Girl Detective

#30 in my 2007 book challenge was Chicken with Plums, a graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi. It details the final days of Nasser Ali, a famous instrumentalist in 1985 Iran. After his beloved tar (a type of lute) is broken, he takes to bed and resolves to die. Each chapter is a day in his march toward death.

I loved Satrapi’s three previous novels, Persepolis (soon to be released as an animated film), Persepolis II, and Embroideries. Chicken with Plums shares many strengths with these works. It includes history of Persia and Iran, meditation on religion, a simplistic art style, and creative use of panels and pages to graphically narrate the story. I found this book much less engaging, though. Nasser Ali is a complex character, at turns deserving of pity and scorn. His wife is similarly pitiable and unlikeable. I didn’t sympathize with either, though. Satrapi’s previous novels were about the lives of girls and women. She made a departure in this to write about the life of one of her male relatives. While an interesting personal project, I didn’t find it as universal as the other books. Recommended, with reservations.

#29 in my 2007 book challenge was the graphic novel My Dead Girlfriend, Volume 1 by Eric Wight. Wight was the ghost artist for Seth Cohen’s character on The O.C.

(I’m having trouble making that last sentence make sense. Adam Brody played Seth Cohen on the show. His character drew comic characters, including Little Miss Vixen. So Wight was the real-life artist who drew the comics for Brody’s fictional character Seth. Got that? Yeah.)

Finney Bleak lives in a goth world. His family is cursed to have interesting deaths. When he falls in love and the girl later stands him up, he seems like a typical geeky high-school boy. As the title suggests, though, there are some interesting surprises for him.

The book is published by Tokyopop, though it feels in story and art more manga-influenced than manga, though I know that’s a debate that can rage forever. I also saw a lot of Garry Trudeau’s Doonesbury in the expressions around the characters’ eyes.

Wight’s art style is distinctive and likeable. I found it much more engaging than the story, which was merely good, though it is an interesting riff on teen alienation. Funny and slightly bittersweet, the book will appeal to fans of both young-adult novels, dark fantasy, goth and manga.

For a lighter, younger walk on the goth side, check out Andi Watson’s latest effort, Glister, from Image Comics. Glister Butterworth is a sassy girl, around whom strange things happen. In issue one, she’s called on to type up the unfinished novel of a ghost. Along the way, she uncovers the truth about a curious teapot. Glister is all ages, fun, and funny. My 4yo son Drake loves both the book as an object, and for paging through to look at the art.

I recommend both My Dead Girlfriend and Glister.

#28 in my 2007 book challenge was And Then One Day, the collected autobiographical comic strips by Ryan Claytor. Truthfully, I bought this because he was on tour at my comic store for a signing; no one was there; he seemed nice; the art looked good; and I felt sorry for him.

I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book. Claytor’s book has an “aw-shucks” nice-guy normalcy that stands out among the often aggressively dark, and alienated indie-comic crowd. He does a strip a day, much like James Kochalka’s Sketchbook Diaries. He lacks Kochalka’s sometimes off-putting weirdness, though he’s not quite as kookily charming, either. Claytor’s art style is strongly drawn, distinctive, and accessible. I think it will appeal to those who like Alex Robinson, as well as daily comic-strip fans.

At $10, I thought the small book was expensive, but the colored, textured gatefold cover and the upscale offset printing of the heavy, cream-colored inner pages make for a high-quality, attractive, easy-to-read book. Recommended.

#27 in my 2007 book challenge was Michael Chabon’s novella The Final Solution. The title is a play on Conan Doyle’s final Sherlock Holmes story, “The Adventure of the Final Problem“, and the Nazi’ euphemistic response to what they called “the problem of the Jews.”

An old man becomes involved in a case of a murdered man and a missing parrot. He is a former detective, now retired, and he keeps bees. By these details, and others, the reader infers this is Sherlock Holmes, who somehow survived the Reichenbach Falls incident of “The Final Problem.” The parrot belonged to a mute, Jewish boy who had escaped from Germany. It recited strings of German numbers, and thus was valuable to various villains depending on what they thought the numbers meant. There are hints throughout, but their meaning is confirmed very near the end in a risky chapter told from the point of view of the parrot. The old man never solves the meaning of the numbers, but he does solve the mystery of the parrot’s disappearance, as well as the murder.

Both in story and writing style, I found this a tense, clever homage to the Holmes stories, and appreciated how Chabon gave it a dark, Holocaust influence that has become a hallmark of his last few novels. Recommended.

Added later, from G. Grod, who is more familiar with the Holmes story than me:

“The Adventure of the Final Problem” is the story with Holmes and Moriarty and the Reichenbach falls. But most of the stories come after that. Doyle tried to quit Holmes, but had to bring him back by popular demand - the story of his return is in “The Adventure of the Empty House”. It’s where he explains that he had to go into hiding to operate secretly against the crime networks still extant after the death of Moriarty.

