Girl Detective

1. Ron is stubborn
2. Hermione is bossy and intellectual
3. Harry is easily frustrated, prone to walk into traps because of his pride, and won’t confide in people. He frequently rails that Dumbledore doesn’t trust him, and doubts that the old wizard had affection for him.

How have these characters changed since book 1?

And finally,

4. There are rather a lot of people getting, um, hurt in this book.

I am stopped on page 520 of 606 of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and I can’t bring myself to resume the book. I have been trying to read it as quickly as possible. I was chagrined not to finish it before I left for the writing retreat I’m on this weekend. I’ve taken it out at every opportunity. I sit in the corner of the cafeteria with my book propped in front of me at meals, in case anyone thinks I want to be social. I’ve completed writing exercises quickly in order to take out my book and read on.

I don’t feel so bad about this. While we write, our instructor, Faith Sullivan, the author of The Cape Ann, Gardenias, and other novels, opens the book she’s reading, which is Heat Wave by Penelope Lively. Bookish behavior made me an outcast in grade school, but is something I celebrate today.

Given all this, then, I am surprised at my sudden aversion to finishing the novel. I want to find out what happens!

And yet, and yet…

When it’s over, it will be over. All seven books done that I’ve been reading for nearly ten years. The characters–Ron, Hermione, Harry. The locations–Hogwarts, Diagon Alley. The details–pumpkin juice, spells, jinxes and charms. Yeah, Rowling’s writing isn’t flawless, and her characters haven’t changed that much over the seven years of the books. But I LIKE the books. Rowling has the storytelling knack that makes a reader desperately want to find out what happens next. I’ve enjoyed the Harry Potter books. I’ve found pleasure in reading them. And like Steven King, I’m going to be sad when the series is done, no matter who lives or dies.

Moose out front shoulda told you.

I’m not even a third of the way through Harry Potter #7. I must read.

It had some inane moniker, but really, it was just a clip show. It was nice to see Tim Gunn again, and some of the clips from seasons 1 and 2 made me want to watch them, but again, this was just a clip show.

Of the season three eliminations, Cliff is unsophisticated, but aw-shucks sweet and sincere. Sandee should have gotten a clue by now that poached didn’t equal barbecue. Camille’s strength does not lie in verbal communication. Micah was off-putting, as evidenced by her flip announcement that she’s African-American. The only elimination I regret is Lia’s. She looked calm and composed, and had only nice, balanced things to say.

#1

You don’t have to read a book to have an opinion….I don’t read novels. I prefer good literary criticism. That way you get both the novelists’ ideas as well as the critics’ thinking. With fiction I can never forget that none of it really happened, that it’s all just made up by the author.

–Tom Townsend (Edward Clements) in Whit Stillman’s Metropolitan (1990)

#2

according to Bayard, it is perfectly possible to have a fruitful discussion about a book one hasn’t read, even with someone who hasn’t read it either. (link from Arts & Letters Daily)

#3

[Cowen] lists eight strategies for taking control of one’s reading, which include ruthless skipping around, following one character while ignoring others, and even going directly to the last chapter. Your eighth-grade English teacher would faint. But the principle here is valuing the scarcity of your own time, which people often fail to do. (link from Arts & Letters Daily)

I’m a reader. I believe in the power of stories and the magic of books. This does not mean I finish every book I start. I give books 50 pages; by then if I’m annoyed or disengaged, I stop. There are too many other books I WANT to read for me to waste time on books I don’t care for. Like Cowen, I value my time, which is all the more scarce after having two children.

Like Bayard, it’s not just possible, but common, for me have an opinion on a book I haven’t read. I qualify my opinion by admitting that, though. I’m allowed to think that The DaVinci Code is poorly written and that its story is intriguing. But I haven’t read it; I’ve only synthesized what I’ve heard and read ABOUT it. My opinion is theoretical, because it’s based on the testimony of others, not experience of my own.

Yet I’m still bothered by the cavalier attitude of Cowen and Bayard. Most good stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. If Cowen and Bayard practice–even celebrate–this literary dilettantism, they may have opinions (to which they are entitled, as are we all), but they are partial, and thus limited. And if Cowen and Bayard don’t disclose their partial knowledge, then they’re being less than honest.

