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Vicarious Teenage Literary Angstiness and a Very Shallow Pool

July 1, 2011 By 4 Comments

But I mean that in a good way.

Here’s how I am I spending my summer:

I wake up, make coffee, slob around the house a bit, rouse my offspring from their sound sleep – much to their vociferous dismay – to get dressed and eat some damn breakfast already, drive to the pool, and park my butt in a deck chair under a big umbrella.  And there I sit for about three hours while my kids have swim practice and then frolic in the heavily chlorinated pool with their friends.  And while I sit, I drink more coffee with my friend Tara and discuss Very Important Matters.  Such as which pool dad might actually be a secret agent.  And what is really involved in a Brazilian bikini wax.  And how good the new kind of yogurt with the two flavors mixed together is, because really, the one with the chocolate and the raspberry together?  Wow.

When I’m not wrangling these Very Important Matters, I’m sometimes reading books.  I’ve finished re-reading fifteen of the sixteen Janet Evanovich books in preparation for reading number seventeen which just came out, which I think pretty much guarantees my spot in the trash reading Hall of Fame as well as the OCD Hall of Fame to say nothing of the Please Get Over This Thing With The Secret Agents Already (sort of explains the pool dad thing, yes?) Hall of Fame, as well as a few books for work, and approximately thirty-eight women’s magazines in order to maintain the appropriate balance of self-loathing and feelings of mediocrity and poor body image poolside.

I also read a book that I would normally not have picked up, had the lovely people at Penguin, via BlogHer, not sent to me, Whatever Happened to Goodbye, by Sarah Dessen.  Sarah Dessen has written a veritable truckload of young adult novels and I am forever seeing teenage girls with their noses buried in one of them.  I’ve never read any of them, but now that I have, I see why they are ever ubiquitous.  I wrote about the book at BlogHer, and I would be thrilled and delighted if you’d head on over via clicky clicky and read the review.  In short, I said it was well written, authentic, and, if I do say so myself, I happen to know a thing or two about teenagers, so you can take that to the bank.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to some Very Important Matters – like whether it’s more important to have well shaped eyebrows or perfectly manicured toes.  Feel free to leave your opinion in the comments.

Peace.

Love.

Deep thoughts.

Wear sunscreen.

 

Filed Under: Facts of Life, Keeping it Real, On the Nightstand, Virtually Well Read Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Dost Thou Have a Washroom?

April 26, 2011 By 3 Comments

I don’t remember what movie that’s from.  but I kept saying it to myself while I read Geraldine Brooks‘  hotly anticipated latest novel, Caleb’s Crossing.

What?! Sayeth thou. But that book isn’t out yet!

A ha.  I got an advance copy from BlogHer, specifically so that I could review it.

And review it I did.

I made all kinds of pithy and wise observations, such as the fact that the main character is “like the Massachusetts Colony’s own Jo March or Elizabeth Bennet,” in that she represents the smart, willfull, outspoken young woman archetype.  Also, I noted that “The interweaving of themes, feminism, racism, elitism, theism, naturalism, all kinds of other isms is coherent and seamless.”

I was hugely distracted by the language, however, hence my “dost thou have a washroom” fixation.  This may or may not be my problem; but it was enough of a problem that I’m still talking about it.

I said more than that which I have quoted, excuse me, quoteth, above, and you should go read it. HERE.  Now. 

I thanketh thou.

Filed Under: On the Nightstand, Virtually Well Read Tagged With: , ,

13 Ways of Looking at A Newspaper

September 27, 2010 By 4 Comments

You know how sometimes you go see a movie that’s been adapted from a book you’d previously read and you go, “Huh.  It was good, but I liked the book better”?

Tom Rachman’s novel, The Imperfectionists, has been (rather famously) picked up by Brad Pitt (hence the “rather famously”) to be adapted into a film.  After I finished reading it last night I had a thought I have never once had before after reading a literary work.  Namely, “That’s going to be a much better movie than a novel.”

I’ve read novels that were clearly written to be adapted into film, but this was something else altogether.  I lay awake for about two hours trying to figure out that “altogether” was, and I think I got it. I also revised my initial reaction, because while I do think it’s going to be a better movie than novel, it’s an entirely worthwhile read.

The Imperfectionists is a work of literature, it’s not just fiction.  It has great literary merit.  Rachman can write.  Unlike other literary novels, however, The Imperfectionists…how do I say this without sounding like an ass or a moron or both because I’m either hugely stupid and oblivious and naive or just plain wrong or obnoxiously arrogant but OK, here goes deep breath…has no point.  It has no theme, no message. 

But, and this is the crucial point, that’s OK.  And this is why it will work so well as a movie.  Rachman has written an imagist novel.   The work consists of vignettes and sketches that may cover a day, a week, a month but are functionally freeze-frame snapshots of character and mood and tone and setting.   Petals on a wet, black bough.  A red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens.  Stars wheel in purple, yours is not so rare.

Which all means, to me anyway, that The Imperfectionists is a bit of a masterpiece.  Because right now, today, book closed and a few miles away on the floor next to my bed, I can see everyone of those people, the newsroom, the cafes in Rome, the looks on faces, the piercing stares, the breath-catching pain and shock at the recognition of the voice at the other end of the phone, the hotel room, the old lady granny underpants, the dusty paintings in the villa, all of it. 

Read it.  You’ll see it, too.

Filed Under: Mama Like, On the Nightstand, Virtually Well Read Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,