Girl Detective

1. Ron is stubborn
2. Hermione is bossy and intellectual
3. Harry is easily frustrated, prone to walk into traps because of his pride, and won’t confide in people. He frequently rails that Dumbledore doesn’t trust him, and doubts that the old wizard had affection for him.

How have these characters changed since book 1?

And finally,

4. There are rather a lot of people getting, um, hurt in this book.

I am stopped on page 520 of 606 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I can’t bring myself to resume the book. I have been trying to read it as quickly as possible. I was chagrined not to finish it before I left for the writing retreat I’m on this weekend. I’ve taken it out at every opportunity. I sit in the corner of the cafeteria with my book propped in front of me at meals, in case anyone thinks I want to be social. I’ve completed writing exercises quickly in order to take out my book and read on.

I don’t feel so bad about this. While we write, our instructor, Faith Sullivan, the author of The Cape Ann, Gardenias, and other novels, opens the book she’s reading, which is Heat Wave by Penelope Lively. Bookish behavior made me an outcast in grade school, but is something I celebrate today.

Given all this, then, I am surprised at my sudden aversion to finishing the novel. I want to find out what happens!

And yet, and yet…

When it’s over, it will be over. All seven books done that I’ve been reading for nearly ten years. The characters–Ron, Hermione, Harry. The locations–Hogwarts, Diagon Alley. The details–pumpkin juice, spells, jinxes and charms. Yeah, Rowling’s writing isn’t flawless, and her characters haven’t changed that much over the seven years of the books. But I LIKE the books. Rowling has the storytelling knack that makes a reader desperately want to find out what happens next. I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter books. I’ve found pleasure in reading them. And like Steven King, I’m going to be sad when the series is done, no matter who lives or dies.

Moose out front shoulda told you.

I’m not even a third of the way through Harry Potter #7. I must read.

#25 in my 2007 book challenge was Elizabeth Gilbert’s spiritual travel memoir Eat, Pray, Love. This was my second time reading it, since it was also book #16 for me this year.

Gilbert is smart, funny, and honest. She notes that she’s good at making friends, and it’s easy to see why. After a nasty divorce, a disastrous rebound relationship, and a deep depression, Gilbert goes abroad for a year. Her first four months are spent in Rome, practicing the language and enjoying the food. Next she goes to an ashram in India to practice meditation and mindfulness. Finally, she spends the rest of the year in Bali, where she seeks to integrate divine and earthly experiences into holistic joy.

I keep remembering one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it

This book made me hungry in my stomach for Rome. My searching soul perked up at the descriptions of the ashram in India. Though I’ve practiced yoga for seven years, I’d never before had the slightest urge to visit its country of origin. In the last 6 months, though, I’ve read this book twice, another book on India I loved, sat next to a man on an airline flight who gave me several tips about about traveling there, and have a friend there right now. I’m sensing a building Indian zeitgeist.

As before, the thing I disliked about the book was Gilbert’s use of religious terminology. She chooses to use He/Him to refer to God. She denies any belief in God’s sex, but the masculine pronoun only perpetuates the usual patriarchal stereotypes. (I’ve noted before that I think the American Heritage Dictionary has a nice note on the problems with “he”–scroll about halfway down the page to get to the AH entry.) She doesn’t wonder why Christianity is one of the few world religions that has a thunder god, but no fertility goddess. She uses the Christian designation for eras, BC/AD. These are widely known, but CE/BCE (Common Era, and Before Common Era) are more inclusive, and more correct, since the historic person Jesus didn’t get born in the year 0 anyway. She also uses the reductive and condescending term “Judeo-Christian”. This is problematic because it implies a cause/effect relationship that both oversimplifies the complex origins of Christianity, and wrongly implies that Christianity is a natural extension of Judaism.

It’s likely that I’m nitpicking because of my residual grad-school sensibilities, so these may not be things that would bother others. In spite of them, I highly recommend the book, and am eager to seek out her previous work.

Yesterday morning, I was impatient to know when my UK edition of the new Harry Potter would arrive. I checked my email confirmation and was displeased with the news. It was shipped by mail, so I couldn’t track it, and estimated delivery was between 7/27/07 and 7/31/07. I tried steeling myself for the wait, and reminding myself that it would be possible to avoid spoilers, but I couldn’t help looking at the mail slot every chance I got. I told myself this would make it arrive even later.

Imagine my joy, then, when the mail was delivered, and I saw my amazon.co.uk package. I’ve made just the bare beginning (30 pages) but hope to devote more time to it soon.

