Girl Detective

From Nathalie Cooke’s Margaret Atwood: A Biography

Atwood started writing The Handmaid’s Tale in spring of 1984 while living in West Berlin and finished it later that year. It was published in 1985 to critical acclaim and would go on to be short-listed for the prestigious Booker Prize. While she wrote it, her husband said to her, “You’re going to get in trouble for this one.” Though she was well known in Canada previously as both a poet and novelist, this brought her a larger, international, mainstream audience. Her American publisher ordered a second printing before the first was even released.

She claims the original idea came from a dinner-party conversation about the dangers of religious fundamentalism. “No one thinks about what it would be like to actually act it out,” she or someone else said. Then she said, “I think I’ll write about that.”

In 1983 she began to compile a scrapbook about “the religious right wing, no-cash credit-card systems, on the low birth rate and prisons in Iran.” While the setting for the book is Cambridge and Boston Massachusetts, Atwood had traveled to Iran and Afghanistan, and the repressive rules for women she encountered there were also part of the inspiration for the near-future dystopia of Gilead.

Cooke quotes Atwood’s argument that The Handmaid’s Tale is not science fiction:

Science fiction is filled with Martians and space travel to other planets, and things like that. That isn’t this book at all. The Handmaid’s Tale is speculative fiction in the genre of Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Nineteen Eighty-Four was written not as science fiction but as an extrapolation of life in 1948. So, too, The Handmaid’s Tale is a slight twist on the society we have now. (277)

(Interestingly, this rejection of the SF genre is one speculative fiction, sci-fi and fantasy writers and readers would likely both agree and take issue with. They’d likely agree it was speculative fiction, but take issue with her separatism, since most works grouped in the sci-fi and fantasy genres can be better described as speculative fiction.)

In spite of this protest, The Handmaid’s Tale won the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Best Science Fiction in 1987.

Can we all get together and agree to stop vowing to stop buying books? It’s what we _do_, people! I’ve fallen off the wagon so many times that I’ve learned the pleasure of walking. So I’m going to buy books. In moderation. Whatever that means.

The Magician’s Elephant by Kate DiCamillo. To read as a possible selection for the book group I started on fiction with themes of myth and religion.

The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich. Ditto the above. (Extra points for local authors!)

Enter Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. A collection of the very first Jeeves stories, which aren’t usually anthologized because Bertie wasn’t even necessarily Bertie Wooster yet. Had to have. Love Jeeves.

Cakewalk by Kate Moses. Because I gave my, previous copy to my sister for her birthday, and NEED to have that chocolate chip cookie recipe at hand.

English fantasy writer Diana Wynne Jones passed away March 26 after a long bout of cancer. I feel fortunate to have read her work, which I owe to my dear friend Thalia. I met English Thalia in Philadelphia in the mid-90s, and in the back and forth of new friends who are also book geeks, she lent me The Lives of Christopher Chant, and told me about how she’d read that instead of studying for one of her critical final exams. I devoured that, then quickly sought out Jones’ other work, which was easy to do. DWJ was a prolific writer over several decades, and so popular in England that most of her books were not only still in print, but also available in American editions. Neil Gaiman has said her books were an influence, and J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series has many similarities to it.

Her intelligent and beautifully written fantasies are of seminal importance for their bridging of the gap between “traditional” children’s fantasy, as written by CS Lewis or E Nesbit, and the more politically and socially aware children’s literature of the modern period,

Reading her obituary in the Guardian, I am amazed at authors whose lives she crossed: Arthur Ransome, Beatrix Potter, C.S. Lewis, and Tolkien. And her work now stands deservedly alongside theirs on bookshelves in homes, libraries and bookstores across the world.

If you haven’t yet read Diana Wynne Jones, you are missing wonderful things. I particularly recommend Charmed Life and The Lives of Christopher Chant (in that order), Howl’s Moving Castle, and Deep Secret.

My younger son, 5yo Guppy, has recently become enamored of baby loons. He saw a picture of a baby taking a ride on its mama’s back in a book and hasn’t stopped talking about them since. So when I saw Loon Baby, written by Molly Beth Griffin and illustrated by Anne Hunter, on display at Magers & Quinn, I showed it to him and asked if he’d like me to get it for him. I had trouble prying it away from him so the bookseller could ring it up. We read it at bedtime, and he took it to bed with him. You can see the result, above.

