Girl Detective

At The Morning News, they’ve published the short list of 16 novels for the literary March Madness Tournament of books.

The Year of the Flood, by Margaret Atwood
The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker
Fever Chart, by Bill Cotter
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth, by Apostolos Doxiadis
The Book of Night Women, by Marlon James
The Lacuna, by Barbara Kingsolver
Big Machine, by Victor Lavalle
Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
A Gate at the Stairs, by Lorrie Moore
Miles from Nowhere, by Nami Mun
That Old Cape Magic, by Richard Russo
Burnt Shadows, by Kamila Shamsie
The Help, by Kathryn Stockett
Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, by Wells Tower
Lowboy, by John Wray

The long list had some puzzling exclusions, like Jeff in Venice; Death in Vanasi, and In Other Rooms, Other Wonders, both of which were on my to-read list from last year. The jump from long to short has me puzzled as well. I’m disappointed these didn’t make the cut: Await Your Reply, Dan Chaon, Trouble, Kate Christensen, The Believers, Zoe Heller, Chronic City, Jonathan Lethem, The City & The City, China Mieville, Lark and Termite, Jayne Anne Phillips, This Is Where I Leave You, Jonathan Tropper, and The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters. All these sounded promising to me when they came out last year.

Further, I’m stymied by the inclusion of these: Fever Chart, Bill Cotter, The Book of Night Women, Marlon James, Miles from Nowhere, Nami Mun, and Burnt Shadows, Kamila Shamsie. These, over the ones in the previous paragraph?

Finally, I’m not thrilled to see either Lorrie Moore’s A Gate at the Stairs or Russo’s That Old Cape Magic. Neither are supposed to be the writer at the top of her/his game, so I can’t get excited to read them.

That said, I AM excited to try and read as many as I can of these, all of which I’ve heard good things about: The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood, The Anthologist by Nicholson Baker, Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver, Big Machine by Victor Lavalle, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann (also a selection of Books and Bars), Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (which lit friends Amy R and Kate F both liked), The Help by Kathryn Stockett, Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower, and Lowboy by John Wray.

I’m off to put some books in my queue at the library. Who’s going to be joining the fray?

I love cupcakes. I love clever. This series of 100 celebrates the world of games/gaming. The link from Wil Wheaton’s blog urges you to go, and I’m glad I did. I was delighted several times, and I bet you will be, too.

A good book, a cup of coffee, a manageable to-do list, and Stella D’oro breakfast treats, courtesy of my kind mother-in-law, since I can’t find them anywhere out here.

As with The Wild Things, I’m suspicious of novels based on other mediums; I’ve been disappointed too many times. But when I asked C, the second-in-command at Big Brain Comics, what he thought of Peter and Max by Bill Willingham, he replied that he picked it up and a long time later realized he’d been reading one of the best Fables stories in the series, and it wasn’t even the comic book.

Fables is an ongoing monthly comic from DC/Vertigo, written by Bill Willingham and mostly illustrated by Steve Leialoha. It posits a small neighborhood in NYC where storybook characters live in exile, and a farm in upstate New York where the animal and other nonhuman storybook characters live in seclusion. It’s won scads of awards, and is a complex, entertaining series in the tradition of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. I recently enjoyed the twelfth graphic novel collection, The Dark Ages.

Peter and Max is a standalone novel about Peter Piper and his brother Max, who live in the land of Hesse:

The caravan belonged to the Piper family who, as their name implied, were traveling musicians., Just as Millers mill and Fletchers fletch, the Pipers piped. At least three out of four of them did. The father, Johannes, and his two sons, Max, the eldest and young Peter, all played the long pipe, which was sometimes called the single pipe, or occasionally even the flute as it was still known back then, before some enterprising soul came along later and decided all true flutes should be turned sideways to play…

The family had no home, except for their wagon. They lived the life of happy vagabonds, traveling here and there, throughout the year, going to festivals and fairs, and every other sort of scheduled celebration, where they’d make their living by letting anyone call the tune, provided they were willing to pay the Pipers. (38-9)

They are staying with their friends the Peeps when Hesse is invaded by the emperor’s goblin troops. The families flee for the town of Hamelin through the black forest, but soon are separated when Max’s jealousy of Peter takes a serious turn.