One of my best book shopping moments ever was when I worked at a used book store. I’d just read an article about how HP1 was so wildly successful in the UK but had not yet taken off in the US. #2 was already published in the UK, but not yet released stateside. I was unpacking a remainder/seconds box when I found a UK trade paperback of HP1 and a hardcover of HP2! And because I worked there, I got them for 50% off the marked down price! Since then, I’ve gotten them from the UK so I have a matching set, and so I get the English vocabulary, titles, and punctuation.

I’m a fan, but no fanatic. I like the Potter books. They’re fun. The release of a new one is an event. I want to know what happens. They’re not great literature, but so what? Not everything has to be, and they have a fair share of redeeming qualities.

I’m still waiting on my English copy of HP7 to appear, and I found these helpful and amusing.

The Guardian’s Digested Read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (HP5)

The Guardian’s Digested Read of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HP6)

John Crace’s pre-review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (HP7) (no spoilers at all):

The book will start with Harry making his way back to Hogwart’s for his final year and his scar will be hurting. Ginny and Ron will be flirting a bit, while Harry tries to take himself seriously by almost swearing. There will be loads more unedited, not very interesting back story that should have been cut and there will be a ‘terrifically, exciting denouement that I can’t reveal as I don’t want to spoil the plot in which two much-loved characters die’. Oh, and JK will make another fortune.

Here are my previous entries on Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.

From Austenblog:

Mansfield Park can be a difficult novel to enjoy. We find most of the characters unlikable, and the story is perhaps a trifle preachy….while it is not our favorite, we cannot say it (or any other Jane Austen novel for that matter) is not worth reading.

Also we suggest that readers forget Edward Said and look at the single slavery reference in the novel, as well as other themes and images of imprisonment and restriction, in relation to the plight of dependent women in Jane Austen’s society. That might lead you down some interesting paths, especially when you read Emma in the same light.

This is the passage they refer to:

Fanny Price: “Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?”

Edmund Bertram: “I did–and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.”

Fanny Price: “And I longed to do it–but there was such a dead silence!

I’m not sure why the authors at Austenblog discourage Said; they quote him as saying things that struck me as reasonable, sensible, and true.

I do agree that both Emma and Mansfield Park are full of references to female restriction, such as remaining at home during inclement weather. I especially noticed the many references to adding a pleasant shrubbery for walking the property. Irreverently, I was reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. More seriously, though, I felt pain for those women whose pinnacle of freedom and personal time was a brief walk in the yard.

According to Austenblog, in January 2008, PBS will be airing new versions of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility along with the Kate Beckinsale Emma and the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice. The new adaptations were shown previously on ITV in England, to mixed reviews. Does any Austen adaptation NOT get mixed reviews?

#24 in my 2007 book challenge was Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

My book challenge is a self-set goal of fifty books for the year. It’s July and I’m not yet halfway, so my goal is more challenging this year than it’s been in the past. I set the goal to remind myself that reading is a priority, though it can be hard to make time while caring for two small children.

We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.–Fanny Price in Mansfield Park.

Why is poor Fanny Price so reviled a heroine? That strikes me as blaming the victim, or kicking someone when she’s down. This was my sixth major Austen novel, of six. I found it more intricately plotted than Austen’s earlier works, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t enjoy it nearly so much as I did the latter, but it impressed me more. Written ten years after the drafts of the previous three, Mansfield Park sustains a strong undercurrent of dread up till the end: what will happen to Fanny, the poor relation of the Bertram family? Like other Austen heroines, Fanny is admirable, but flawed. She is ethical and thoughtful to a fault, but frail, sickly, and shrinking. Many critiques of the book decry that she does not change, but she does. She is both physically and emotionally stronger by the end, and has a greater appreciation for her worth and her powers of discernment.

Mansfield Park defied a quick reading; I was often frustrated by my slow progress through it. In the end, though, I found it both intriguing and rewarding. I felt spurred to further research about it because I found it so different from the other five Austen novels I’ve read (complex, sinister, judgmental) and yet the same (nice girl marries nice boy in the end; good things happen to good people, and bad people get their just deserts!)

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

I wonder at my auto-didactic leanings. Have they come to me with age, or were they imparted to me later in life by wise teachers, which I mostly lacked for in my youth? If I’d read this in high school, I would not have finished it. I would have used the Cliff Notes to write my paper, for which I’d earn an A. I’m so glad I’ve learned patience and appreciation. Both helped me persevere through a tough read, and beyond it to additional study.

