Girl Detective

#70 in my book challenge for the year, Tricked was a disappointment. It was one of the hyped graphic novels after the San Diego comic convention. I very much enjoyed Robinson’s previous series, Box Office Poison, which has been collected in a lovely edition by Top Shelf Productions. Some of what I liked about BOP was evident here, such as Robinson’s distinctive and iconic art, his snappy dialogue and the characters that are so well developed and true to life that I kept feeling like if I didn’t actually know them, I knew someone just like them. But Tricked fell apart for me under the weight of its central plot. Six characters’ stories are told alternately, until all of them come together near the end for a big occurrence. Few things about Tricked surprised me, and several things annoyed me. One character, an unstable loser who has stopped taking his meds, is supposed to be unlikeable. But he gets so much story and so many pages that he still becomes wearing. The most central character is Ray Beam, a jerk of a former music star who still milks his fame even though he’s been creatively inactive for years. A third is a guy who makes a living forging sports paraphernalia. It’s hard, but not impossible, to pull off a story that centers on an unlikeable character. But to have fully half of the main cast of six be unlikeable made the story often hard to engage with. Further, the other three main characters are all good-hearted women, so the story feels artificially balanced. If you loved Box Office Poison, there is much to like here, but if you haven’t read Robinson’s work before, I recommend starting with BOP before giving Tricked a try.

I recently saw a friend who complained I was posting too many reviews; she wanted to know more about what was going on in my life. I know the posts can get review-heavy, but I spend a lot of my time on books and movies, so the reviews are a reflection of what is going on in my life, at least in part.

I have also been asked more than once how I find the time to read, to write, and to watch movies in addition to caring for a toddler. The answer is simple, though it’s not easy. I set myself book and movie challenges because I did not feel I was reading or seeing movies enough. The reason I have a weblog is so I keep up a regular writing practice. I’ve moved these things to the top of my priority list, which means other things get moved down, or even bumped off.

I have time because I make time. I make time for these things by not doing other things. My father has a few favorite phrases, one of which is “everything is a compromise.” The older I get the more I see how true it is. I can write, or read, or watch a movie, but it means I don’t clean the bathroom, do laundry, obsessively check my email, surf the ‘net, or dabble in other hobbies. I used to play the flute and do counted cross-stitch projects. I got rid of these things because I wanted to focus on the things I already love, which include books, music, cooking, movies, television, and comics.

I’m able to finish books because I take time to read. I’m not a fast reader, but I am a consistent one. I read a little bit when Drake goes down for his nap, then again before I go to sleep at night. I take my book with me wherever I go, so if I have a spare moment I can get a little reading done. There are so many things that can distract me, but by eschewing some things and focusing on others, I have a life that better reflects what is truly important to me.

My friend Queenie and I finally managed to plan a night out for dinner, leaving the kids at home with our respective husbands. Eating out without Drake was a huge relief. I could relax, sit back, and focus on my friend and the meal without having to worry, wrangle, and admonish. Also, we could pick a restaurant for grownups, so we did. We went to Vincent in downtown Minneapolis. Vincent has a good staff, is not pretentious, and has wonderful food at non-outlandish prices. The best meal I’ve had there was the chef’s tasting menu, which G. Grod and I tried for our anniversary one year. This time, though, I wanted something a little less fancy–the Vincent burger. It’s been awarded the “Best Gourmet Burger” in the twin cities, and it is quite something. It has beef short ribs surrounded by chopped sirloin, topped with smoked gouda and a mayonnaise sauce studded with bits of cornichon. Officially, this burger is only available for lunch and at the bar, but when I asked the hostess, she said we could order it for dinner in the main dining room if we liked. I suspect the question has been asked before. This is a burger to dream about, accompanied, of course, by a generous pile of salty, crunchy frites.

We did not, though, go to a nice French restaurant and only get the burger. To start, Queenie ordered her favorite appetizer, the beet carpaccio. The thin-sliced ruby beets are garnished with nuggets of goat cheese and a tangle of lightly dressed frisee greens. I was torn between getting a former favorite, the pan-seared scallops with leeks and fingerling potatoes in orange sauce, or trying something new. Feeling brave, I ordered the seared prawns with seaweed salad in a tamari vinaigrette. I was not disappointed, though I was glad to be feeling brave, since I had to shimmy the heads off the prawns. The seared fish combined with the cool salad and the salty dressing was a balanced ensemble.