The novel alternates between modern time and the past as Peter and Max take separate but always intertwined paths. It’s set before the Fables/Empire war in the series’ time line. Both stories have fierce momentum that drive the past and present stories to a satisfying conclusion. The novel is well illustrated by Leialoha in black ink, which adds to the storybook feeling, as does the violent content, consistent with fables of old.

I found this a great addition to the Fables oeuvre, with many takes on legends involving Peter, pipers, and the Peeps. It would also be good for those unfamiliar to the Fables comic-book series, as an introduction to the series, especially for those not yet familiar with the complex literary and visual joys of the comic-book medium. Highly recommended.

At Houseboat Eats, which I’ll presently be adding to my subscription list, author Talley writes “On properly heating your pan.” Be sure to watch the embedded video. I hesitated a bit about following the link from The Morning News, but holy cats, I’m glad I did. The video is fascinating, and I can’t wait to try it tonight when I cook tofu.

I finally made it to a showing at the Trylon microcinema in south Minneapolis. It’s owned and run by Barry Kryshka of Take-Up Productions. With an entry through an art gallery, it’s a sweet little space, and Frank Capra’s American Madness was a sweet little little film to see there.

Walter Huston (director John’s father, and Angelica’s grandfather) is Thomas Dickson, a bank manager who provides loans or withholds them based on hunches and a person’s character. In the financially volatile 1930’s, this drives the bank board nuts, and they try to oust him. The plot takes a guy with a gambling problem, the mob, a neglected wife, and a few nice guys, and mixes it all to good effect. It’s funny, clever and touching with some striking images, particularly of a run on the bank.

The Trylon shows two films, about 7 and 9, on Fridays and Saturdays. It’s near Midori’s Floating World or the Town Talk Diner for dinner, or Glaciers Cafe for frozen custard before or after. The Trylon has good popcorn with real butter, with a good selection of beverages and candy. They just published their winter schedule, December is Powell/Pressburger films (”The Archers“), January is Johnny Depp and February is Godard. They’ll also have a Brit-noir series at the Heights that runs December through March.

3yo Guppy and I had some time to kill before his dentist appointment this morning. I know I always say I need to read more of what I’ve got rather than buying new or used, but these fairly flew off the shelves at me, crying, “Take me home! Home!”

So I did.

Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt
The Unpossessed by Tess Schesinger, which I saw reviewed in Vogue years ago, and wanted ever since
Expletives Deleted and Nights at the Circus (look at the gorgeous covers!) by Angela Carter
Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, which I recently realized I didn’t own, and thus promptly corrected.

Prompted by a recent article at The Comics Reporter (link from The Morning News) on the collaboration between comic book writer and artist, I pulled my copy of Daredevil: Born Again off the shelf. It’s written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. Even at twenty plus years old with garish colors, it remains undiminished as a classic of the superhero genre.

It opens on a skinny, defeated-looking woman hunched over a cigarette in a smoky room with a smug-looking man:

It’s a hot day. Like all the rest. All two years of them. Two years… and the motion picture epic that turned into just another come-on isn’t even a memory…like all the rest except this one has a special glow to it. It’s not every day you sell your soul. That’s not way to think. Grow up. It’s the eighties. You do what you have to. And you have to do it…

“Daredevil. Okay? I said it. I said the name. And he’s got another name. And it’s written down right here. You want it or not?

Matt Murdock’s ex-girlfriend, Karen Page, is a junkie now, and she sells his name for a fix. It gets back to his nemesis, the Kingpin, who systematically breaks down and takes away all support in Murdock’s life until he’s not only on the edge, he’s gone so far beyond it that no one knows if he’s coming back. While the title kind of gives the ending away, it’s the marriage of words and pictures, and how they detail Murdock’s fall and resurrection (in all its Catholic imagery) that compelled this reader through the book.