Loon Baby is a sweet story about a mother loon and her baby out on the lake. The mother goes for food, but the baby is too small to dive, so can’t go with her. When she is gone a long time, he worries, then becomes lost. Only when he begins to cry is his mother able to find him and they return home to their warm nest on the lake.

I’m a Minnesotan now, so the setting of a north woods lake fills me with longing for a trip to the shore. The text doesn’t rhyme, but has distinct rhythms that make it a pleasure to read aloud.

Loon Baby waited
and floated
and paddled in circles.
The breeze ruffled his fluff.

The art, a combination of watercolors and ink, is beautifully colored and crosshatched for texture. The baby loon is nothing short of adorable. Or, as Guppy says, “CUUUUUTE!”

It does, however, bear more than passing similarities to other missing-mother-bird stories, especially Come Along, Daisy and Owl Babies, two long-time favorites in our family. The family bookshelf has more than enough room for ones as charmingly told and illustrated as Loon Baby. But could we have a move away from the absent-mother-and-worried/lost-child motif, please?

I am not an efficient or effective purger. My husband is actively opposed to purging. And since the birth of now 5yo Guppy, our house has gone into a slow, steady decline in neatness and cleanliness. I’ve vowed to clean and organize before; my organization tab on this blog is from 2007 (*wince*).

This time, I think I really mean it. I have two cleared horizontal surfaces to show for it. Fingers crossed that I can keep this up.

The magazine table, before (covered with things to donate):

Magazine table, after:

Entry table, with five years of accumulated non-urgent mail (keep in mind, none of this is quite junk, either; I’m on the DMA’s do-not mail list plus recycle anything that’s obvious. This is all the non-obvious stuff, mostly financial statements):

Entry table, after:

Two of my favorite books to read to my sons are about eggs. One is a classic, Bread and Jam for Frances:

It was breakfast time,
and everyone was at the table.
Father was eating his egg.
Mother was eating her egg.
Gloria was sitting in a high chair and eating her egg, too.
Frances was eating bread and jam.
“What a lovely egg!” said Father.

Frances the badger does not like eggs, or most other foods. She asks for bread and jam instead. But when she begins to receive bread and jam at every meal, Frances learns the perils of getting what you want. This book has so many things: charming pictures by Lillian Hoban, an amusing, yet gently instructive tale by her then-husband Russell Hoban, several songs about jam, and (as Kate Moses pointed out in her touching memoir Cakewalk) a story about food and its role in a happy family. My mom read this to us when my sisters and I were girls, and she made up tunes to go to the songs, just as I’ve done for my sons.

The second book was given to us by my sister Ruthie some years ago. It’s the deceptively simple Two Eggs, Please written by Sarah Weeks and illustrated by Doreen Cronin, the illustrator of the Click, Clack Moo books. It’s 2 a.m. in a downtown diner. A brown bear is in the kitchen, a red fox is out front. One by one, customers trickle in; they include a taxi-driving rhino, an upright-bass playing mouse whose band has probably just finished a set when the bar closed, a construction worker ram, and a homeless alligator and his pet snake. What do they all want? Two eggs, please. (And the “please” is pleasingly repeated.) They each get a nice, big cup of coffee but the egg orders are all different. The chef is shown breaking two eggs, one brown, one white, and both the same on the inside. The simple, timeless message told with charming pictures and few words moves me every time, and I only hope its deeper message is planted and growing inside my boys, even as they enjoy the simplistic portrayal of a late night diner counter.

I eat the same breakfast every morning: a cherry pomegranate toaster pastry and a cappuccino. About two hours later, I’m finally hungry for something more substantial, and that’s when I usually cook an egg. As often as we can, we get our eggs from one of Guppy’s preschool teachers, whose grandmother keeps chickens out in the country. Check out this yolk: half as high as a golf ball, and yellow-orange like a hot sun. These are eggs from happy chickens.

