Thursday, May 14, 2009
APRIL READING REPORT
Caddy Ever After, by Hilary McKay: The first three books in this series kept getting better and better, so I had high hopes for this one—especially since Caddy is one of my favorite members of the Casson family and I was looking forward to finding out more about her. But I was disappointed. Not only does Caddy play the most minor plot role of all the siblings (even though the story centers around her wedding, she remains peripheral), but also I really take issue with McKay’s sudden switch to first-person narration (switching between Rose, Indigo, and Saffron) with this book. It’s a huge shift in tone and destroys some of the gentle, old-fashioned eccentricity I loved about the earlier books. McKay remains a deft writer who doesn’t hit you over the head with things, but the first-person voice just allows for less subtlety. I still enjoyed the book, but was frustrated that it didn’t meet my expectations.
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean: If I were judging purely by the number of times I’ve read it, this obscure fantasy novel would be my favorite book in the world—and by any measure, it’s right up near the top of my list. When I was sick last month, too tired to pay attention to anything with my whole brain, desperate for distraction and comfort, I pulled it off the shelf for a long-overdue reread. A retelling of the Scottish ballad set at a small liberal-arts college in Minnesota in the 1970s (and containing some of the best descriptions of my home state’s weather and landscapes I’ve ever read, as well as being a thinly veiled portrait of Carleton College in Northfield, where consequently I desperately wanted to go when I was 17 until I was admitted and realized just how much it would cost), it’s a paradise for English majors—particularly Shakespeare fans—and anyone who likes their book characters to be dazzlingly, almost unrealistically, smart. It’s also responsible for setting my teenage self up for major disillusionment when I arrived at college and discovered that it was not, in fact, inhabited exclusively by beautiful young men and fascinating, intensely scholarly women who could read Greek and quote entire passages of classic literature in everyday conversation (granted, I went to a women’s college, so there were no beautiful young men at all, but I spent plenty of time at the nearby coed campuses and didn’t catch any rampant erudite quotation going on there, either). This is one of the few books I loved as a teen that holds up equally well for me as an adult—sure, my adoration of it is based on teenage infatuation with the characters and their brilliance, but there are so many literary references that you can catch a new one every time, and it still doesn’t feel pretentious to me, even though it so easily could.
I’m almost afraid to recommend this book, though, because it definitely isn’t for everyone. Dean’s writing is so beautiful and full of unique personality that I would happily read her narration of an IRS audit, but I’ll admit her style is eccentric and dense, and, it might feel slow at times if you’re not totally committed to it. Much of the book focuses on the routine of everyday life, with the fantasy/mystery plot unfolding incrementally in the background. That’s what I love about it—it’s grounded in a real world I would happily dwell in, so cozy and comfortable and detailed, and the magical elements are so sparing that they feel totally believable—but if reading a dozen-page description of a production of Hamlet sounds less than thrilling to you, you may want to pass this one by. And if you check it out and don’t like it, I don’t want to hear about it. (About the only negative review I’ve enjoyed was the one from my mother after I pressed it upon her when I was 16: “I didn’t like it, but I can see why you do.”)
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Aaaaand here’s a perfect example of a book I would have liked as a teen that would not hold up as well to an adult reading. I wanted to like it, and it was well-written, but it was overwrought to the point that it made me cringe. Not to mention that I couldn’t quite believe the characters were really supposed to be 17, considering their lives bore absolutely no resemblance to mine or anyone else I knew at that age (regarding sexuality, drinking and drugs, money, freedom, and general interests). I’m not sure if this is a testimony to how sheltered and nerdy a teen I was, or how different kids are today. Ironically, I liked the movie, which I watched while I was sick and feeling sorry for myself, and it charmed and amused me. That’s what inspired me to check the book out of the library. But not only did I not really like the book, but weirdly, I’m not sure I would have liked the movie if I’d seen it after reading the book, because in retrospect I have issues with a lot of the decisions that were made in adapting the book to the screen (for example, making Nick’s ex-girlfriend a shallow, raging bitch instead of a complex, ambivalent character who is actually a pretty good friend to Norah). In short, my feelings are a bit confused, but I can say with certainty that (sigh) I think I am actually too old to properly enjoy this book, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I recommend just seeing the movie and leaving it at that.
It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much-Needed Margarita, by Heather B. Armstrong: Since I’m a fan of Dooce, of course I had to read this book, and it did not disappoint. I wouldn’t say it gives you much more than you can get from the blog (except a more coherent storyline and the benefit of hindsight), but it was funny, entertaining, and occasionally moving. Also, it has an excellent title and cover.
A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table, by Molly Wizenberg: I swear I haven’t switched to an all blog-to-book diet; it’s just that two of my favorite blogs became books at about the same time. This one is from the author of Orangette, and while I’ve always liked the blog (and gotten some great recipes from it), I think it works even better in book format. It’s hard to write a food memoir (especially as a young woman), that’s inspiring without sounding smug, but Wizenberg is a lovely, thoughtful writer, and her short autobiographical meditations viewed through the lens of beloved recipes reminded me strongly of a modern-day Laurie Colwin.