The recent runs of Brian Michael Bendis and Ed Brubaker got a lot of kudos from the critics. But their artistic collaborators (Alex Maleev, who largely made the Bendis run, IMO, and Michael Lark with Brubaker) are hardly mentioned, and often not named on the covers of the collections. Ng Suat Tong’s collaboration article makes a good point. If a writer writes a decent script, and an illustrator draws well, you get a good story, sometimes even a very good one, as when Bendis and Maleev worked together. But only when there’s a true collaboration, and the writer and artist are working together, and both bringing more to it than each could individually, do you get a great work, a classic, like this one. And to give a collaborating artist second billing, or no billing, as noted by Tong, “should be cause for consternation if not disgust.”

This was not the case with Born Again, on which Mazzucchelli receives equal billing with the much-more-famous Miller. Mazzucchelli is receiving his own share of praise this year for his first solo work, the graphic novel Asterios Polyp.

I read online using Google reader, through which I subscribe to sites I like so I receive posts when they’re updated. I read through when I’m able, and rarely have a zero balance.

Certain posts and links tend to accumulate, like long articles and videos. I took tonight to catch up, and so watched a tremendous melange: the mean Joe Green video, Kate DiCamillo reading from her new book, a Freaks and Geeks retrospective (link from Sepinwall), a film on synesthesia and another on visual hallucinations (link from Bookslut).

I have been well entertained, and feel suitably well informed.

The ostensible protagonist of Stieg Larsson’s posthumously published bestseller, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, is journalist Mikael Blomkvist. It’s true center, though, is the girl of the title, Lisbeth Salander, who doesn’t get fully introduced until page 38:

[Lisbeth] was a pale, anorexic young woman who had hair as short as a fuse, and a pierced nose and eyebrows. She had a wasp tattoo about an inch long on her neck, a tattooed loop around the biceps of her left arm and another around her left ankle. On those occasions when she had been wearing a tank top, [her boss] also saw that she had a dragon tattoo on her left shoulder blade. She was a natural redhead, but she dyed her hair raven black. She looked as though she had just emerged from a week-long orgy with a gang of hard rockers.

Larsson’s novel is a complicated one. Blomkvist is sued for libel by a shady businessman, then is asked to investigate a decades-old murder in a wealthy family. Salander, meanwhile, does her own investigations in other areas until her path crosses with Blomkvist’s. Blomkvist is engaging, the mysteries are involving, but it’s the character of Salander that’s truly bewitching. I enjoyed this book up to a point, then I flat-out loved it and begrudged putting it down. It’s in the spirit of Smilla’s Sense of Snow, the books of Henning Mankel, but it reminded me most strongly, in only good ways, of Tana French’s novels, In the Woods and The Likeness. Highly recommended, but not for the squeamish.

I barely knew it existed–I’d seen a blurb about it the week before–when C at Big Brain pressed it into my hands. It was Andromeda Klein by Frank Portman, the author of King Dork, which I liked exceedingly a few years back.

Andromeda the book, and Andromeda the main character, are similar to King Dork’s. She’s an outsider with few friends. Those she has aren’t always reliable. Someone close to her has died, and she has difficulty dealing with her parents.

Now that I type that, I realize how many teens that can describe.

Andromeda is a self-taught occult and tarot expert. I’ll offer fair warning here: those uncomfortable with details of the occult and magick with a “k” are not going to like this book and probably shouldn’t read it. I was surprised by how much, and how deep, the details of Andromeda’s occult practices and knowledge went. There are passages about demons, conjuring, body modification, ghosts, and spirit-world communication.

That said, I found this a fascinating book. Portman presents Andromeda’s studies in a fair, informative way. It’s not devil worship, or (intentional) demon conjuring. Rather, it’s an ancient and varied tradition that seeks knowledge and understanding of the self and the universe–rather like religion. If you feel there’s more than one path up the mountain, and are interested in tarot as well as a good young adult mystery novel, I think you’ll really enjoy Andromeda Klein, the book and the character.