And from another recent morning, one of Guppy’s and my favorite second breakfasts: a bacon/cheese scramble alongside toast with a great deal of butter (hat tip, Mercy Watson books):

Note that I’m eating the heels of the bread, as the three other people in this family refuse to. Am I eating their leavings, or fortifying myself with the part of the bread that has the most nutrients?

At The Morning News, Victor LaValle’s “Scribble,” on books as objects, with a good story about getting turned down by a woman:

I shut the book. “Can I borrow this?”

She smiled and put her hand on my shoulder–so nice!–and said, “No.”

I almost dropped the book. It bobbled between my hands so she grabbed it from me and slipped it back onto the shelf, right where it had been before.

As I mentioned in my last post, having multiple books groups as the Tournament of Books approaches does not help me curb my predilection for book buying.

The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, as I’ve not read it, and this edition has a new essay by the author.

The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson, winner of last year’s Man Booker prize, a contestant in the ToB, and literature about religion.

I have been going to the same dentist office for 12 years. The previous dentist retired, and a new one bought his practice. They know our family, and can even say which son’s teeth seem like which parent’s. Best of all, right downstairs is one of the best Half Price Books in the area. (I worked there 12 years ago, which is why I started seeing that dentist.)

No trip is complete without a stop before or after to the bookstore. This stack of four was me restraining myself.The combination of The Morning News Tournament of Books, plus the new book group I’ve started, in which we’re reading fiction with themes of religion and mythology, hits me right in my vulnerable, compulsive book-buying spot. These I’m considering for the book group:

Bee Season by Myla Goldberg
A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller, Jr.
Lamb by Christopher Moore
Lady Oracle by Margaret Atwood

After the bookstore, I go to Rustica bakery for an excellent coffee drink (macchiato nowadays) and their bittersweet chocolate cookies. Post-bookstore Rustica is one of my very happiest places.

Depending on how the author writes, I can either loathe the mention of food in books, or be so enamored of it that I get hungry and promptly want what’s being described.

Two series in which the many food references didn’t work for me were in Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, and in George R.R. Martin’s Song of Fire and Ice series, beginning serialization on HBO this month with A Game of Thrones. In the Larsson books, I lost count of how many sandwiches, cups of coffee, and frozen Billy’s pizza were consumed. None of them sounded appetizing. Only dull and repetitive.

Ditto the food in the Song of Fire and Ice books. The food, along with what characters were wearing, was described so many times, and in such unnecessary detail, that I gave up partway through the third book, and am now afraid to pick up the series again as many fans fear Martin is going to die before he finishes the fifth book, which isn’t even the last in the series. And while the food, sauces and serving styles were repeated ad nauseum, vegetables are pretty much nowhere, something I noticed after reading Diana Wynne Jones’ Tough Guide to Fantasy Books. Meat: yes! Fruit: sometimes. Vegetables or salad? No way.

Two recent books had me salivating, though. Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books, especially The Likeness, mentioned so many types of biscuits (cookies) so often that I now have both ginger lemon and chocolate cream in the house. Hollis Henry’s description of broasted potatoes from William Gibson’s Spook Country made me long for them. Hubertus Bigend in Zero History recommends The Full English breakfast a few times, so I ate baked beans with my eggs and toast all last week and am considering whether I want to go to Anchor Fish and Chips for the Full Whack. (Yes, you can get a Full Irish in Minneapolis!)

What food in what recent books has made you hungry, or horrified?

I recently finished reading the newest translation of Madame Bovary. A Julian Barnes article on translation made me wonder at the recent hype, and this piece on translated works at Boston.com articulated the question that had been nagging at me:

We have been imbibing “Bovary,’’ “Zhivago,’’ “War and Peace,’’ and a host of other classics quite peaceably for decades. Is it possible that the lust for lucre, rather than the luster of literary merit, drives this rush to push new/old product onto the shelves?

Certainly the “new!” aspect of it makes it seem more desirable, and gets more press. But I’m now suspicious, and wondering if I haven’t been duped. Link from Blog of a Bookslut.