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens (ongoing): Yes, STILL. Despite some long doctor’s-waiting-room reading sessions. I’m inching toward completion, though.
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean: If I were judging purely by the number of times I’ve read it, this obscure fantasy novel would be my favorite book in the world—and by any measure, it’s right up near the top of my list. When I was sick last month, too tired to pay attention to anything with my whole brain, desperate for distraction and comfort, I pulled it off the shelf for a long-overdue reread. A retelling of the Scottish ballad set at a small liberal-arts college in Minnesota in the 1970s (and containing some of the best descriptions of my home state’s weather and landscapes I’ve ever read, as well as being a thinly veiled portrait of Carleton College in Northfield, where consequently I desperately wanted to go when I was 17 until I was admitted and realized just how much it would cost), it’s a paradise for English majors—particularly Shakespeare fans—and anyone who likes their book characters to be dazzlingly, almost unrealistically, smart. It’s also responsible for setting my teenage self up for major disillusionment when I arrived at college and discovered that it was not, in fact, inhabited exclusively by beautiful young men and fascinating, intensely scholarly women who could read Greek and quote entire passages of classic literature in everyday conversation (granted, I went to a women’s college, so there were no beautiful young men at all, but I spent plenty of time at the nearby coed campuses and didn’t catch any rampant erudite quotation going on there, either). This is one of the few books I loved as a teen that holds up equally well for me as an adult—sure, my adoration of it is based on teenage infatuation with the characters and their brilliance, but there are so many literary references that you can catch a new one every time, and it still doesn’t feel pretentious to me, even though it so easily could.
I’m almost afraid to recommend this book, though, because it definitely isn’t for everyone. Dean’s writing is so beautiful and full of unique personality that I would happily read her narration of an IRS audit, but I’ll admit her style is eccentric and dense, and, it might feel slow at times if you’re not totally committed to it. Much of the book focuses on the routine of everyday life, with the fantasy/mystery plot unfolding incrementally in the background. That’s what I love about it—it’s grounded in a real world I would happily dwell in, so cozy and comfortable and detailed, and the magical elements are so sparing that they feel totally believable—but if reading a dozen-page description of a production of Hamlet sounds less than thrilling to you, you may want to pass this one by. And if you check it out and don’t like it, I don’t want to hear about it. (About the only negative review I’ve enjoyed was the one from my mother after I pressed it upon her when I was 16: “I didn’t like it, but I can see why you do.”)
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan: Aaaaand here’s a perfect example of a book I would have liked as a teen that would not hold up as well to an adult reading. I wanted to like it, and it was well-written, but it was overwrought to the point that it made me cringe. Not to mention that I couldn’t quite believe the characters were really supposed to be 17, considering their lives bore absolutely no resemblance to mine or anyone else I knew at that age (regarding sexuality, drinking and drugs, money, freedom, and general interests). I’m not sure if this is a testimony to how sheltered and nerdy a teen I was, or how different kids are today. Ironically, I liked the movie, which I watched while I was sick and feeling sorry for myself, and it charmed and amused me. That’s what inspired me to check the book out of the library. But not only did I not really like the book, but weirdly, I’m not sure I would have liked the movie if I’d seen it after reading the book, because in retrospect I have issues with a lot of the decisions that were made in adapting the book to the screen (for example, making Nick’s ex-girlfriend a shallow, raging bitch instead of a complex, ambivalent character who is actually a pretty good friend to Norah). In short, my feelings are a bit confused, but I can say with certainty that (sigh) I think I am actually too old to properly enjoy this book, and I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I recommend just seeing the movie and leaving it at that.
It Sucked and Then I Cried: How I Had a Baby, a Breakdown, and a Much-Needed Margarita, by Heather B. Armstrong: Since I’m a fan of Dooce, of course I had to read this book, and it did not disappoint. I wouldn’t say it gives you much more than you can get from the blog (except a more coherent storyline and the benefit of hindsight), but it was funny, entertaining, and occasionally moving. Also, it has an excellent title and cover.
A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes From My Kitchen Table, by Molly Wizenberg: I swear I haven’t switched to an all blog-to-book diet; it’s just that two of my favorite blogs became books at about the same time. This one is from the author of Orangette, and while I’ve always liked the blog (and gotten some great recipes from it), I think it works even better in book format. It’s hard to write a food memoir (especially as a young woman), that’s inspiring without sounding smug, but Wizenberg is a lovely, thoughtful writer, and her short autobiographical meditations viewed through the lens of beloved recipes reminded me strongly of a modern-day Laurie Colwin.
Bleak House, by Charles Dickens (ongoing): Yes, STILL. Despite some long doctor’s-waiting-room reading sessions. I’m inching toward completion, though.
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