In the end, I think it’s like what Robin Williams’s character said about smoking in Dead Again:

Someone is either a [reader] or a non[reader]. There’s no in-between. The trick is to find out which one you are, and be that. If you’re a non[read]er, you’ll know.

I’m a reader. I suspect you are, too. Don’t read what you don’t want to. But stories in their entirety are most often greater than the sum of their parts. Don’t listen to the dilettantes. To paraphrase another movie:

Read… or read not. There is no try.

(Written while procrastinating on lunch)

Alice laughed. ‘There’s no use trying,’ she said ‘one can’t believe impossible things.’

‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice,’ said the Queen. ‘When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast…’

–Lewis Carroll, “Through the Looking Glass”

1. Got up before Guppy and G. Grod
2. Got dressed by myself, without Drake and Guppy’s “help”
3. Found yoga mat where Drake had “helped” by putting it away
4. Rode bike 1 mile to gym
5. Practiced yoga
6. Rode bike 1 mile home

#25 in my 2007 book challenge was Elizabeth Gilbert’s spiritual travel memoir Eat, Pray, Love. This was my second time reading it, since it was also book #16 for me this year.

Gilbert is smart, funny, and honest. She notes that she’s good at making friends, and it’s easy to see why. After a nasty divorce, a disastrous rebound relationship, and a deep depression, Gilbert goes abroad for a year. Her first four months are spent in Rome, practicing the language and enjoying the food. Next she goes to an ashram in India to practice meditation and mindfulness. Finally, she spends the rest of the year in Bali, where she seeks to integrate divine and earthly experiences into holistic joy.

I keep remembering one of my Guru’s teachings about happiness. She says that people universally tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will maybe descend upon you like fine weather if you’re fortunate enough. But that’s not how happiness works. Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it

This book made me hungry in my stomach for Rome. My searching soul perked up at the descriptions of the ashram in India. Though I’ve practiced yoga for seven years, I’d never before had the slightest urge to visit its country of origin. In the last 6 months, though, I’ve read this book twice, another book on India I loved, sat next to a man on an airline flight who gave me several tips about about traveling there, and have a friend there right now. I’m sensing a building Indian zeitgeist.

As before, the thing I disliked about the book was Gilbert’s use of religious terminology. She chooses to use He/Him to refer to God. She denies any belief in God’s sex, but the masculine pronoun only perpetuates the usual patriarchal stereotypes. (I’ve noted before that I think the American Heritage Dictionary has a nice note on the problems with “he”–scroll about halfway down the page to get to the AH entry.) She doesn’t wonder why Christianity is one of the few world religions that has a thunder god, but no fertility goddess. She uses the Christian designation for eras, BC/AD. These are widely known, but CE/BCE (Common Era, and Before Common Era) are more inclusive, and more correct, since the historic person Jesus didn’t get born in the year 0 anyway. She also uses the reductive and condescending term “Judeo-Christian”. This is problematic because it implies a cause/effect relationship that both oversimplifies the complex origins of Christianity, and wrongly implies that Christianity is a natural extension of Judaism.

It’s likely that I’m nitpicking because of my residual grad-school sensibilities, so these may not be things that would bother others. In spite of them, I highly recommend the book, and am eager to seek out her previous work.

Yesterday morning, I was impatient to know when my UK edition of the new Harry Potter would arrive. I checked my email confirmation and was displeased with the news. It was shipped by mail, so I couldn’t track it, and estimated delivery was between 7/27/07 and 7/31/07. I tried steeling myself for the wait, and reminding myself that it would be possible to avoid spoilers, but I couldn’t help looking at the mail slot every chance I got. I told myself this would make it arrive even later.

Imagine my joy, then, when the mail was delivered, and I saw my amazon.co.uk package. I’ve made just the bare beginning (30 pages) but hope to devote more time to it soon.