Anyone observing Andromeda Klein from a distance at that moment would simply have seen a slender teenage girl on a bicycle splashing through puddles; any who happened to glimpse the face looking out of the black zip sweatshirt’s hood might have noted a tense, rather worried expression. But anyone reading her mind would no doubt have been taken aback by the confused riot of arcane images to be found within. A limitless host of glyphs, sigils, images, and mathematical processes unfolded from the Two of Swords…

Life is complicated enough because Andromeda has something called “disorganized collagen”. It makes her body and especially her hearing out of whack. (It does, though, make for an entertaining lexicon of misheard phrases, such as bacon for pagan, vacuum for bathroom, and spinach U-turn for Finnish Lutheran.) Further, her friend and occult “sister” Daisy recently passed away, and her friend Rosalie is a bundle of bad news: steals a car that can only be driven in reverse, schedules drinking parties for her friends when parents are away, and tries to set up Andromeda with weird guys. Andromeda’s mother is controlling and intrusive; her father is depressive. And she’s recently broken up with someone she calls “St. Steve” and feels really bad about it.

This book was often sad, but also funny and singular. Andromeda has a strong, unique and humorous character voice. It’s easy to feel for Andromeda, and hope things turn out well for her. There’s no neat and tidy happy ending, but there’s a satisfyingly complex one that gives a lot of credit to its readers by leaving some things to the imagination. I was completely involved in this book till I put it down; it’s an involving and engaging character and story.

For more, Andromeda has her own theme song, as Portman is a punk rock musician. Largehearted Boy has a set list for the book.

I did it! I’m done. I used my stacation last month to push on to the end of Infinite Jest. By the middle of the book, I found the weekly page goals restrictive; I couldn’t wait to read on and see what happened.

A frequent question of readers during Infinite Summer has been, “What’s it about?” I’m not sure it’s possible, or desirable, to capture this complex 981-page book with its 98 pages of endnotes simply. That hasn’t stopped me and others from trying, though.

If I made a list, it would include: junior tennis, addiction, recovery, parent/child relationships, Hamlet, math, philosophy, interpersonal relationships, and home entertainment.

In a sentence, I’d say it’s about trying to find connection in a world geared toward solitary entertainment, loosely based on Hamlet, using drugs and junior tennis as metaphors with two young men, Hal Incandenza and Don Gately, struggling to make sense of it all.

Infinite Jest begins:

I am seated in an office, surrounded by heads and bodies. My posture is consciously congruent to the shape of my hard chair. This is a cold room in University Administration, wood-walled, Remington-hung, double-windowed again the November heat, insulated from Administrative sounds by the reception area outside, at which Uncle Charles, Mr. deLint and I were lately received.

I am in here.

Wallace begins his novel by answering the opening question of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, “Who’s there?”

Hal Incandenza answers, “I am.”

This is a complex, challenging novel. By the end, I still had questions. I also had the urge to re-read it from the beginning, which is congruent with a critical element of the novel, an entertainment so seductive that, once seen, incites viewers only to want to watch it again and again. David Foster Wallace has replicated his own fictive creation. I am impressed and even awed by the skill required for such a thing.

Infinite Jest is also sad, funny and tremendously involving. I loved the time I spent with this novel and these characters. I was sorry when it ended, as evidenced by my urge to go back to the beginning and start all over again. The book is not easy, but it’s well worth the time, effort and weight lifting involved in reading it. I continue to ponder its questions about how we relate to one another, to entertainment, and to things we’re drawn to that hurt us.

I’m very grateful to the folks at Infinite Summer for coming up with this challenge, which gave me the incentive to finally tackle this behemoth, which sat on my shelf for a decade. If you haven’t, I encourage you to do so. If you’ve tried and stopped, I encourage you to try again, and persevere. This is a great book, in both senses of the phrase.

Our friend Queenie and her now-husband Blogenheimer introduced us in 1999 to the wonder that is the MN State Fair. I have been every year since; this is my tenth anniversary and my 11th fair. Drake arrived about a week before the fair in 2003. My husband G. Grod didn’t think it was a good idea to take a newborn to the fair, no matter how I wheedled, so Queenie and I went for a quick trip between feedings. Drake’s first fair was 2004; Guppy’s was 2006. This year, G. and I attended the State Fair on our own, without kids, just like in the old days.

