April 19, 2006
Prep Afterwords
I read Prep, in a day and a bit because times a wasting. It’s not chick lit. But it’s not really lit either. If anything, it’s really boring and goes on for 400 pages as such. I guess if one has literary aspirations, I would encourage them not to write from a fourteen year old’s point of view. Because otherwise, they feel the need to overcompensate by having the narrator’s adult-self confusingly just start to commentate out of the blue, or have much of the story take place in English classes so several literary themes could be checked. I thought maybe it was just me, because I’m not a fan of YA fiction anymore, but according to amazon reviews, the kids don’t like Prep much either. Perhaps Prep’s biggest letdown was the inconsistency of the narrative voice; was she an adult reflecting on her youth, was she an unreliable narrator who thought she knew it all, was she a young wise cracking Holden Caulfield, was she wise beyond her years? I felt like perhaps SIttenfeld wasn’t sure, because Lee Fiora was a bit of all of that, which was a bit confusing. Also, there was no plot. Things happen, but not for motivating purposes. I sort of wanted her to drop out after sophomore year, just so the book would be over. There was no revelation at the end. And I didn’t come away from the book having learned anything new. Perhaps it’s because it’s centred on high school students- I don’t actually consider high school that defining. It’s formative, but in high school everybody is sort of an idiot, everybody is melodramatic. Its what happens next that really matters. There were some wonderful bits in Prep. Some of the writing was really excellent, but got lost on the density of the text. Lee’s relationship with her parents was poignantly illustrated, and really heartbreaking at times. I was intrigued by some of the stories of the adult secondary characters in Prep, who were more interesting than the teenagers, I thought. And some of the themes were fascinating but there were just too many of them. And perhaps my assessment of Sittenfeld’s book is a bit harsh, but her review of Melissa Bank’s book was so incredibly scathing, and having read Prep I’m not sure exactly where Sittenfeld got off doing that.
April 17, 2006
Prep
Today Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld arrived at the library. I’m excited to read it. Sittenfeld’s provocative review of Melissa Bank’s The Wonder Spot incited a bit of controversy last year. In the review, Sittenfeld posited that “To suggest that another woman’s ostensibly literary novel is chick lit feels catty, not unlike calling another woman a slut”, but of course she did it anyway. Writer Jennifer Weiner suggested that perhaps Sittenfeld’s insecurities about the reception of her own novel were the motivation behind her name calling. And indeed, Curtis Sittenfeld did seem to be kicking and screaming about the “chick lit” label. In every interview I read, every review of the book, Sittenfeld was commenting upon Prep’s “darkness”, that it was “not a beach read”, “too dark for chick lit”, in spite of the pink-accessory-adorned cover. I do understand Sittenfeld’s pain of course; that pink belt must have come on like a punch in the gut. But it seemed like that lady did protest a bit too much. And so now I’ve got the book in hand and will determine for myself whether it’s “chick lit” or not. All for the sake of scholarship. I’ve got one paper down and one more to go. Now reading The Photograph by the ever-wonderful Penelope Lively. Oh, and good news in tax return land. So we’re off to England in September! Moreover, we’ve got a little England heading our way tomorrow in the form of Stuart’s mum!
April 16, 2006
Clockal Embellishments
Pleasant things I saw tonight as I bicycled to the library: the children next door having an Easter Egg hunt, two little girls in dresses wearing rabbit ears, daffodils, and a couple on a tandem bike. Oh, and the sunshine.
Muriel Spark has died. Like Maud Newton, I’ve only read The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Finishing School, but will be taking up The Comforters upon recommendation.
Now reading An Audience of Chairs by Joan Clark. It’s pretty wonderful. And my 51st book of the year.
April 14, 2006
I get a visit from a midge
Zoe Williams quite rightly on misogynistic slang. Although she admits that “It is incredibly unfashionable to object to language and ideas that denigrate women. I’m almost embarrassed; I feel like I’ve left the house wearing something fluorescent.” The marketability of anti-feminism is really quite phenomenal. Incredibly, the Environment Minister censors an Environment Canada scientist from talking about his novel on climate change- though perhaps the problem was his attempt to use his official position to market a work of fiction, but it’s disturbing all the same.