One of my best book shopping moments ever was when I worked at a used book store. I’d just read an article about how HP1 was so wildly successful in the UK but had not yet taken off in the US. #2 was already published in the UK, but not yet released stateside. I was unpacking a remainder/seconds box when I found a UK trade paperback of HP1 and a hardcover of HP2! And because I worked there, I got them for 50% off the marked down price! Since then, I’ve gotten them from the UK so I have a matching set, and so I get the English vocabulary, titles, and punctuation.

I’m a fan, but no fanatic. I like the Potter books. They’re fun. The release of a new one is an event. I want to know what happens. They’re not great literature, but so what? Not everything has to be, and they have a fair share of redeeming qualities.

My family made the jaunt down to Cedar Summit farm in New Prague, MN this past Saturday. Things looked pretty grim as we forgot the directions, overshot our exit by 17 miles and ended up in Faribault, by which time both Drake and Guppy woke and commenced a particularly painful screaming session. We did make it to the farm, though, and got to see the cows who give the milk and cream we buy. Guppy’s conversation was mostly “hi!” and “moo!” while we were there. Drake and G. Grod took a tour of the farm while I saw a presentation by a farmer from Moonstone farms. I enjoyed the cooking demo and learned some things about cooking grass-fed beef: bring to room temp before cooking, cook lower and slower and for less time than conventional beef, go for rare if possible. Both Guppy and I enjoyed the Moonstone Farms seared beef with carrots and cuke in a lettuce wrap. We all ate local wild-rice bratwursts from Pastures a Plenty and Cedar Summit ice-cream cones. I waited too long for a cup of my favorite root beer, 1919 (made by Schell’s Brewery in New Ulm, MN); the keg got tapped. Ah well, the Minnesota State Fair is only a month away.

Future dates for MN foodies:

MN Cooks at the State Fair: Sunday August 26, 2007

Beef and Blues (music and cheeses) at Cedar Summit Farm: Sunday September 9, 2007

From The Environmental Working Group:

The House is dangerously close to passing a bill that’s almost identical to the current unfair Farm Bill — the one that’s been paying subsidies to millionaires and dead people instead of family farmers.

Support for farmers transitioning to organics. Healthier school lunches. More funds to feed hungry children and seniors. Protection of water and wildlife. The 2007 Farm Bill could do it all, but time is running out for reform.

Call your Representative today and ask them to support the Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment.

The “Fairness Amendment,” offered by a bipartisan group of legislators, will put America on a new course for family farm and food policy.

It will provide a more reliable safety net for America’s organic and family farmers at less cost to taxpayers and provide new resources to address our country’s hunger, health, environmental, and fiscal priorities.

Take action now. The Farm Bill is on the House floor this week.

If the bill being considered is passed, over 50% of all farm spending will continue to flow to just 4% of congressional districts. And too little will be done to fund organics, feed the hungry, help the environment, and promote healthy food choices.

Today, I’m presenting your 30,000 Grow Organics petition signatures to our allies in the House. But we need one more push for a fair Farm Bill.

Please make the call today. It only takes a few minutes to ask your Representative to support Farm Bill reform.

You can make the difference.

I’m still waiting on my English copy of HP7 to appear, and I found these helpful and amusing.

The Guardian’s Digested Read of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (HP5)

The Guardian’s Digested Read of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (HP6)

John Crace’s pre-review of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (HP7) (no spoilers at all):

The book will start with Harry making his way back to Hogwart’s for his final year and his scar will be hurting. Ginny and Ron will be flirting a bit, while Harry tries to take himself seriously by almost swearing. There will be loads more unedited, not very interesting back story that should have been cut and there will be a ‘terrifically, exciting denouement that I can’t reveal as I don’t want to spoil the plot in which two much-loved characters die’. Oh, and JK will make another fortune.

Here are my previous entries on Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince.

From Austenblog:

Mansfield Park can be a difficult novel to enjoy. We find most of the characters unlikable, and the story is perhaps a trifle preachy….while it is not our favorite, we cannot say it (or any other Jane Austen novel for that matter) is not worth reading.

Also we suggest that readers forget Edward Said and look at the single slavery reference in the novel, as well as other themes and images of imprisonment and restriction, in relation to the plight of dependent women in Jane Austen’s society. That might lead you down some interesting paths, especially when you read Emma in the same light.