To begin, we checked out the demonstration for the MN Cooks panel that hour, sampled some lamb, then had roast corn for breakfast, quickly followed by a root beer and one of my favorite fair treats, a chocolate-covered mocha on a stick from J & S Coffee (available year round at The Bean Factory in St. Paul!)

We had to ask directions to the new Spam stand, but the breakfast sandwich was worth it. I am not generally a fan of Spam, but something about the soft white bun, oozy orange cheese, a slab of salty Spam and a fried egg created a perfect storm–an utterly crave-able breakfast item. We devoured it.

Next were fried green tomatoes dipped in ranch sauce with a bit of Tabasco mixed in, suggested at Heavy Table. Unfortunately, the Tabasco bottle was set on full-throttle, so our sauce was more spicy than we liked, but tomatoes and sauce were still good. I got the combo plate with corn fritters. I enjoyed them and their accompanying honey butter; G. Grod was less impressed.

G. got his annual fried cheese curd fix while I tried one of the new items recommended at Heavy Table. The cheese curds were as good as always. The $3 Lefse Delight was not. The idea of it–soft thin potato bread wrapped around tart lingonberries and topped with whipped cream and crunchy almonds–was good. In reality, though, the lingonberries were sour, the whipped cream was wet and overly sweet, and the almonds weren’t crunchy. Instead, I’d opt for a more traditional lefse offering, like butter and brown sugar.

Outside the Eco experience, we stopped for a local Minne-soda. I wanted to try both flavors, but at $4 each, I picked the maple over the chokecherry. It was flavorful but way too sweet for our tastes. Next year, the other flavor. On the way back we looked around the Fine Arts and Creative Activities displays, something not possible with the kids.

In a lame attempt at more substantive food, I got one of my favorite items from last year, Axel’s tater tots on a stick–fried potatoes, cheese, bacon, and a sour cream/chili powder dipping sauce. I liked them well enough, but G. didn’t care for them.

A cider freezie hit the spot while I tracked down the Salty Tart outpost, which I eventually found in the Produce Exchange across from the International Bazaar. $5 seemed steep for 3 macaroons, but their compact sweet insides and dense outer crusts made me understand why these are named “Crack-aroons.”

G took the opportunity to check out the butter sculptures of the fair royalty candidates,

and got a chocolate malt in the Dairy Building, then we made our way back to the food demonstrations to see Judi Barsness of Chez Jude (where we celebrated out 10th anniversary on a weekend getaway to the North Shore last fall) and J.D. Fratzke of St. Paul’s Strip Club (where my friend K8 and I recently attended the wonderful Simple Good and Tasty August supper).

Local farmers attended from Pastures Aplenty, whose bratwurst and sausage are regular items in our family, and Hidden Stream Farm, whose cheddar bratwurst we enjoyed last summer. We were able to sample Fratzke’s dish, which he called a PPLT: pork, pancetta, lettuce and tomato, on focaccia with seasoned mayo. It was an upscale sandwich to die for.

For “dessert,” I got a cone of Sweet Martha’s chocolate chip cookies and glass of milk, then we wondered if we should stay or go. We let a street-blocking parade help us decide, and had a lemonade on the way to the exit, where we passed K8 and her family coming out of the Miracle of Birth barn, having just seen a calf born.

G. and I didn’t stay much longer than I had with the kids and didn’t spend much more either. It was a good day, with beautiful weather and not too crowded. Like my trip with the kids, it would be nice to make this an annual tradition.

After I saw Julie & Julia, I vaguely recalled seeing the spine of Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking on my mom’s shelf. I called to ask if she still had it. Bien sur, she had it in the basement, and sent it to me. It seems to be from the 1961 printing, and is in great condition. The only recipe that shows evidence of being cooked is the Caneton Roti, or Roast Duckling; this does not look like a well-used cookbook. G. Grod and I have already confirmed the correct way to hold a chef’s knife (I’d done it incorrectly). I hope to give some of these recipes a try. Not, however, those involving aspic.

Note that I saw the original Day the Earth Stood Still (not the recent remake), shown by Take-Up Productions at the Heights Theater. After a space ship lands on the White House lawn, a man claiming to be from space emerges and says he needs to speak to the world leaders.