In your review of Chabon, you make it seem like Chabon brought Holmes back, when in fact Doyle did it. Holmes never actually dies in the stories. In “His Last Bow” he is preparing for WWI. Stories published later occur chronologically earlier within the canon.

#26 in my 2007 book challenge was the first graphic novel is The Plain Janes, from DC Comics new imprint Minx. I liked Plain Janes, as I liked Breaking Up and the Hopeless Savages books. But they’re awfully similar to one another, and to the plot of Mean Girls. They all are told from the viewpoint of a cute but not beautiful artistic girl. She develops a crush on a cute, geeky guy, and in the end mean people get their comeuppance. It’s an enjoyable formula, made more interesting by individual art styles, but it _is_ a formula.

Jane moves to the ‘burbs after getting injured in a 9/11-esque attack. She has to make new friends and negotiate a new school. To rebel, she creates a guerilla public-art group. While I’m fine with people speaking out against strip malls and for more art, I disagree with bubbles in a fountain. Art? Maybe. Environmentally damaging? Yes–most soaps are corrosive. Expensive vandalism? Also, yes (see what happened in Philly last year).

This was a decent story with good art. Recommended, with reservations.

I thought a few pieces of our regular junk mail were inevitable–the weekly supermarket circulars, and the handful of coupon mailings addressed only to resident. I am happy to announce that I was wrong. Each marketing piece has a website, and each website has contact information, and I’ve removed myself from four of these nuisances recently. Kicking the junkmail can be daunting, but it’s worth it. There’s so much less coming into our house, and therefore so much less that I have to consider, sort, and throw away.

whatever else she was going to say was interrupted because she accidentally stuck a nappy pin into one of Clifford’s rare moments of peace and he went very red and started to scream and scream until poor Nell shook him before bursting into tears herself and exclaiming to Frank, ‘I didn’t know it was going to be like this.’

Behind the Scenes at the Museum has been sitting out for months now on my Book Stack of Reproach, as I’ve wanted to quote and quote again from it. I was shocked at the recognition of feeling when I read the above passage. I’ve felt that way so many times. It’s ugly, but it’s also sometimes true.

A French author, Corinne Maier, is getting a lot of press for having the audacity to write a book called No Kid: Forty Reasons Not to Have a Child, and to say that she sometimes regrets having kids. (Links via Bookslut Blog.) I try to write parenting anecdotes I don’t think my kids will mind reading in ten years, but I’m tempted to be honest here in a way that could easily be misunderstood.

Like Maier, I sometimes feel regret about having kids, rather in the manner of “Calgon, take me away!” While it feels perilous to admit this, I don’t think it’s either/or. It happens about once a morning when I am not able to meet some basic need of my own, like having breakfast or getting dressed, and the boys are screaming and fighting. The moment and the feeling both pass, and develop context.

Lately, I’m trying something new. Since these incidents occur almost every morning, I flirted with the idea of embracing the chaos. That was too much to contemplate. Instead, I’m trying not to mind the scream fests, meaning let them bother me, or attend to them (unless I suspect grievous bodily harm, which does often occur.) This new “trying not to mind” strategy is working pretty well. I find myself appreciating parenting more often, and wishing it away less often.

(thanks to Pages Turned)

What are you reading right now? About to start Phillip Pullman’s Golden Compass

Do you have any idea what you’ll read when you’re done with that? The Long Goodbye

What magazines do you have in your bathroom right now? Entertainment Weekly and The Atlantic

What’s the worst thing you were ever forced to read? Paper by a racist student in a writing class I taught.

What’s the one book you always recommend to just about everyone? Lately? Eat, Pray, Love.

Admit it, the librarians at your library know you on a first name basis, don’t they? They know my kids by first name, since they often hear me calling after them. They know my last name, since that’s what my holds are under.

Is there a book you absolutely love, but for some reason, people never think it sounds interesting, or maybe they read it and don’t like it at all? Gilead. Neither of my book groups liked it.

Do you read books while you eat? While you bathe? While you watch movies or TV? While you listen to music? While you’re on the computer? While you’re having sex? While you’re driving? While I’m eating, if I’m eating alone, which is rare.

When you were little, did other children tease you about your reading habits? Yes, I sat against a wall at recess with my book, and always finished my schoolwork quickly so I could pull out my book.

What’s the last thing you stayed up half the night reading because it was so good you couldn’t put it down? HP and the Deathly Hallows. For me, half the night was after 11pm.

Summer isn’t quite over, but Chris Gore has a Summer 2007 Movie Scorecard at Suicide Girls.

I still haven’t seen it, but isn’t Once supposed to be the sleeper hit of the summer? And what about Waitress?