We could not finish our burgers; our server assured us that this was the norm. Nonetheless we contemplated the dessert menu, and debated between ordering one or two. After deciding on one, the server misunderstood and brought both, which was hardly a tragedy. Queenie got the Three Creams: creme caramel, creme brulee and pot de creme. The extra accidental dessert was the mixed berries with old-fashioned ricotta. It was too sweet for my taste with its strawberry sauce, but we both enjoyed sharing all three creams in what we both agreed was the superior dessert. Full and happy, we returned to our homes, glad to be reminded that dining out need not end with the advent of a child, though it does entail more planning challenges.

Salon has an excellent interview with Melanie Rehak, who has a new book out focusing on the history of Nancy, and the two women writers (neither of whom was Carolyn Keene; as a reader of this blog you would know that, right?) who largely authored the original books. Thanks to my husband G. Grod for sending me the link.

The character of Nancy annoys some feminists with her rich dad, fashionable clothes, and sporty roadster. I found these things distracting because they made it harder to relate to her, but they didn’t bother me. I liked the books a lot, read all the yellow hardcovers, as well as some of the older versions of the story from the library. I never liked her quite as well as I did Trixie Belden, but she is the original titian-haired sleuth, and she did have an important place on my bookshelf as a child.

Weird point of Nancy Drew/Hardy Boy trivia: if you’re in a used book store and there are multiple copies of the same book, take a look at the page count. At some point, the publisher put out shorter versions of the same books, both to save on paper and because they were for kids who didn’t need the finesse of all those extra words anyway (ha!). So if you’re buying old copies for yourself or your kids, be aware that there is more than one version of any story. Yes, there are the original, 1930’s era Nancy stories, in which she is sixteen and blond, and has a black housekeeper. These books are tough to read because of the racial stereotypes, but interesting as context for the series. But don’t assume that there’s just one version of the later Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys hardcovers–look for the longer, older ones.

The new season starts in earnest this week, with lots of premieres, both season and series. After careful consideration of my Entertainment Weekly, here is what is going to be on our Tivo this season:

Sunday: nothing

Monday: premiers tonight! 9/19: Arrested Development, followed by Kitchen Confidential, Fox, 8 to 9, EST. Not sure about KC, which is adapted from Anthony Boudain’s memoir of the same name, but will give it a try, since it’s just 30 minutes.

Tuesday: premiers tomorrow, 9/20: My Name is Earl (redneck karmic comedy), starring Jason Lee. NBC, 9 to 9:30 EST. Already premiered: Bones (David Boreanaz, channeling deadpan Duchovny, plays another former killer who wants to atone for his past, aided by far-too-fashionably-dressed-to-be-as-out-of-touch-as-she-says anthropologist Emily Deschanel), followed by House, Fox 8 to 10 EST.

Wednesday: premiers day after tomorrow, 9/21: Lost, followed by Invasion (produced by Shaun Cassidy! Starring William Fichtner! Not necessarily about aliens!), ABC, 9 to 11 EST. Also, premiering next week is my last year’s fave, girl detective Veronica Mars, UPN 9 to 10 EST.

Thursday: nothing

Friday: as if sci-fi Friday needed another entry. We’ve got Firefly and Battlestar Galactica on the Sci-Fi channel, and are adding Threshold (aliens and Carla Gugino!), which debuted last week, CBS, 9 to 10 EST.

So if we add in our weekly half hour of Ebert and Roeper, then it’s ten hours of TV a week, averaging more than an hour a night. I’m guessing this will be whittled down as we actually watch these shows and see how they are. Rescue Me has just finished, coincidentally just when G. Grod and I decided we were finished with it. And I just cannot bring myself to care about the O.C. any longer.

A few questions. Where did I pick up the crush on Fichtner? I think it was already there when Blackhawk Down came out, and the IMDB is no help. Also, why was it Matthew Fox in wet clothes on the cover of EW, and not Sayeed? WHY???

I did finally get a copy of Entertainment Weekly’s Fall TV issue, thanks to the Har Mar Barnes & Noble, and no thanks to my local Target, which I’d been haunting just about daily for over a week.