This is the passage they refer to:

Fanny Price: “Did not you hear me ask him about the slave trade last night?”

Edmund Bertram: “I did–and was in hopes the question would be followed up by others. It would have pleased your uncle to be inquired of farther.”

Fanny Price: “And I longed to do it–but there was such a dead silence!

I’m not sure why the authors at Austenblog discourage Said; they quote him as saying things that struck me as reasonable, sensible, and true.

I do agree that both Emma and Mansfield Park are full of references to female restriction, such as remaining at home during inclement weather. I especially noticed the many references to adding a pleasant shrubbery for walking the property. Irreverently, I was reminded of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. More seriously, though, I felt pain for those women whose pinnacle of freedom and personal time was a brief walk in the yard.

Cows! Music! Tasty treats! Saturday July 21, 2007 from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. in New Prague, MN.

Episode 4: Cooking by Numbers. Casey won the quickfire of what to pair with a Bombay cocktail (reminding me that I’m interested in What to Drink with What You Eat), and then promptly abused the privilege when she was put with Howie and Joey on a team. She got all bossy boots during the planning, didn’t encourage their ideas since she was immune, and then made the crappiest dish of all the chefs. If Howie or Joey had been eliminated, she would have had much to answer for.

Good for that team, then, that the dessert course was truly dreadful. Dale’s ideas–dessert and a pineapple theme–failed spectacularly. He admitted to feeling guilty about Camille’s elimination, but I thought she dug her own hole. She readily agreed to Dale’s idea of dessert, and claimed to know something about pastry, though her very basic idea of upside-down cake looked dreadful. She was inarticulate in response to the judges’ queries, and I thought she deserved to pack her knives.

Episode 5: Latin Lunch. When the cooks are given frozen pie crust for the quickfire challenge, Joey admits he knows a little about pastry, which he didn’t cop to on last week’s ep. I was bothered by the fact that he later lied outright to the guest judge and said he didn’t know pastry. In any case, he won the quickfire challenge, and immunity, and went on to almost win the elimination challenge, but graciously gave kudos to his new best bud Howie. I suspected that either Lia or Casey would be eliminated because of the clip shown early on where they commented how close they’d become, and how they had each others’ backs. Casey’s dish sounded quite bad–dry chicken, overcooked rice, and a bitter, unpleasant sauce. But Lia’s polenta was deemed worse, perhaps because it was both ill-prepared and not very Latin, so she was asked to pack her knives. I would have preferred to see Casey sent packing, since she abused her immunity the week before while Lia won. But that might just be mean-spirited me; I dislike Casey’s overly coiffed, made-up, and accessorized presence. I also suspect Hung is going to go sooner than later. Not only is he a spaz in the kitchen, but his self-awareness is pretty dim.

P.S. Padma Lakshmi has requested a divorce from Salman Rushdie. Quel surprise.

According to Austenblog, in January 2008, PBS will be airing new versions of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Persuasion, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility along with the Kate Beckinsale Emma and the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice. The new adaptations were shown previously on ITV in England, to mixed reviews. Does any Austen adaptation NOT get mixed reviews?

“The Minimalist” Mark Bittman lists 101 easy summer recipes. (Link from A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago.) I met Bittman at a cooking demo and book signing, and he sent me a copy of his How to Cook Everything that included the CD after I said I couldn’t find it. I then failed to find an address for him and so have never thanked him. He’s a good cook, a good food writer, and a good guy. I can’t wait to try these recipes.

#24 in my 2007 book challenge was Mansfield Park by Jane Austen.

My book challenge is a self-set goal of fifty books for the year. It’s July and I’m not yet halfway, so my goal is more challenging this year than it’s been in the past. I set the goal to remind myself that reading is a priority, though it can be hard to make time while caring for two small children.

We all have a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.–Fanny Price in Mansfield Park.