And I must get back to my essay, but first a story. I love it when school floods over into real life. Last night I was writing my paragraph about Annie Dillard’s affinity with insects, and the various way she connects them to writers in The Writing Life. And then suddenly, a tiny insect landed on my book. Something midge-like, as if it had just materialized from Tinker Creek. This is odd, as I really haven’t seen an insect anywhere for about six months. I greeted it familiarly, and watched it flap its wings for a while. There was no “Yeah, flap flap, isn’t it?” but still, for an instant, there was indeed “a glimmer of companionship”. And then it flew away. And perhaps the point of this after all is that we need new window screens, but I am glad it happened all the same.
Now for Easter Weekend. For a secular fundamentalist such as myself, Easter Weekend involves chocolate (but not chocolate bunnies if I can help it, because of Miffy) and visits with family. And we’ve got plenty of family coming round in the next few days- in-laws and… outlaws (?)
And please, run, don’t walk, down to your local book dispenser and pick up Mean Boy by Lynn Coady. If you’ve ever taken a creative writing class, you will especially find particularly hilarious. It’s hilarious and a bit heartwrenching. And who doesn’t like having their heart wrenched?
And now back to the feral nature of the written word.
April 12, 2006
News
On a new book by the “morally flexible” Bonnie Fuller (who I sort of feel like I grew up with, even though she’s 49).On politicians who write. The youngest Pointer Sister has died, which is sad, but I’m not sure why it’s front page news. Sock Monkey arrives in China. Poetry in motion. And bizarrely, movies that smell.
April 12, 2006
On Grace Paley
I want to write a bit about Grace Paley. I first learned of her through this post at Maud Newton. She came into my life next at the beginning of March when I was shelving her Collected Stories at the library. I took the book home with me that night (what a wonderful job it is to be handed books all day, I must say) and absolutely fell in love with her work, and, through it, with the short story itself. And now I’ve finished her collected non-fiction book Just As I Thought, which has left me awfully enamoured of the woman herself. After fifty years as a anti-war, pacifist, anti-nuke, feminist activist, I think Grace Paley would be quite right to look back on it all and say, “I was right all along.” Though what she was right about, I don’t imagine would bring her great joy.
In Just As I Thought, Paley recounts her years in the peace movement, the women’s movement, and also as a writer. “The Illegal Days” is an excellent piece on abortion. But my favourite piece in the book was “Imagining the Present”, in which she writes about imagination in the same way that so many writers look upon the novel as a means to empathy. Paley sees imagination as a tremendously potent force. She writes:
First of all, we need our imaginations to understand what is happening to other people around us, to try to understand the lives of others. I know there’s a certain political view that you mustn’t write about anyone except yourself, your own exact people. Of course it’s very hard for anyone to know who their exact people are, anyway. But that’s limiting. The idea of writing from the head or from the view or the experience of other people, of another life, or even of just the people across the street or next door, is probably one of the most important acts of the imagination that you can try and that can be useful to the world.
I am so glad I read this book.
April 12, 2006
Yea!
Pickle Me This has finally become gainfully employed for the summer, at neither call centre nor kiosk, though it’s not yet confirmed whether the walls will touch the ceiling. After sleeping poorly for two months worrying about this, the news comes as a great relief. In other good news, Essay 1 of 2 is three and a half pages underway, and I completed a short story last night. There is a mug of lemon tea on my desk. And therefore, today has already been a very good day- and it’s not even noon yet.
April 11, 2006
Creepy Japanese Kewpie Doll Spaghetti Ad
The internet is marvelous. I was trying to find the website for The Walrus magazine, and found this instead. I’ve not looked at any content beyond the main page here. But I couldn’t believe what I found! When we used to do our grocery shopping at MaxValu in Japan, this would constantly play on a loop in a display for spaghetti. It is the scariest pasta commericial I have ever seen, and to this day can’t make any sense of it. Take a look, and discover for yourself that Japan is truly the strangest place in the world.
April 10, 2006
More for your pleasure…
Hear Beverly Cleary on NPR! (I was referred by Maud Newton.) I am also obsessed with the website for The Tea Guild in the UK. Today I pulled rank and got my mitts on “Mean Boy” by Lynn Coady before it even got on the shelf. Of course it now joins by ToBeRead pile. Watch this space. Intriguing question of the day: has Bloomsbury misjudged Gary Barlow’s currency? In fun trivia news, courtesy of “Six Words…” by Katherine Barber, the origin of the world “rhubarb”- something like “rhu” was an old name for the Volga, and “barb” as in “barbarian”, for this fine fruit (it is a fruit?) began in the land where dragons be!