I’m beginning to suspect a depressing truth, and that is that no show is as good after the first season. Prove me wrong, discuss, but I can’t think of an example. So it is with some trepidation that I look forward to the premier of last year’s favorite Veronica Mars on Wednesday September 28th. (My bet for who was at the door? Wallace. Though I really wish it were Logan.)

EW hyped Prison Break, which started a couple weeks ago. I fretted that I’d missed it, but the folks at TeeVee say that it’s “Fox dumb.” So I think I’m OK with giving it a miss.

I watched the premier of Bones along with the season premier of House on Tuesday, and both were good, not great. I agree with TeeVee’s assessment of Bones:

But underneath the surface, there’s at least the skeleton of a good TV show here. If Bones, inspired by the books of forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs, doesn’t get everything right – and it definitely doesn’t – at least it absolutely nails the things it needs to get right.

Tonight is the premier of Threshold, one of several Lost-ish supernatural shows. According to EW it’s one of the best, and it also stars Carla Gugino, one of G. Grod’s crushes, so we’ll be adding it to our sci-fi Friday lineup, which now has to be lowercase, since Threshold is on CBS. So the order of operations is: Firefly, Threshold, and Battlestar Galactica. Three hours of TV in one night? Thank goodness for Tivo.

#69 in my book challenge for the year, Other Electricities was highly recommended both at Blog of a Bookslut and The Lit Blog Co-op. It’s a collection of connected stories, narrated by different characters of a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

He remembered reading fragments of a story from a National Geographic…Most of the story had been lost, but he was able to pick up on the leftover bits…With these points of reference he was able to reconstruct the story to his satisfaction. In a way, it was like reconstructing old fragmented poems, or like translating from one language to another, from a world of hard but sparse facts to a storyscape of soft, fulfulling fictions. P. 142

Taken individually, some of the stories are quite powerful, like the one of the title and “To Reduce Your Likelihood of Murder.” Monson’s stories were defiantly fragmented, and in the end what I wanted was that “storyscape of soft, fulfilling fictions.” What I found instead was a group of well-written, intriguing stories about characters who moved by too quickly for me to develop any deep attachment. The stories, like the town in which they are set, are chilly and harsh. This is not a novel in stories, and it is not a comforting book. But it is a well-written and challenging one, especially for those who love the short story form or experimental fictions.

The author of Mental Multivitamin is not a fan of memes, yet she put out a very meme-like challenge.

But a list of ten books that reveals something about you… that’s a challenge.

Ten books above all others that have shaped or even defined you.

I especially applaud her note that naming one’s ten favorite books is rather silly, if not impossible. In the spirit of taking up the gauntlet, and striving hard to pick ten and only ten, here are my picks in chronological order.

1. Trixie Belden #1: Secret of the Mansion by Julie Campbell. My mom gave this to me for Christmas when I was in third grade, and I was an immediate fan. I liked Trixie more than Nancy Drew because she seemed like a real person with a real family. I read both series, as well as the Hardy Boys, but my loyalty to Trixie never wavered, and my love for girl detectives was begun.

2. The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart. My first Merlin book, which I read in fourth or fifth grade. Completely mesmerized me, and started a penchant for seeking out books before I was probably old enough to really “get” them.

3. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey. My cousin lent this to me when I was in seventh grade, and it was probably my first favorite fantasy novel. A girl and her very own telepathic dragon–what could be better than that? I read all the sequels, but stopped eventually when I got older and they got more terrible.

4. The Mysteries of Pittsburgh by Michael Chabon, which I read the summer after my sophomore year in college, is the book I credit with pulling me out of the non-literary diaspora. I read a lot, but it was almost all crap–bodice rippers, Steven King, bestsellers, stuff that I haven’t bothered to keep on my shelf. Chabon’s first novel was clever, funny, sad and human, and it made me want to be a better reader.

5. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block. I read this based on a recommendation in the late, lamented Sassy magazine. It showed me that young-adult books could be smart and beautifully written. I still love reading young adult novels and I’m getting my own young-adult manuscript ready to submit for publication.