Klaatu: I am fearful when I see people substituting fear for reason.

When Klaatu is told his request is impossible–how can all the nations agree on anything?–and imprisoned, he escapes to find a way to get his message of peace to the Earth. He stays in a boarding house where he meets a single mother and her son. When Klaatu is threatened, his protector robot, Gort, in turn threatens the Earth. The mother and her son must find a way to prevent this.

This is a great movie, a classic, and one I’m sorry I hadn’t seen till now. The look is impressive, and the tension and threat of the story are palpable. Bernard Hermann, better known for his work with Hitchcock, used theremins to foster uneasiness in the viewer. Additionally, this is a referent for so many science-fiction works that came after it. Gort looks very much like a prototypical Cylon from Battlestar Galactica, and I now understand the reference in Evil Dead to “Klaatu Barada Nikto”.

I think this will be a good movie to watch with my 3 and 6yo kids when they’re a little older, as a discussion starter for things like national violence and racism.

I’m rereading the graphic novel collections of Alan Moore’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen series, and just finished the very enjoyable Volume 2. I read it when it came out serially in comic book form, and remember enjoying it less. There were long waits between issues, and they were quite heavy with backmatter that I didn’t enjoy. In the graphic novel collection, I am able to read the entire comic story at once, and the backmatter is collected in the back. That’s where it should stay, IMO. Forty-six pages of single spaced text as Alan Moore does a mock travelogue of every fictional or mythical locale IN THE WORLD. I knew the references to some. I might have enjoyed it more had I known more of them, but I doubt it. Instead, my friend Blogenheimer suggested I visit Jess Nevins’ site, where he breaks down all the references.

Back to the Volume 2 story, though. The team of irregulars–Mina Murray, the Invisible Man, Edward Hyde, Captain Nemo and Allan Quatermain–are under new leadership, after the events in volume 1 and are dispatched to the site of what appears to be a meteor crater. The monsters from Mars soon reveal themselves, and begin traipsing about in distinctive-looking vehicles. It’s up to the team of misfits to save the day, and they’re aided by a reclusive and mysterious doctor.

In addition to the Sherlock Holmes and Quatermain stories, Dracula, The Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, volume 2 references other Victorian literature, including Gulliver’s Travels, Burroughs’ John Carter of Mars, War of the Worlds, and The Island of Dr. Moreau.

This is an adventure–sometimes tragic, sometime comic, but always engaging. I found it great fun, once I stopped reading the backmatter.

Did anyone else besides me think longingly of jetting to England last year to see Dr. Who’s David Tennant as Hamlet? Well, no need for regrets. PBS will be showing Tennant’s Hamlet as part of Great Performances in 2010. I am thrilled.

I’m nearly halfway through David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, which I’m reading along with the crowd at Infinite Summer. Along with some incisive commentary, there’s a lot of griping, which I find interesting.

One of the sites “guides”, Avery, recently wrote that she was not enjoying the book:

I resent that I’m having to work this hard, that I feel like I’m indulging the author. I resent having to read enormous blocks of text, with no paragraph breaks, for pages and pages at a time. I resent the endnotes that (more often than not) only serve to either waste my time or confuse me even further. I resent that I’m continually reaching supposed milestones (”just make it to page 100!” “get to 200!” “300 is where you get rewarded for all your effort!”) that don’t actually represent any appreciable change in tone, style or plot.

I feel like my time is being wasted with an overabundance of technical explanations of subjects – tennis, drugs – that are largely irrelevant. DFW is explaining the wrong stuff.

Many commenters suggested she put it down, but she said she’d continue, if only because she’d agreed to as one of the site’s guide. For clarification, Avery was invited as a guide to represent younger, i.e. twenty-something readers. Her opinion is not atypical; many commenters voice some of the same complaints: the text is long, uninteresting, deliberately irritating, rambling, unfocused.