The copy of Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World that I’m reading is an Advance Reader Copy (ARC) I picked up for $2.98 at my used bookstore. I have a few other ARCs on my shelves, that I’ve either bought used, or was given by kind bookstore friends. But since my to-read pile is usually so large that the book is not only released in HC, but available in TPB or even MMPB by the time I get to reading it, I want to eschew ARCs. They’re full of typos, so they offend my copyeditor sensibilities. They can contain narrative mistakes. They’re usually larger, cheaper quality, and uglier than the for-sale editions. I’m not saying I need to buy any more books. But I can use my library and get an actual copy in about the time it would take me to get around to a distractingly imperfect and homely ARC.

I rarely comment on a book until I’ve finished it; I’m still a little bitter about the ending of Smilla’s Sense of Snow. But I’m very much enjoying Lionel Shriver’s Post-Birthday World. Irina faces down a momentous decision on a friend’s birthday: to begin an affair, or go back to her long-time partner. After that scene, the book is told in alternating “what if” chapters.

One of those many interstitial sequences that didn’t tell well: Lawrence left for work in a jacket that wasn’t waterproof, and I ran after him in the rain with his overcoat and lunch. Little wonder that Irina began dinner with friends like Betsy at a loss for stories. But these moments were the stuff of life and they were the stuff of a good life.

I smiled at the above passage when I read it, because it’s something that the author at Mental Multivitamin often reminds readers: life isn’t the exclamation points, it’s the stuff in between. So cherish it.

I also had a wry smile for this passage, since it encapsulates the defensive-mommy zeigeist:

Tatyana had embraced domesticity with the same extremity as she had ballet. She was eternally quilting, canning, baking, upholstering, and knitting sweaters nobody needed. Her officious conduct of motherhood gave off that whiff of defensive self-righteousness characteristic of contemporary stay-at-home moms. She was stifling, fussy and overprotective, for if children were to redeem her existence, they would redeem it with a vengeance.

What I’m most enjoying about the book is Shriver’s uncanny ability to delve into the muck of secret thoughts and emotions. It feels rather as if she rummaged around in the dark corners of my mind. The alternating chapters could come across as precious, but I don’t find them so. Instead, they display (thus far; I’m about 3/5 the way through) an admirable complexity, with intriguing comparisons and contrasts. When I’m away from the book I am eager to get back to it. I wonder about the characters, and what they’re doing between the covers of my book. In addition to mesmerizing me, the book has also made me very eager to finally read Anna Karenina.

I love lists. I make them. I cross things off. There are a few problems, though.

One is that I don’t throw away lists every day. If there are things left undone, I keep the lists, but still make new ones. Is this a cause or effect of my anxious nature? I don’t know.

Another problem is that I have a very active monkey mind, and tend to write whatever pops into my head on a list, with no regard to whether it’s reasonable, achievable, or quantifiable. So my lists are not only always setting myself up for failure, but they’re also accumulating to remind me of my “failure” to achieve these ridiculous, impossible goals.

(Do you, like me, often mis-type “goal” as “gaol”? Significant, I think.)

I refer not only to task lists, but also to amazon wish lists, reading lists, listening lists, and watching lists. My lists for these have become so bloated that I hardly check them anyway.

I have a practice that I’ve abandoned for a while, and I think it’s time to resurrect. It’s to stop making lists. Instead, it’s to take the moment, when it arises, and calmly consider the next thing to do/read/buy/etc. It relies on trusting both myself and the universe to remember intriguing things, and to remind me of them enough times to fix them in my consciousness. If a book, or cd, or movie, is meant to be in my life, I hope to be reminded of it enough times that I don’t need to write it on a list.

It’s a sound plan. I have considered, and quailed before, the idea of deleting and throwing away all my current lists. Right now it’s all I can do not to make new ones. That is significant progress, so I’ll leave it at that for today.

I yearn for a simple life, without literal or metaphorical clutter. Two kids, a house, and modern life, though, seem to conspire against me. Near constant vigilance is required to stem the tide of too much stuff. I give baby items my boys have outgrown to friends. I donate regularly. I take myself off mailing lists, but still, the crap creeps in. One of the most superfluous bits of modern junk is the podcast. I steer clear because life is too short, and my limited time too valuable.

M. from Mental Multivitamin periodically expresses the need for “no”. I recently agreed with Lazy Cow that I often hear M’s advice in my head, and count myself fortunate for it. She is a passionate advocate for the value of one’s time, especially as it relates to learning and writing.