From Suicide Girl News: Brad Pitt wants to channel Steve McQueen in a remake of Bullitt. I agree that it’s a bad idea. Remakes are a bad idea in general, and revisiting McQueen specifically requires a lot of chutzpah. Can you think of any remakes that are better than the original? I’m sure there are some, just as there are a handful of movies whose sequel outstrips the first (Godfather Part II), and even a few third movies that are the pick of the litter (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Off the top of my head, though, I can’t think of one movie substantively improved by a remake.

At the end of the Suicide Girls piece, the author notes that many may not even have seen the McQueen movie from which his nickname is taken. It made me realize that there are a few great war movies that don’t make the top 100 lists, yet which I’ve appreciated far more than I did the carnage-strewn Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, or Saving Private Ryan.

Three Unsung War Movies:

The Great Escape: great ensemble cast, unforgettable theme song, and the origin of The Cooler King, a critical piece of filmic cultural literacy.

Stalag 17: Surprisingly, NOT the basis for Hogan’s Heroes, whose creators were sued over similarities, and won. Holden thought his character was too cynical, but he won an Oscar for the role.

The Thin Red Line: Terence Malick’s beautiful filmic meditation on the brutal rift that war creates between humanity and nature.

#23 in my 2007 book challenge was Hetty Dorval, a gift from a kind friend who visited Persephone Books on her recent trip to London. Like all Persephone editions, it is a beautiful book with a dove-grey paper cover, with end pages and matching bookmark in a complementary textile pattern.

It is a slim but powerful novella of a young girl who develops a friendship with Mrs. Dorval, a woman who has a questionable past. The girl’s fascination is easy to empathize with. Her development into adulthood, and her increased understanding of human nature and behavior, contribute to a fascinating example of the coming-of-age novel. Mrs. Dorval’s sexuality is offered as proof of her bad nature; this troubled me. But the rest of her character so thoroughly completed a portrait of a self-involved, self-serving individual that it made sense in the context of the story.

#22 in my 2007 book challenge was Jim Crace’s Being Dead. The book opens with a couple that has just been murdered, and floats back and forth in time to detail what happened before, how they met, and what happens to their bodies afterward. Crace’s command of narrative is impressive. He switches time and perspective, yet the book is seamless. It is an involving story of the couple’s relationship, as well as an often gruesome, but still compelling, description of the biology and zoology of death.

#21 in my 2007 book challenge is Kris Holloway’s Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali. I know the author, since we attended high school together, but I would admire this book in any case. Holloway details her two years in the Peace Corps in Africa working with a local midwife, Monique. Holloway shows how important and influential Monique was to her village, and to Holloway, whose prior training had been in agriculture, not health. The book is extremely well researched. The bibliography has recent and classic works on international women’s health, birthing traditions, and the ethics of ethnography. Holloway respectfully avoids both criticism and romanticization of the Africans, though she makes clear at the end which cultural differences she’ll miss and which she won’t. The influence of each woman on the other, and the different insights and information they share, make this a moving and detailed portrait of two women’s friendship that crossed cultures. Additionally, it’s a fascinating portrait of birth and childcare practices in another culture.

This book is not easily categorized, but it’s garnered a great deal of attention in spite of that. It was the first nonfiction book chosen by the Literary Ventures Fund, a nonprofit foundation that presented at BEA earlier this year. It has already been included in several college reading lists. I highly recommend this book. It provides a refreshingly different perspective on friendship, birth, men’s and women’s relationships, family and community relationships, and more.

#51 in my 2007 movie challenge is Jean Renoir’s La Regle du Jeu, an aptly great film for hitting the big five-oh so early in the year. I saw the newly restored 35mm print, which will be shown later this summer in Vancouver, Ft. Worth and more. If you have the opportunity to go see this film’s restored print, do so. How good is the print? I could see exactly how frizzy the wife’s perm was, the shadow of a mustache above the mistress’s lip, and where the husband’s eyebrows had been redrawn.

In addition to the high quality of the print, it’s a great film. Like Citizen Kane, with which it’s often compared, it’s amazing both for the story and its technical proficiency. Like Renoir’s earlier Grand Illusion, it has a startling prescience for the coming war. Altman was a fan, and its influence is apparent in the ensemble casts of all his films, but most obviously in the upstairs/downstairs manor house of Gosford Park.