I recently read Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd. Because the text of the editions vary, and because I wanted to read more about the book, I borrowed two other editions from the library and picked up yet another used. I thought it might be useful to share the pros and cons I found of each edition. Keep in mind I’m not a formal scholar, but an auto-didactic home reader; these are impressions of the whole book, not rigorous reviews.

The New York Public Library collector’s edition Far from the Madding Crowd is a lovely small hardcover with a dust jacket. Included are all illustrations by Helen Paterson from the original serial publication, as well as photos of Hardy and hand-written pieces by him and Virginia Woolf, whose father, Leslie Stephen, was Hardy’s editor. It has a well-written introduction but does not specify which edition this volume was based on, or who wrote the introduction and the notes, such as this cranky one on Michael Millgate’s 1971 Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist:

Still the single best study of Hardy’s fiction, written with clarity and grace, back in those ancient days, well before postmodernism began to motor through “the text,” which one Hardy deconstructor has rather alarmingly described as “a fissured, riven, deranged, unstable linguistic terrain.”

If this edition had notes, foot- or end-, I would have appreciated it. There are many archaic, rustic terms and Biblical and mythical references. I wished for more information, so read the notes from other editions.

The Norton Critical Edition Far from the Madding Crowd has a brief forward, followed by the novel with footnotes. After the novel are nearly 200 pages of background and criticism. I appreciated reading excerpts from several authors about many aspects of the book, but wished for a more edited selection. As an object, the book has no charm in form or feel. It felt like something I would only buy if I had to.

The Modern Library Far from the Madding Crowd is a trade paperback with a good but brief introduction by Margaret Drabble. Notes are at the end, by chapter and a reading group guide is included. Reasonably priced, this would be a good selection for a book group.

The Penguin Classics Far From the Madding Crowd has a very different text from the other three, which were based on later editions of the novel that had been much edited by Hardy. The Penguin edition contains a version of the original manuscript prior to its being edited (some would say, censored) and published as a serial; note the capital F in From in the Penguin title (me, rolling my eyes.) The Penguin is a substantively different edition than what most readers are familiar with–ones edited by Hardy later in life. I compared one of the key chapters (42). While there was much edited out in the other editions, I felt the later version was more suspenseful and less mawkish than the original. It has endnotes and a glossary, as well as a good introduction, but this seems for scholars and completists more than the average reader.

An interesting oops: I reserved a copy of Far from the Madding Crowd from the Oxford Bookworms series, hoping it would be a student version of the Oxford World Classics series, which I like. Instead, it’s an illustrated re-telling, probably intended for kids who don’t want to read the actual book.

I have not seen a copy from my favorite series, the Oxford World Classics Far from the Madding Crowd, but suspect this would be like the Modern Library edition–a good edition, introduction and set of notes.

There is a well-regarded film version, Far from the Madding Crowd (1967) starring Julie Christie, and a Masterpiece Theater Far from the Madding Crowd (1998).

This bookshelf is sad because everyone (except me!) has an e-reader:

My friend Big Brain pointed out Tamara Drewe, a graphic novel, to me when I was in the comic shop last week.

I’d heard of the film (which has received mostly mediocre reviews) but he said the GN was well reviewed, which is almost understatement when I looked at the blurbs on the back. They are from reputable sources and aren’t stinting in their praise.

Posy Simmonds is a graphic artist who has done children’s books, this and a previous graphic novel, Gemma Bovery, and more. Tamara Drewe the book is a modern retelling of Thomas Hardy’s Far From the Madding Crowd. The setting is the English countryside, at a retreat for writers. I haven’t read the Hardy, but am now interested in it because of this engaging homage.

Simmonds combines the art, prose passages, faux tabloid excerpts and word bubbles to great effect. This is absolutely a whole that is more than the sum of its parts, in other words, a skilled execution of the medium of the graphic novel, made all the more engaging by its involving story and broad cast of characters.

Tamara of the title tempts all the men when she returns to the neighborhood. She begins a rocky relationship, but continues to attract attention from the men and bored teens in the neighborhood. Other’s stories circle around hers. Beth oversees the writers retreat, while her novelist husband Nicholas earns fame and money to make it popular. One of the residents, Glen, is long at work on his academic novel. Local Andy Cobb is trying to start an organic farm, and helps out on the grounds of the retreat. Two local girls, Casey and Jody, goggle at Tamara and her boyfriend and get into a variety of trouble.

