The Dark Side

I Am The Cheese - Robert Cormier (Dell-Laurel Leaf, 1977)

First of all, my boy Corey Perry just won the Hart Trophy for League MVP. I'm a whole mess of happy about that. But I won't let that distract me from my book review.

It starts with Twitter, and the #YASaves trending topic that got big a few weeks back after a WSJ article posited YA lit today was darker than in past years, and even dangerous. (I am oversimplifying.) Anyway, the response was immediate and severe. The consensus: YA literature helps teens navigate the perils of adolescence, and adults who write for the WSJ need to calm the eff down. (Again, oversimplifying.)

I had a few discussions arising from some RTs of mine. A friend told me that while reading the article, he was reminded how I Am The Cheese was a really powerful book, that stuck with him. I decided to read (or maybe re-read?) it. Which I did on Monday night.

It's powerful stuff, this book. Adam's story is revealed in alternating chapters. His solo bicycle journey from his hometown to a Vermont town 70 miles away, where his father is in the hospital, and then the transcripts of taped sessions between him and a shadowy doctor of some sort, who is asking questions about his past. It quickly becomes clear that something in his life went dramatically awry, both recently and in his very early childhood. You fear for Adam, and reading this now, an adult, all my maternal instincts kicked in. I was troubled that I was obviously too late to protect this child.

1977, and this is dark. Apparently not as graphically dark as what's out there today. But powerful. Harmful? I doubt it.

Speaking of the impact of YA, another discussion led to Lois Duncan.... My friend brought up Don't Look Behind You, a 1990 novel about a girl whose family is in the Witness Protection Program. Of course I remember this book! I must have read it a bunch of times. But the one that stuck with me more is Stranger with My Face, the novel that introduced me to the concept of astral projection, and also terrified me away from ever being willing to give it a try. (Wimp.) Are these books still being read?

Before I wrap up, I want to mention that the books that stuck with me the most are the scary ones. I bet this isn't uncommon. And I wonder how much it relates to the central thesis of Bruno Bettelheim's The Uses of Enchantment, namely that dark tales enable children to safely grapple with their fears. I am sure there is plenty of scholarly literature out there on the topic. Maybe one of these days I'll do a little more searching. For now, just speculation....

Or, How I Found Love Thanks to a Bluebird

Goodnight Tweetheart - Teresa Medeiros (Gallery Books, 2011)

It is getting to be the case that I can't read a serious book without having its lighthearted companion on the nightstand with it. And this was on an endcap at the library. I'm sure David Foster Wallace would appreciate the fact that while I was reading a novel that is in so many ways a meditation on presence and paying attention, I was also starting a short romance about Twitter, which is essentially a paean to short attention spans.

Abby is a writer who had an amazing breakout novel, and who is suffering less from sophomore slump and more from a crippling case of writer's block. Her agent puts her on Twitter so she can connect with fans and keep her name out there. And she immediately meets a guy, a literature professor. And most of the novel is the DM (direct message) banter between them. Lots of pop culture references, lots of flirtation, lots of ... well, mainly just flirtatious pop culture references.

There is a deeper undercurrent, of family and love and loss and connections and how they are difficult and frustrating and all that. And of course escapism, which is one of Twitter's strong suits. How does Twitter enable us to get away from who and where we are? And can that be a good thing? How strong of a connection can you really form with someone who you met in spurts of 140 characters? I spend a lot - a lot - of time on Twitter, so these are questions I've spent some time pondering. Answers? I might still need to get back to you on that.

Wrapping Up: Peace, after War

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Volume Four & the Epilogue

How much do I love that Tolstoy writes a two-part epilogue almost 100 pages long? (Not a lot actually. It's so him, and that I love, but if I were his editor, part two of the epilogue would be long gone.)

Volume Four is mostly about what happens to the French (and Russian) armies after Napoleon occupies Moscow and then up and leaves, retreating all the way back to France, army in tatters. Tolstoy has a LOT to say about this, and about what caused the retreat, and how the Russians "won" by losing. This all can be mostly summed up here: "Only unconscious activity bears fruit, and a man who plays a role in a historical event never understands its significance. If he attempts to understand it, he is struck with fruitlessness."

This also gives him a chance to do what he seems to love best, which is to make fun of historians. He also shares his opinions on doctors, and on "intelligent" women - who are juxtaposed with "real women, endowed with the ability to select and absorb all the best of what a man has to show." (Yes, I almost threw my book across the room here.)

But you forgive Tolstoy. Because he is big and expansive, creating a whole world that is larger than life. Sometimes when I think of him, I think of Whitman.

Other things happen too. There are a few major deaths, a couple marriages. The epilogue takes us into the future and lays the groundwork for what I understand was the original plan for W&P: understanding how the Decembrists (not these guys) became the Decembrists.