#50 in my movie challenge for the year was a re-watching of Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge. I agree with the final comment from the Terri Sutton City Pages review when it came out:

Your cake is so stale it makes me sick–but oh, the frosting…

Yes, the center story is a boring and predictable love story about a hooker with a heart of gold, a penniless poet, and a lecherous rich duke. But the Bollywood-esque excess, McGregor’s charm, Kidman’s occasional and surprising comedic turns, and Luhrmann’s famous musical madness, make for a movie that so enthralls me that I watched to the end on this multiple viewing, even though I was exhausted, and kept vowing to go to bed after the VERY NEXT SCENE.

I also admit, guiltily, to singing along.

#49 in my 2007 movie challenge was The Illusionist. Like The Prestige, it is about magic shows in the 19th century, was well reviewed, and stars a famous actor (Edward Norton, Jr.), a hot young thing (Jessica Biel), and an older, skilled character actor (Paul Giamatti). My friend B wondered if she liked this movie less than The Prestige because she was in labor when she watched it. B, I don’t think it was the labor; I found The Illusionist boring, predictable, and overlong. I nearly stopped watching towards the end, and I didn’t care about any of the characters. The Prestige made me think. The Illusionist made me annoyed.

My husband G. Grod thinks that Jessica Biel’s lips are natural. Awful Plastic Surgery and I think otherwise.

#48 in my 2007 movie challenge was George Cukor’s Gaslight, a costlier remake of the 1940 UK film that was released in the US as Angel Street. MGM tried, unsuccessfully, to have all prints of the earlier film destroyed. It is included as an extra on the 2004 DVD. Ingrid Bergman is the niece of a famous singer who is murdered. Years later, a singer herself, she marries her pianist, played creepily by Charles Boyer. Cukor shows the audience Boyer is up to no good, though Bergman is kept in the dark, both by the story, and by Boyer, who is slowly trying to drive her mad. Joseph Cotten is the good guy policeman who decides to meddle, much like the policeman in Laura, then solves the mystery. A young Angela Lansbury stands out in her first role, as a saucy, sulky housemaid.

#47 in my 2007 movie challenge was Laura, which had been lounging on my Tivo drive for some time. Based on the novel by Vera Caspary, it’s another classic noir. Story doesn’t matter so much as character and atmosphere, and the latter is exemplified by the famous theme song. On the surface, it’s about a detective who becomes obsessed with a dead woman’s portrait; he feels compelled to solve her murder. Less obviously but more interestingly, it’s about women and power, both in business and in personal relationships. Vincent Price is unsettling as the handsome, well-mannered man who Laura was engaged to marry, but Clifton Webb steals the show as the pretentious man who “made” Laura.

From Laura Barton’s “Girl Wonders” in The Guardian:

If there is a single thread that links these fictional girl heroes, it is surely that they were all people who knew, very clearly, their own state of mind, who were brave and strong and articulate

The article leads off with images of two of my favorite titian-haired heroines, Anne (with an ‘e’) and Nancy. As a girl, I aspired to be a tomboy, like George in Edid Blyton’s Five mysteries, but I knew I didn’t have it in me–I didn’t like bugs, dirt or mess. My favorite was Trixie Belden. She had unruly hair and said dumb things, but still solved the mystery. Nancy Drew was great, but always very tidy. Trixie walked a middle ground between George and Nancy that I could relate to.

#46 in my 2007 movie challenge was Orson Welles’s The Lady from Shanghai. He co-starred with then-wife Rita Hayworth to raise money for the project he really wanted to be working on, a stage production of Around the World in Eighty Days.

Welles is an Irish bad boy with a shady past who falls literally in the path of Hayworth’s femme fatale, married to a rich, cruel, older, disabled man. With a bleached, short hairstyle that ages and homogenizes her striking looks, Hayworth is appropriately chilly as the removed object of Welle’s unwilling passion and sympathy. Like many noir works, the plot is not the thing, while the atmosphere is, and this film has lots of it. There is a claustrophobic boat cruise followed by twists and turns of loyalties and the truth. The end features a striking scene in a house of mirrors that may have been the first of its kind.

There is a curious lack of chemistry between Welles and Hayworth, which made sense when I learned they were soon to be divorced. Hayworth is not portrayed in a flattering light, either in appearance or character. In the end, Welles’s bitter, young loner finds that beauty and money aren’t meant to be his, and he is lucky to escape with his life and hard-earned experience. I can’t help but suspect that Welles was drawing from his own life in making this movie.

There is a remake in pre-production, slated to be directed by Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express) and rumored to star Nicole Kidman.