Having recently read two 19th century novels, Villette and Madame Bovary, I found this work very much in the same spirit. Many characters, many characters, with crossovers and coincidences tying everything together in complex and interesting ways. Unlike the other two books, though, it didn’t contain any digs at the Jesuits. It’s beautifully illustrated, and is much more than an illustrated novel. Highly recommended, and I’ll be seeking out both Simmonds’ other work and potentially the Hardy because of it.

One piece of minutiae: Glen Larson is an American, yet used two phrases that didn’t ring true to me. He called his sweaters “knits” at one point, and referred to himself a few times as a “pantyhose.” If the latter is indeed English slang (I thought it was pantywaist, not pantyhose) then both are easily explained as Glen picking up English slang while he’s there. But if were speaking American, he would say sweaters and refer to himself as a douchebag.

Another, and this is me being especially nerdy. The main character’s name reminded me of Nancy Drew, one of the fictional characters for whom I took the name of this weblog. Glen’s last name is Larson, the same as Glen A. Larson, the man who produced the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys mystery show that was a huge cultural moment of my childhood. A strange coincidence?

A third thing that struck me: the heroine of Hardy’s novel is Bathsheba Everdene. I’m currently reading The Hunger Games, whose main character is Katniss Everdeen. Again, strange coincidence, or just mega-geekery on my part?

Last night, Twin Cities book group Books and Bars held its first event at the Aster Cafe, a discussion of John Jodzio’s short-story collection If You Lived Here You’d Already Be Home, published by local Replacement Press. Previously held on 2nd Tuesdays at the Bryant Lake Bowl, Books and Bars is trying for twice a month meetings, with 4th Tuesdays at the Aster. It was a warm spot on a blustery night, and the food and service are both good, plus beer and cheese were at happy hour prices.

First was a discussion. Folks mostly said positive things, though whether this was because Jodzio’s mother and in laws were there, I’m not sure. Some felt the stories ended too soon, others, like me, appreciated their light touch, empathy, and lurking hopefulness, so often missing in current short stories, often intent on portraits of misery.

After the discussion, Jodzio arrived and read three stories he’s been working on. If you have a chance to see him live, do so. He’s funny and a good reader of his own work. He also, as in his stories, knows the benefit of keeping things short.

I look forward to reading the stories again to see what details might surface, and this collection inspired me to reconsider my slight aversion to short stories, and give them a second chance, particularly ones by Amy Hempel, Denis Johnson, and Lorrie Moore.

If you’re a Twin City dweller, consider checking out Books and Bars if you haven’t. Upcoming selections are:

Date: Tuesday, November 9th

Book: To Kill a Mockingbird / Author: Harper Lee

Location: Bryant-Lake Bowl / Doors: 6:00 pm / Discussion: 7:00 pm

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Date: Tuesday, November 23rd

Books: The Hunger Games Trilogy: The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, Mockingjay / Author: Suzanne Collins

Location: Aster Cafe / Doors: 6:00 pm / Discussion: 7:00 pm

Call Aster Cafe for table reservations: 612-379-3138

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Date: Tuesday, December 14th

Book: Await Your Reply / Author: Dan Chaon

Location: Bryant-Lake Bowl / Doors: 6:00 pm / Discussion: 7:00 pm

I got there early for the the Books and Bars Skype chat with Jonathan Tropper, author of this week’s selection This is Where I Leave You. What follows contain spoilers, so read only if you’ve already read the book.

Unsurprisingly, Tropper (pronounced TROPE-er) has a dry sense of humor, though it’s not quite as dark in person as it is in his book, which chronicles a 30-something man, Judd Foxman. Judd’s wife cheated and left him, he lost his job because of it, and his father died and requested the family gather for a week to sit shiva. Wacky hijinks ensue.