I was dissatisfied with how it all worked out when I read it at 17. This time around, I get it more. It somehow seems more appropriate and right. I don't really begrudge the characters their actions anymore, although I wish I could have seen the alternate world where you'd get my happy ending. It probably wouldn't have been especially happy, after all.

And the last of the Twittering, where it's clear I lost a lot of steam:

• Turns out that if your sister is engaged to a dude, it's not okay for you to get involved with the same dude's sister.
• On the other hand, if then that guy were to die....
• "The war was being conducted against all the rules (as if there existed some sort of rules for killing people)."
• "But pure, perfect sorrow is as impossible as pure and perfect joy."

Volume 3: The Big Battle

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (trans. by Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky) (Alfred A. Knopf, 2007)

Volume Three

This whole section is pretty much the lead up to the Battle of Borodino and the resulting (despite a result that has to be considered a draw) Russian retreat past Moscow, ceding the ancient capital to Napoleon. In the midst of long philosophical musings by Tolstoy about how war is outrageously crazy but wheels get set in motion and none of us can really do anything about it (no matter how the history books later spin it), our characters recover - or don't - from the upheaval that ended Volume Two, they seek revenge, they move around and seek places where they feel at home.

Pierre, a la Forrest Gump, ends up right in the middle of the Battle of Borodino. Because of course he does.

Some things that happen in these 300 pages...
Tolstoy waits until page 603 to call war "an event .... contrary to human reason and the whole of human nature." [By the way, based on the complexities with which he describes people and human nature, does he really believe this?]

Tolstoy explains that the Russians fleeing Moscow essentially led to Napoleon's retreat and humiliation. He counters this act of patriotism to "the killing of children to save the fatherland." ... I would love to know what Tolstoy would have to say about the Soviets in World War II (aka The Great Fatherland War).

And all this, according to my Twitter feed:
"Everyone wished more to listen than to speak." This seems unlikely. Also, for Tolstoy, unusual.

We *think* we have free will and all, but really we are just cogs in some big master plan of fate. Even Napoleon.

Also. it's really easy to pick out evidence after the fact to justify your interpretation. This is why historians are lame.

It's kind of amazing how much I like Tolstoy considering how annoyed I get by half of what he says.

Chaotic Battle of Borodino today in #WandP. Reminds me of this poem: http://www.poetry-archive.com/s/grass.html

Tolstoy takes two pages to say: Correlation does not equal causation. (This is why #WandP is 1215 pages long.)

At the end of Volume 3, Moscow is burning, Pierre is in jail(ish), but the love story might be back on. Yay?

More tweeting Tolstoy

What I had to say about Volume 2, in 140 character snippets...

I know you haven't been missing my #WandP tweets, but they are back anyway.

Love & death are capricious.

Also, "Vera's observation was correct, as were all her observations; but, like most ... this one made everyone feel awkward."

Russian nobles can be really depressing. And Masons have a bunch of wacky rituals.

"She was in that highest degree of happiness when a person ... does not believe in the possibility of evil, unhappiness, and grief."

Tolstoy, did you just call the military sanctioned idleness? OH SNAP.

I am trying to picture how fat Pierre Bezukhov is supposed to be. Having trouble.

The end of Volume 2 of #WandP is like reading a train wreck. Why is everybody so vain/proud/foolish/sexually-frustrated/etc?

And now I'm in a bad mood. Thank you Tolstoy.

Tweeting Tolstoy

During my reading of Volume One, I also shared regular thoughts on my Twitter feed. Here they are... (hashtags removed except where integral to the tweet)

"If the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy" --Isaac Babel

Feeling far more sympathetic to Pierre Bezukhov than I remembered.

If Prince Andrei turns out to be like Ethan Hawke in Reality Bites, I'm going to be pissed.

I imagine it comes as no surprise that I think War < Peace.

Andrei Bolkonsky is maybe not as awesome as I remember. (I think this is going to be a major theme of my #WandP tweeting.)

chai at Panera and #WandP (Napoleon is winning.)

The aftermath of battle: "All this was so strange, so unlike what he had hoped for."

"He was sincerely beginning to believe in his extraordinary kindness and his extraordinary intelligence..."

"... the more so because, deep in his heart, it had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and very intelligent."

The thought of battle makes soldiers emo. Also? Apparently the emperor is like Jesus or something.

Battles make for all sorts of confusion. And overblown prose. Thus ends Volume One.

My unfortunate new obsession

I love Twitter, the web/text/IM 140 character "what are you doing?" application which is apparently sweeping the nation, b/c Barack Obama is now one of my friends.

But a more intriguing friend is TwitterLit, with roughly twice/day posts of first sentences of books. I love this idea. Would that we were all this clever...

Anyway, if you are a Twitterer, feel free to come visit me.