6. Sandman #1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman. One of several graphic novels and comics that my then-boyfriend gave me as an introduction to comics, and one of my lasting favorites. It’s proof that Watchmen and Dark Knight Returns, while both are excellent, aren’t for everybody; different gateway comics will attract different readers. Sandman’s 75 issues worked well as individual stories and as a whole. Literary, beautiful, mythical, with characters that live on in the mind and heart.

7. House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende. This was the book being read by a not-yet-then-close-friend’s book club. I saw a flyer for it on her fridge when I attended a party at her house. “Can I come, too?” I asked, and then was echoed by the English woman beside me, who would also become a close friend. I didn’t finish the book in time for the meeting, and didn’t love it even when I did, but becoming part of that book group was one of the most important intellectual and individual growth periods of my life. Yes, there are a lot of cliches about book clubs, but this was a group of smart, eclectic women who got together for food and we truly discussed the books. I taught myself to be a reader in that group. It also was the site of one of my proudest accomplishments–I got all of us to stop prefacing comments with “This may be stupid, but…” or “I’m sorry, but…” and to acknowledge that as intelligent women we shouldn’t be apologizing for what we had to say.

8. Possession by A. S. Byatt. One of the selections for book group that I did love, and the one that helped me realize I needed to quit my job and go back to grad school to study religion. It is poetry, prose, mystery, romance, and literature. It is a feast of a book.

9. I Don’t Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson
and
10. The Home-Maker by Dorothy Canfield Fisher (published by the wonderful and lovely Persephone Books).

Reading these, one after the other, helped me make another big life change. Pearson’s book is a funny yet wrenching story of a mother who tries and fails to have a successful business career and be the mother she wants to be. The Home-Maker is about a family whose parents switch roles when the mother has to become the breadwinner, and how that changes them all. The books were written decades apart, but the themes and difficulties are similar. Both helped me realize that Drake was not thriving in day care, and that I wanted to be home with him full time to see if it made a difference. It has, for both of us. Drake is happier and healthier, and I’ve found it easier to focus on my writing and mothering, priorities that were muddled when mixed in with my job.

I think you can tell by the list that I’ve been honest. I could’ve picked a lot more erudite books than the ones I’ve listed. I was also torn–there are a handful of books I had to leave off that also had special places in my life: Henry V, Flux by Peggy Orenstein, The World of Pooh, Bread and Jam for Frances, and Anne of Green Gables all were nearly on the list. But the ten above are the ones about which I felt most strongly, even if I didn’t like them or don’t think they’re good anymore, so they’re the ones that are there.

So, how about it? What ten books reveal something about you, and have shaped YOUR life?

#68 in my book challenge for the year, The Driver’s Seat is a little book that packs a big impact. It’s a single novella of just over 100 pages that follows Lise, a thirty-ish accountant, as she goes on holiday to Naples, Italy. Lise’s behavior grows increasingly erratic. It is clear from the start that something bad will happen; Spark even details what it is. It is how Spark unspools how it happens, and what happens exactly, though, that is what makes this book masterfully suspenseful and a creepy little gem.

#67 in my book challenge for the year is also Drake’s new favorite book. I’m not sure I can say it’s his first graphic novel, because he has quite enjoyed the Edward Gorey books we’ve read to him, The Doubtful Guest, The Epiplectic Bicycle, and The Gashlycrumb Tinies, the latter at least before G. Grod, being squeamish, “disappeared” it. I found The Clouds Above, which is published by Fantagraphics Books, at the comic book store, and was drawn by the shape, size, cover, paper quality and charming illustrations. The story is the adventure of a boy named Simon and his cat, Jack, who escape school into the clouds above. They encounter clouds both good and bad, a villainous teacher, and some very cranky birds. Drake has requested this book by name almost every day since we brought it home. While long to read aloud, it’s great fun for me, too.

#66 in my book challenge for the year. I read a recommendation of this book at Blog of a Bookslut. The novel centers on a man named Vincent Nolan, a former neo-nazi skinhead, who shows up at a peace organization run by a Holocaust survivor. The story is told from alternating viewpoints. The characters are rich and complex, their voices are distinct, and the story had a powerful pull. This was an extremely strong, well-written novel. I thought the ending pushed my bounds of belief, but I so liked the characters that I didn’t begrudge it to them.