Early drafts of the novel only had Judd’s wife leaving. Tropper been writing about the family and realized he liked the characters, and needed to invent a reason for them to exist. Once Tropper realized he wanted to spotlight the family the idea of shiva occurred to him. In one day, he converted Judd’s family to Judaism and killed their father. That was a pretty productive writing day for him, he said.

Existence was the question Tropper started with. If you take a guy who lives in the suburbs who doesn’t have a wife or a job, does he exist? Eventually, though, the novel became about a series of departures: Judd’s wife, father and job all leave him stranded, and he has to figure out where to go from there.

Tropper confirmed one place Judd doesn’t go: back to his ex-wife Jen. Many B & B attendees hoped they’d get back together, but Tropper pointed to the scene in which Judd gets out of bed with her as a defining moment for the character. Will he end up with Penny, then, others wondered. Only after he makes a lot of bad decisions and screws up a lot, said Tropper.

Another common question was “Do men REALLY think like they do in the book?” i.e., with women as sexual objects and opportunities for infidelity. Tropper’s response was, “of all the men I know…yes.” He said it was important to him to write about marriage and infidelity, as well as about situational morality. Were some infidelities more understandable than others? (Yes, most readers agreed.) He hazarded the infidelity rate at 50% (equating it to the divorce rate, probably) and said two of the Foxman siblings were unfaithul, two weren’t. Yet by another accounting, there wasn’t one faithful relationship of all those included. In spite of the male protagonist and the rampant infidelity, Tropper says most of the novel’s readers have been women, and he’s gotten very few angry emails about his characters being sexist.

Further, he noted, whatever the Foxman clan may be, they aren’t dysfunctional, which came as a surprise to this reader. He elaborated by noting there had been no type of abuse in the family. They were simply bad at communicating, and forced into the unnatural group experience of sitting shiva. What family would succeed in that circumstance? He thought them typical, though I think this is a stretch.

Tropper is working now on the screenplay for a movie adaptation. He’s worked on many projects, but says none have yet come to the screen, so he’s cautiously optimistic. He said Greg Berlanti (of Brothers and Sisters and the recently very badly reviewed Life As We Know It) is involved, and the idea of Paul Rudd (!) as Judd has been mentioned.

At the Boston Globe, (HT The Morning News), “Lost Libraries,” the strange, sad fate of many authors’ libraries:

Most people might imagine that authors’ libraries matter–that scholars and readers should care what books authors read, what they thought about them, what they scribbled in the margins. But far more libraries get dispersed than saved.

My attempt to read 15 books in 15 days and review them in 15 blog posts begins tomorrow, since you may have had to spend today wrangling with your taxes. How serious am I about this? I turned down a friend’s offer of Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.

Tomorrow, Friday April 16, 2010: read a book

Saturday, April 17, 2010: blog about it, then come here to the entry for the day and post your link in the comments.

Lather, rinse, repeat for the next 15 days, finishing last book on 4/30, blogging about it on 5/1.

Reposting with its own entry:

I want to read Neal Stephenson’s The Baroque Cycle this summer. Quicksilver, The Confusion and System of the World are about 900 pages each.

With an average of 20 pages a day, we could get through the first two. With thirty pages a day, we’d get through them all from June to August. But 30 pp a day plus other reading is a big commitment, I know.

I had a great time reading Infinite Jest with a group last summer, and enjoyed the accomplishment of tackling such a big project. But that was only 74 pp a week plus footnotes, not 210, so it’s a big difference, though my husband G. Grod assures me the BC is a much faster read than IJ (unsurprising, right?)

What do you think?

Reposting with its own entry:

In honor of the woman profiled in the New York Times last year, who read a book a day for a year and blogged each one, I propose reading a book a day from your shelf starting Friday, April 16 (the day after US taxes are due, so you should have a little more time plus be in a frugal mindset) till April 30, 2010 and blogging a review, however brief, the next day, starting Saturday, the 17th.

I would post my entries the night before, so you could link each day starting the 17th in the comments, through May 1, 2010.

Does this sound good to anyone?

I’m afraid coming up with a logo, spreading the word far and wide, and setting up a group on a site like Good Reads is just too much for me, now, though I’m happy to take advice or help on these from more seasoned book challenge folks.