Thursday, July 26, 2007

READ ALL ABOUT IT: The Shipping News

When I was told under no uncertain circumstances that I must read E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News, I was nervous. Why? I didn't think it wouldn't be good - I've read enough of her stories in the New Yorker, and besides, it won a Pulitzer. So again, why? Because when someone raves to me about a book, I'm always worried that my expectations will be too high, and then I won't enjoy it as much. (Oddly enough, this does not stop me from doing the same thing to friends, family, strangers, etc.)

So my borrowed copy of the book stayed on my shelf roughly forever. Until this past week. And quite honestly, I was entranced. It has this quiet, peaceful energy. I felt very calm while I was reading, even if the particular plot points were not calm indeed. And in my mind I kept comparing Newfoundland to Maine, where I visited last summer. I was infused with a sense of serenity, and slowness. It was lovely.

Proulx is an amazing detailist. As a result, the world of the novel comes through picture perfect. It seems very foreign to a California girl, but utterly believable. And without detracting from the flow of the narrative.

Another point. You want the Quoyle family to find the happiness they so clearly deserve. And so it's a pleasure throughout the book to see them finding it.

Thanks Sophie, for the recommendation!

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Growing Up Groovy and Clueless

...such is the subtitle of Susan Jane Gilman's Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, a book swap find. Gilman is ridiculously quotable, and I came to the end of the book wondering why I hadn't marked some of my favorite quotes to share with you.

She embraces the big personality that so many of us have when we aren't too scared to show it. Or at least, she does enough of the time. And her experiences - so like what we've all been through (except the big breasts, I never had to deal with that) are poignant and ridiculous and very very real.

All of which is preface to the line that comes at the tail end of the book, where she writes of her first days sticking out like a sore thumb in Geneva: "No matter what I did, everything about me was quintessentially American. On the streets of Geneva, I was an enormous, star-spangled, overzealous puppy." And who hasn't felt like that?

Also of note is the blurb by Frank McCourt. Mainly b/c you eventually find that Gilman went to Stuyvesant. And if I remember correctly, McCourt taught there. Was she one of his students? Are any of my teachers off becoming famous? (If so, let me know.)

I'm pretty sure most women can relate to some part of Gilman's book. For me, it was mostly her childhood, growing up the daughter of hippies and also a drama queen. But one who also tried to escape the notice of her Mean Girl fellow students. For others, it may be the rock OBSESSIONS of her teenage years and the gossiping about every "romantic" encounter. College seemed pretty familiar to me. And I'm still young enough that I'm working on my 20s and early 30s. I hope it turns out well for me too... :)

Monday, July 09, 2007

Statistics

A sampling of the reading facts surrounding my life these days:

  • Number of books in my bedroom waiting to be read: 47 (auspicious)
  • Number of books in my "Books to Check Out" list: 51
  • Current New Yorker issue: May 14, 2007
  • Favorite "innovators" from said issue: Richard Branson and Banksy
  • Most recent book finished: Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri
  • Number of stories in IoM: 9 (also auspicious)
  • Time finished: approx. 7:05pm on Monday night
  • Thoughts on said book: Marriages are fickle and difficult things; being an old and single woman sucks; culture shock is a big big big problem - both India to America and vice versa; who goes by the nickname Twinkle???
  • Other thoughts: Lahiri is a lovely writer, and has luscious, evocative detail - but all of the stories are tinged with sadness. It's a lot of sad to take all at once.
  • Number of Guggenheim Fellowships won by Lahiri: One
  • Number of Guggenheims won by me: None (yet)
  • Shoulder blade currently more sunburned: Left
  • Most surprising vocabulary today: Repository (context: "This folder will be the repository of your paperwork... repository? Did I just say repository?!")
  • Next book: hmmm, I think it'll be a surprise.

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Him Her Him Again The End (!) of Him

[Exclamation point mine]

It happens rarely enough that I'm always a little giddy when it does happen. It? you ask. It is one of my favorite reading experiences, namely reading something that makes me laugh or otherwise react aloud. This is particularly amusing (to me) in public.

Aside: the summer after I graduated from high school, I read War and Peace, because I am a big nerd. I was utterly in love with Prince Andrei - we had a deep emotional connection. Anyway, I am in the waiting room at Kaiser, accompanying my grandmother to one or another appointment, and I get to the part where Natasha betrays him. (I'm a little fuzzy on the specific plot point, but I remember a definite sense of betrayal.) How dare she! This is Prince Andrei! So I manage to recall that I'm in public, so my cry of "You hussy bitch!" turned into some sort of strangled grr. (And I still have very strong feelings about how Tolstoy used and discarded this dream man of mine.)

But I digress. On Sunday, after a trek to the Hollywood Farmers Market for reconnaissance (Festival coming up!) I stopped by Groundwork for some iced tea and started reading Him Her Him Again The End of Him by Patricia Marx. (Hmm, I wonder how you punctuate that?) Suffice it to say that in the short time I was there, I stifled laughter several times.

This book is hilarious. It's unsurprising, seeing as how Marx wrote for The Harvard Lampoon and Saturday Night Live. Her heroine is absurd and witty and neurotic and intelligent and ridiculous, and all those things. Like an unabashedly imperfect cousin of Blue Van Meer. While "studying" at Cambridge (but mostly finding ways to procrastinate) she also fixates upon the archetypal preening intellectual, whose all-consuming ego makes him sexy. And over ten years he comes and goes, and strings her along, while she tries with varying levels of success and effort to do something with her life. And deal with a cast of wacky parents, bosses, friends, and colleagues.

But I wanted to share some of my favorite quotes. So despite the growing length of this entry...
*When her father badgers her about making a will: "I was beginning to think that either he knew something I didn't or that he was planning to kill me."

*On we, the reader: "I hope you are not getting fed up with me because, as it happens, I think I'm beginning to like you more and more. You're a good listener. Plus, I bet you have a winning way of turning the page."

*On Eugene, the pompous lover: "he believed that the later work of the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan was derivative of Eugene's early work, which was an audacious theory, in my opinion, since Eugene hadn't entered Lacan's field of work until Lacan was dead."

None of these play as well out of context as they do on the page. (Boo.) But I hope you can read this entry and see how a steady stream of digressions and non sequiturs is exactly my kind of thing. If it's yours too, check out Patricia Marx.

Sunday, July 01, 2007

Book Party!

While I was stressing my way through June, Siel spent a productive month. And she capped it off with a book exchange last night. People have such eclectic tastes in books - the gamut ran from philosophy to Buddhism to memoir to sci fi. I came home with Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, a Pulitzer winner I've been meaning to read.

So thanks Siel for the fantastic party. And the idea - maybe I'll have a book exchange of my own.