I recently attended a writing workshop. I enjoyed it, and thought the writing within the group was very good. When the address list for the class was passed around, though, I didn’t add my email address. I feared looking snobbish and exclusionary. But I couldn’t subject myself to a mailing list, no matter how well intentioned. Some might argue that it’s quick and easy to delete. But it still takes time, and consideration that I want to spend on my current emails from friends and family, and the considerable backlog of correspondence I’ve got dating from when Guppy was born. The address list went around a second time. I think the woman sitting next to me thought I’d been skipped on the first time around. I steeled my resolve, though, and passed it on. I wish the others well in their writing, but I want to spend what little time I have on my writing, not on email about writing.

Last night G. Grod and I pushed our luck and succeeded at dinner and a movie while our babysitter played with the boys. As per their usual, they were better behaved and went to bed earlier than they do with us. Either our sitter is being nice, or our kids trust G. Grod and me to love their good and bad behavior. I know it’s the latter, and even while I’m a bit resentful that we get the defiance, I’m also glad that the sitter gets the mostly good behavior because we all like her a lot. Plus G. Grod and I really like these occasional nights out.

We started with a very good meal at the new Harry’s Food and Cocktails. For a while I fretted that G. and I had little to talk about, then I just enjoyed the peace and quiet. We then managed the 7:40 show of Stardust, a funny, sweet and dark fantasy based on the excellent graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess, begun in the wake of their winning the World Fantasy Award:

It mostly started with, in 1991, Charles and I won the World Fantasy Award for “Sandman” #19, “A Midsummer’s Night Dream.” We were out in Tuscon, Arizona, and astonished ourselves and everybody else by winning the award. We astonished everyone else to the point where the secret committee behind the judging got together the following morning to change the rules so that it could never happen again!

It’s more than a little reminiscent of Princess Bride, and one sequence is a very close homage to one of the PB plot threads. Stardust is a lot of fun (aside from a truly execrable closing ballad), and I hope it finds a wide audience. Gaiman has said he’s now too famous for his comfort level; I suspect he’s not going to get more comfortable anytime soon, with upcoming productions of Beowulf and Coraline.

I had questions and quibbles even after reading the previous set of links I posted, but thanks to these exhaustive (and exhausting) HP and the Deathly Hallows links (chock full o’ spoilers), I think I’ve had enough:

transcript of JKR web chat

A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago:

1st thread (120 comments)
2nd thread (49 comments and counting)

Cheryl Klein’s comments on HP7 (copyeditor for the American edition)

Spartan, a David Mamet film starring Val Kilmer, was #52 in my 2007 movie challenge. It was a pick of G. Grod’s, who went on a VK kick while the boys and I were out of town visiting family. Spartan is an exhilarating, if sometimes bizarre and uneven mix of Mamet’s rapid-fire, erudite dialogue and a conventional thriller. A college girl goes missing, and a capable, ethical military man is hired to find her. It bucks several expected plot turns. Kilmer gives a great performance, and Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars) is the missing girl. This was a solid, engaging film, well worth the rental. Recommended.

#56 in my 2007 movie challenge was The Bourne Ultimatum. Like its predecessors, it’s a smart thriller, well acted by a deep bench of good character actors. Yours is a three-part mission, should you choose to accept it:

1. Watch/rewatch The Bourne Identity
2. Watch/rewatch The Bourne Supremacy
3. Go see The Bourne Ultimatum in a theater

For this series, good things come in threes. The direction is fantastic, the pace frenetic, and the endings satisfying. Damon’s Bourne is like a crazy mishmash of the Midnighter and MacGyver, on meth. The three films are linked in story and images, so watching them in sequence yields more than watching them individually, or at long intervals.

Finding the original two movies on DVD may be difficult. There was a long wait list at our library, because over half the copies are missing. Two copies are missing from our video store. Three of our local Targets didn’t have the dvds in stock. We did manage to find one last copy of the three-disc set, The Bourne Files, at a Barnes and Noble. Less expensive than purchasing the previous movies on dvd individually, it was well worth it, though Entertainment Weekly says the new extras are a snooze. If you rent or borrow them, I don’t recommend the “Explosive Extended Edition” of Bourne Identity. The alternate beginning and ending weren’t used for good reason.

Thanks to my friend, Blogenheimer, for a few more informative HP7 links, both of which contain lots of spoilers if you haven’t yet read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Finished ‘Potter’? Rowling tells what happens next

Stop your sobbing! More Potter to come, in which Rowling says she might do a Harry Potter encyclopedia. I think that idea would be a lot of fun if she serialized it somewhere and collected it later. Further, I bet that would make it available sooner.

After I finally finished HP7, I wanted to talk about it.

For further nerdish obsessing, my friend Blogenheimer suggested the Slate book club discussion of Harry Potter (warning: spoilers abound!)

I found the Entertainment Weekly Harry Potter issue curiously un-nuanced and borderline sycophantic. I enjoyed it anyway, especially this spoiler-riffic FAQ about the book.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I liked it. If you’d like to discuss, email me at

girl detective (all one word)

at

girl detective dot net