The Summer Before the Dark - Doris Lessing (Knopf, 1973)
Huh. As a non-yet-married third wave feminist without children, I found this book totally foreign. Maybe forty years is a surprisingly long time, or maybe I just haven't made it to the place where I can fully understand how a middle aged woman can have such trouble figuring out her "self" as an identity separate from how she is seen by others.
Kate's husband and children all go off for a long summer. She gets a job as a translator for some NGO that throws conferences and channels all the energies she spent running a household into that. And then with her free months she falls into an affair with a younger man and travels. Except one after another they are afflicted with some sort of illness that is explicitly considered existential as well as physical.
Throughout the course of the novel, Kate has a recurring dream, in which she is trying to rescue a seal. It's crucial that she let the dream run its course, and it has that metaphorical quality dreams do. But whole swaths of the novel felt the same way to me -- I'd be reaching out, trying to grasp the meaning behind what was going on in the moment, but it kept slipping through my fingers. And I was hugely annoyed to not be able to tell whether or not this was Lessing's intention, or if I was just too far away from Kate's existence to be able to understand it.
Monday, March 24, 2014
Creating citizens
History Lessons: How Textbooks from Around the World Portray U.S. History - Dana Lindaman and Kyle Ward (The New Press, 2004)
After a few drinks (and sometimes even before), I have been known to wax philosophical about the role of education in shaping our attitudes and beliefs about our country, our history, and the world. I wrote research papers on it in grad school, it was a big part of why I spent my 20s working in civic education, and I continue to find it utterly fascinating.
So no surprise that a book like this would make its way to me. Honestly, I would have liked the monograph version of this book. The one that was rich with analysis about the different ways international textbooks tell our nation's story, and what that says about their own national identity. And how the differences illustrate what our textbooks say about our own. Instead, Lindaman and Ward present lightly annotated excerpts -- oodles of them -- from an array of nations. They let the books tell the story, which is enlightening, but raised way too many questions for me. How well am I remembering the details of American textbooks? They books are mostly from the mid- to late-1990s -- how are American textbooks of that era different from the ones I read a decade earlier? How are they different today? And how much am I particularly interested in Canadian textbooks and Caribbean ones? How much is their national identity shaped by their different relationship with the United Kingdom? And with the United States itself?
(Oh, and also how interesting was the editors' note, which discussed the difficulties in translating adjectives that literally mean UnitedStates-ian and what relationship do other countries have with the adjective American?)
All of which is to say that this book was really cool. I liked it. But now I want much much much more.
After a few drinks (and sometimes even before), I have been known to wax philosophical about the role of education in shaping our attitudes and beliefs about our country, our history, and the world. I wrote research papers on it in grad school, it was a big part of why I spent my 20s working in civic education, and I continue to find it utterly fascinating.
So no surprise that a book like this would make its way to me. Honestly, I would have liked the monograph version of this book. The one that was rich with analysis about the different ways international textbooks tell our nation's story, and what that says about their own national identity. And how the differences illustrate what our textbooks say about our own. Instead, Lindaman and Ward present lightly annotated excerpts -- oodles of them -- from an array of nations. They let the books tell the story, which is enlightening, but raised way too many questions for me. How well am I remembering the details of American textbooks? They books are mostly from the mid- to late-1990s -- how are American textbooks of that era different from the ones I read a decade earlier? How are they different today? And how much am I particularly interested in Canadian textbooks and Caribbean ones? How much is their national identity shaped by their different relationship with the United Kingdom? And with the United States itself?
(Oh, and also how interesting was the editors' note, which discussed the difficulties in translating adjectives that literally mean UnitedStates-ian and what relationship do other countries have with the adjective American?)
All of which is to say that this book was really cool. I liked it. But now I want much much much more.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Shopgirl
The Makeup Girl - Andrea Semple (Kensington Books, 2005)
The Bridal Season - Connie Brockway (Island Books, 2001)
A Kiss at Midnight - Eloisa James (Avon, 2010)
All of the heroines in this trio of novels are working girls. In Semple's, Faith works at a makeup counter, and also happens to make up most of the facts of her life, including a sexy and successful boyfriend named Adam. But when she meets a guy by the name, she starts to wonder if she can make her lies a reality. Fairly standard British chick list. Breezy, sweet, fun, although the love story feels only partially formed. (Maybe due to the short short chapters? 100 in just over 300 pages.)
Brockway's heroine, Letty, is a song girl on the run, who finds herself masquerading as a celebrated wedding planner to the Victorian elite. Unfortunately the area is under the jurisdiction of a stickler for law and justice. Except she awakens in him desires he thought had long been extinguished, and he gives her hopes of a life more glorious than the one she had eked out in London.
And lastly, there's Kate, or shall we call her Cinderella? She's been hard at work trying to keep her father's estate afloat while her stepmother squanders their wealth on jewels and dresses. Don't even ask why and how Kate ends up (also pretending to be someone else - yay for helpful plot devices) at the English castle of a Prussian prince. He's betrothed to a princess whose money will keep his eclectic collection of relatives afloat and she's not much interested in the arrogant sort. And yet they are drawn like magnets. It can only be flirtation -- both recognize their responsibilities -- until a magical ball leaves them wishing for more. (Oh, plus archeology!)
All three were charming, but I think I may finally need to take a break from the sweets.
The Bridal Season - Connie Brockway (Island Books, 2001)
A Kiss at Midnight - Eloisa James (Avon, 2010)
All of the heroines in this trio of novels are working girls. In Semple's, Faith works at a makeup counter, and also happens to make up most of the facts of her life, including a sexy and successful boyfriend named Adam. But when she meets a guy by the name, she starts to wonder if she can make her lies a reality. Fairly standard British chick list. Breezy, sweet, fun, although the love story feels only partially formed. (Maybe due to the short short chapters? 100 in just over 300 pages.)
Brockway's heroine, Letty, is a song girl on the run, who finds herself masquerading as a celebrated wedding planner to the Victorian elite. Unfortunately the area is under the jurisdiction of a stickler for law and justice. Except she awakens in him desires he thought had long been extinguished, and he gives her hopes of a life more glorious than the one she had eked out in London.
And lastly, there's Kate, or shall we call her Cinderella? She's been hard at work trying to keep her father's estate afloat while her stepmother squanders their wealth on jewels and dresses. Don't even ask why and how Kate ends up (also pretending to be someone else - yay for helpful plot devices) at the English castle of a Prussian prince. He's betrothed to a princess whose money will keep his eclectic collection of relatives afloat and she's not much interested in the arrogant sort. And yet they are drawn like magnets. It can only be flirtation -- both recognize their responsibilities -- until a magical ball leaves them wishing for more. (Oh, plus archeology!)
All three were charming, but I think I may finally need to take a break from the sweets.
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