Why is poor Fanny Price so reviled a heroine? That strikes me as blaming the victim, or kicking someone when she’s down. This was my sixth major Austen novel, of six. I found it more intricately plotted than Austen’s earlier works, Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. I didn’t enjoy it nearly so much as I did the latter, but it impressed me more. Written ten years after the drafts of the previous three, Mansfield Park sustains a strong undercurrent of dread up till the end: what will happen to Fanny, the poor relation of the Bertram family? Like other Austen heroines, Fanny is admirable, but flawed. She is ethical and thoughtful to a fault, but frail, sickly, and shrinking. Many critiques of the book decry that she does not change, but she does. She is both physically and emotionally stronger by the end, and has a greater appreciation for her worth and her powers of discernment.

Mansfield Park defied a quick reading; I was often frustrated by my slow progress through it. In the end, though, I found it both intriguing and rewarding. I felt spurred to further research about it because I found it so different from the other five Austen novels I’ve read (complex, sinister, judgmental) and yet the same (nice girl marries nice boy in the end; good things happen to good people, and bad people get their just deserts!)

Let other pens dwell on guilt and misery. I quit such odious subjects as soon as I can, impatient to restore every body, not greatly in fault themselves, to tolerable comfort, and to have done with all the rest.

I wonder at my auto-didactic leanings. Have they come to me with age, or were they imparted to me later in life by wise teachers, which I mostly lacked for in my youth? If I’d read this in high school, I would not have finished it. I would have used the Cliff Notes to write my paper, for which I’d earn an A. I’m so glad I’ve learned patience and appreciation. Both helped me persevere through a tough read, and beyond it to additional study.

In case you haven’t heard already

Gerber Products Company, a division of Novartis Consumer Health, is voluntarily recalling all packages of Gerber ORGANIC Rice and ORGANIC Oatmeal Cereals due to a potential choking risk. A limited quantity of product may contain lumps of cereal, which do not dissolve in water or milk and pose a potential choking hazard. Gerber has received choking complaints, but no reports of injury. The FDA is aware of this recall.

According to The London Free Press,

Gerber dominates the U.S. baby-food market, with the company holding a 79 percent share, according to Morgan Stanley.

Instead, look for Earth’s Best Baby Food, a brand of the Hain Celestial Group, owned in part by the HJ Heinz company. This is one of many examples of corporate-owned organic food companies.

My friend KT sent me a link to the Environmental Working Group petition. I’m very anti-forwarded email, but I’m very pro-organic and anti-junkfood, so this is a cause close to my heart.

From the EWG website:

Are you satisfied with having just 3% of the fruit you eat free of potentially dangerous pesticides? How about 2% of vegetables? Or less than 0.02% of corn?

Right now, those are the percentages of organic produce available in grocery stores.

Fortunately, the EWG Action Fund is working with Congress to make sure organic farmers get their fair share of federal funds to improve access to healthy alternatives.

You can help right now by signing the EWG Action Fund’s Grow Organics petition. Their goal is 30,000 signatures by July 15!

More information on what they’re doing is in this article from the New York Times.

A great way to support organics is to buy them! Increased demand results in increased supply, which results in lowered costs. I buy organic, local food whenever possible at my local grocery cooperative.

From Suicide Girl News: Brad Pitt wants to channel Steve McQueen in a remake of Bullitt. I agree that it’s a bad idea. Remakes are a bad idea in general, and revisiting McQueen specifically requires a lot of chutzpah. Can you think of any remakes that are better than the original? I’m sure there are some, just as there are a handful of movies whose sequel outstrips the first (Godfather Part II), and even a few third movies that are the pick of the litter (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban). Off the top of my head, though, I can’t think of one movie substantively improved by a remake.

At the end of the Suicide Girls piece, the author notes that many may not even have seen the McQueen movie from which his nickname is taken. It made me realize that there are a few great war movies that don’t make the top 100 lists, yet which I’ve appreciated far more than I did the carnage-strewn Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, or Saving Private Ryan.

Three Unsung War Movies:

The Great Escape: great ensemble cast, unforgettable theme song, and the origin of The Cooler King, a critical piece of filmic cultural literacy.

Stalag 17: Surprisingly, NOT the basis for Hogan’s Heroes, whose creators were sued over similarities, and won. Holden thought his character was too cynical, but he won an Oscar for the role.

The Thin Red Line: Terence Malick’s beautiful filmic meditation on the brutal rift that war creates between humanity and nature.