#45 in my movie challenge for the year was a big disappointment. It is a rare occasion that I get out to see a movie in the theater. The movie I really wanted to see, Hustle and Flow, was showing in just a few theaters and at inconvenient times. March of the Penguins, though, was showing at the close theater with good popcorn at a convenient time, so even though it wasn’t high on my list, I decided to give it a shot. While beautifully filmed under difficult conditions, the story, which is meant to be shocking, actually rather bored me. Yes, the penguins were awfully cute, but more than once it glossed over penguin death. Once they said that penguins who lag behind just “fade away” and later they say that a penguin father who does not survive the storm will just “disappear.” Buried under snow? Eaten by other penguins? Picked off by predators? The movie doesn’t say. There are times that the movie does show some of the more difficult moments, as when a mother penguin gets eaten by a seal, a penguin couple loses their egg, and baby pengins get attacked by a gull. But the movie can’t seem to decide how real it should get. Even these potentially disturbing scenes were primly edited. Ultimately, I wanted to know about the exceptions: what happens to the penguins who don’t conceive, whose mother’s don’t come back, the mothers who come back to find a dead father or baby, how many survive, how many die? March of the Penguins was lovely to look at and did have an interesting story. But the story, no matter how skillfully narrated by Morgan Freeman, did not delve in complexity or sophistication beyond the level of basic television. There were two other true animal movies out this summer, and I think my time and money would have been better spent on either The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill or Grizzly Man.

#44 in my movie challenge for the year is Mira Nair’s Vanity Fair. This is a visually stunning interpretation of the classic book. Reese Witherspoon proves yet again that she’s not just a pretty face and has some serious talent. This bittersweet tale of poor, unconnected Becky Sharp, who gets by on her wits and talent, was both engaging and beautiful to look at.

#43 in my movie challenge for the year, To Have and Have Not is the second Bogey and Bacall movie of recent weeks, this is a lesser known charmer, and the first movie in which they worked together, and the one on which they fell in love. She is lovely to look at, entrancing to listen to, and the story is pretty good, too. Bogey is an outsider in France who is talked into helping someone from the resistance–sound familiar? This one has some great lines: “Just put your lips together and blow,” and “Have you ever been bit by a dead bee?” Perhaps it helps to have someone like William Faulkner working on the screenplay of a Hemingway novel. This movie is a great example of why it pays to keep an eye on what they’re showing on Turner Classic Movies.

I am currently obsessing about the Entertainment Weekly TV preview issue and why the heck I haven’t been able to get a copy yet. I’ve considered getting a subscription so I can stop this annual haunting of the newstands, but the Minneapolis post office can be slow, and it IS only this one issue that I crave.

I am currently paranoid about listeria. It is the one food poisoning that can cross the placenta, and in the past few weeks I’ve been laughing in the face of danger, consuming lunch meat, blue cheese, unpasteurized honey. I figured, hey, it’s rare and I’ll know if I get it within 48 hours. Apparently it can take WEEKS to manifest, and while rare it is usually deadly to the fetus. So I’m regretting my blithe, “this is my second pregnancy; no need to be paranoid like the first” attitude, and will be paranoid for the next month, at least.

I am currently fretting about pants. My regular pants and skirts don’t fit in the waist. Maternity wear looks as if I’m playing dress up. I’m in that awkward stage, which I hope I grow out of soon.

I am currently looking forward to watching TV tonight. My husband G. Grod and I call it “Sci-Fi Friday.” After Drake goes to bed we watch the Tivo’d Firefly then Battlestar Galactica, which has gotten crazy good.

I am currently between books, having just finished two whoppingly good ones, Francine Prose’s A Changed Man and Muriel Sparks’s The Driver’s Seat. Haven’t committed to the next book yet. Candidates include Other Electricities by Ander Monson, Tricked graphic novel by Alex Robinson, and The Skin Chairs by Barbara Comyns.

I am currently feeling a bit better from the cold, and a strange but not uncommon-for-me home-economy resolve has surfaced, which is to clear out the fridge, the freezer and the pantry of the stuff that’s been sitting around for weeks or longer and use it up. I have a LOT of rhubarb, though. And I don’t even like rhubarb.