These comments usually are met with other readers, often those who have read the book before, telling them to Hang In and Keep Coming Back, advice that’s echoed from the text’s AA segments. There are frequent exhortations to trust the author and assurances that he had a plan, and many of the disparate themes will come together. Even so, it’s easy to see where the criticisms are coming from. The text is a challenging one. For example:

Last spring’s airless and B-redolent section of Thode’s psycho-political offering ‘The Toothless Predator: Breast-Feeding as Sexual Assault,’ had been one of the most disorientingly fascinating experiences of Ted Schacht’s intellectual life so far, outside of the dentist’s chair, whereas this fall’s focus on pathologic double-bind-type quandaries was turning out to be not quite as compelling, but weirdly–almost intuitively–easy. (307)

I’m reminded of when I taught first-year composition a few years ago. The course was structured around non-fiction essays and one book, The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass. Some of my classes were for “remedial” students, though a more PC term was used. Many of theses students spoke English as a second language, and most were the first of their families to attend university. Some of them boasted they’d never read an entire book. The course progressed, and the students struggled with the assigned essays and reading. A frequent theme in their papers was complaint–they didn’t like the author, they didn’t think the author did a good job.

On one hand, this was a good thing. They were actually reading it, engaging with it, and forming their own opinions. Further, they were voicing a contrary opinion, something I could see took courage for many of them. Dissent was often discouraged in their secondary schools, they told me.

On the other hand, their criticism was not supported by their experience as readers. They were not experienced readers, and while that didn’t make their emotional reaction to the texts less true, it did fail to support a reasoned, academic analysis of them. They contended that because they didn’t like an essay, or because they didn’t understand it, that it wasn’t well-written. It was my job to try to bring them beyond an emotional reaction to the text to a critical one. That I sometimes succeeded was tremendously rewarding, for both me and the student, I believe.

And but so, I see a strong similarity between my former first-year students and those who are struggling with and rejecting Infinite Jest. It’s a challenging, at times deliberately provoking text. It’s also extremely smart, funny, and the further I read in it, the more intricate, layered and connected it becomes. My husband and I are reading together; we’ll frequently share connections we find to some other, at the time seemingly throwaway, bits earlier in the book. These ties bespeak planning; the careful layering of information withheld then shared bespeaks great care and precision. I’ve been puzzled by some readers’ claims of carelessness and inaccuracy.

For example, there was a discussion about a character described as weighing 200kg. Many commenters criticized this for impossibility, or criticized the author for sloppy writing. Few noted that it was a good deployment of hyperbole. Fewer, if any noted that this exaggerated figured appeared multiple times later, drawing connection through the text.

I’m enjoying the puzzle nature of the book, but I can understand why it’s postmodern puzzley-ness alienates and even offends some readers. I wish, though, that some didn’t take their dislike as equal to IJ not being a good book. Liking a book is not an index of its quality. Ditto for “getting it”. For example, a lot of DFW’s math commentary flies over my head. I don’t, though, claim he’s inaccurate or untalented to include it. I go with it. I Hang In. I Keep Coming Back. And for that, this book rewards me.

In 2007, I linked to a story about the third, and reputedly final and most authentic of the Blade Runner versions, but only recently got around to watching it. I liked the original. I really liked the “Director’s Cut”. This final cut is the synthesis of both of those, and it transcends them. This dark, moody film has aged very well over almost three decades, albeit with restorations. Harrison Ford’s bounty hunter is hired to track down four rogue nonhumans, but it’s hardly a straightforward mission. A few of the beginning scenes are clumsy and repetitive; this is likely the result of having had multiple versions available. The whole, though, is both stunning to look at and complex and engaging to ponder. If you liked either of the first two versions, see the Final Cut; it’s worth it.

For those of you have a Google home page, and use Gmail, Google reader, and other Google goodies, go check out the new themes they’re offering in honor of Comicon. I wish someone could explain to me why Spider Woman and not Jean Grey, but there are some favorite kid comic characters, like Owly and Johnny Boo, and some from some of our favorite books, like Robot Dreams and Adventures in Cartooning.

I’m toying with “women in the DC universe” but I’m really not the target market. But still: Wonder Woman, Batgirl, Supergirl–these were my childhood idols. I’m grateful I lived pre-Disney princesses!