I just picked up a couple this week, but thought I’d do quick reviews, in case any of these titles are ones you’ve wondered about picking up.

Seven Soldiers: The Manhattan Guardian #4 by Grant Morrison. I’ve liked but not loved the Seven Soldiers series, but the last few issues have begun to tie all the threads together, and I’m hoping that it will work well as a whole. The art in TMG has gotten a lot of attention, including the New York Times, but I think this was the most entertaining story thus far.

Gotham Central #35 by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. This is a really solid crime comic with great characterization among the staff of the Gotham City detective unit. The current storyline has young boys dressed as Robin turning up dead. Are they Robin? Is there more than one Robin? And who’s killing them? The art is perfectly suited to the story, and this is one of my favorite monthly titles.

Fell #1 by Warren Ellis. I liked this comic even before I read the “Backmatter” by Ellis, after which I liked it even more. Ellis said he wanted to put together a comic that told an individual story, yet cost less than the usual $2.25 and up comics. This one, at under $1.99, does exactly that. A single, self-contained story, yet one that lays the groundwork for future related ones, and at the old fashioned price of under $2. Ellis can get a bit gonzo for my tastes sometimes, but when he’s on, he’s good, and this is a good comic at a good price. Check it out.

From a few weeks ago:

Rocketo by Frank Espinosa. NICE! A fantasy story about an Atlantis-like world about a young boy named Rocketo who grows into a famous adveturer/cartographer. Lovely art, compelling story, a top rather than a side binding, good colors and nice paper stock for the covers and interior. This looks like a very promising new series.

Drake has been napping sporadically lately. Often I will put him down at the usual time, and if he’s not ready to go to sleep he’ll talk and sing and holler until he does, or until he sounds unhappy enough for me to go get him. Yesterday he sang the ABCs several times (with a bewildering “ah-go, sah-go” for W-X), then amazed me when he launched into the Philadelphia Eagles fight song and sang every word. He did not sing it again, but I called G. Grod at work to let him know. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard G. sound much happier.

#65 in my book challenge for the year. I was disapponted by this book. Nafisi, a former professor of literature in Iran, discusses the complex melange of books, war and people that she experienced in her teaching years. The book begins and ends with a private reading group she assembles of former female students of hers. A quote by a friend of hers near the end sums up what I felt was a big problem with this memoir:

As he carries in the two mugs of tea I tell him, You know, I feel all my life has been a series of departures. He raises his eyebrows, placing the mugs on the table, and looks at me as if he had expected a prince and all he could see was a frog. Then we both laugh. He says, still standing, You can say this sort of crap in the privacy of these four walls–I am your friend; I shall forgive you–but don’t ever write this in your book. I say, But is is the truth. Lady, he says, we do not need your truths but your fiction–if you’re any good, perhaps you can trickle in some sort of truth, but spare us your real feelings. P. 338

Nafisi’s memoir goes into depth about the books they read, and about the people in her life, but is frustratingly vague about her own self. It as if the narrator is a void, through which she talks about books and other people. I found it a bit unsettling that she spent more time narrating others’ stories than her own. I also found her use of quotation marks inconsistent and difficult to read. But I did appreciate Nafisi’s insights into the novels she and her students read, including Lolita, The Great Gatsby, Pride and Prejudice, and Daisy Miller, and am interested to read or re-read them. This book is a good complement to Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis graphic novels, but I preferred those to this. Satrapi is the main character of her narrative, not an insubstantial observer and periodic participant in her own story.

I wonder if some of the popularity of this book comes from readers who crave but did not experience the kind of critical, deep readings of books that Nafisi does with her students.

My father has taken the month of September off for a boat trip. He plans to take his boat, a refurbished ‘71 Hatteras Express Cruiser, from Kelleys Island in Lake Erie to Florida via inland waterways. Sadly, the boat has broken down in Michigan, but when he does start up again, the rest of the trip will be posted here.

I’ve written before about how I’ve become a faithful library patron. A few weeks ago, I tried the “recommend” feature on my library’s web site. It allows me to recommend an item, then put myself on the wait list if they do purchase it. There are now five items on my wait list that weren’t previously in the library’s collection. I’m thrilled, but I must remember to use this power for good, not evil.