Girl Detective

#59 in my book challenge for the year was Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose. A brief reminder that these mini-reviews are part of my annual book and movie challenges, which I initiated to remind myself of their importance in my life, and to let others know parenthood doesn’t preclude books and movies.

I enjoyed Prose’s novel A Changed Man last year, and was surprised to find her non-fiction book was also a compelling page turner. I had trouble stopping at the end of chapters. Prose harks back to a time when learning literature was done with close readings that largely eschewed the biographical details of the authors. Her approach embraces the study of literature before postmodernism, which came along and shook everything up with its inclusion of Foucoult, Lacan, and the insistence that we look at everything through different “lenses”. Her approach also harks back to a time and an approach that were more about loving literature than taking it apart and tearing it down, as discussed in this article by a professor of English.

Each chapter focuses on an aspect of fiction, such as character, sentences, paragraphs, and more. For each topic, Prose offers many excerpts and analyses of famous works. The book finishes with a list of “Books to be Read Immediately”, though I did miss an index that would have tied each work on that list to where she cited it as an example in the book. I found her writing and the book both accessible and challenging. In the wake of it, I feel both discouraged (how am I ever going to write as well as the writers she named?) and encouraged (nothing for it but to practice).

Interestingly, Prose even took a book I’d recently not enjoyed, Sense and Sensibility, and pointed out a skillfully done aspect of it that made me better appreciate that book. While Prose’s book is directed to writers, it will also be appreciated by those who love literature.

#49 in my movie challenge for the year was Mysterious Skin, based on the novel by Scott Heim. I do movie and book challenges to remind myself of what’s important, and to show it’s possible to have small kids and still find time to read and watch movies. It’s not easy, and many things go undone (our house is messy; we’ve all but given up on our yard), but it can be done.

I liked but didn’t love the book when I read it last year, and I felt similarly about the movie. It was a good, faithful adaptation of the book. Joseph Gordon Levitt was mesmerizing in the role of Neil, a young, small-town hustler. There’s rough, graphic sex and child abuse in the movie, so this is not for the faint of heart. But it is a well-done indie that handles tough subjects well, and has strong performances.

I type 1-handed, w/ baby Guppy in sling. He cries if I put him down. Soon Drake will be home from preschool. I’ve learned to do many things w/ kids around, but writing isn’t one of them. These last few weeks, with Drake not napping and Guppy napping sporadically, I’m wrangling one or both from 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., with few, and all too brief, exceptions. My husband G. Grod gets home from work about 6 p.m., so the last hours of the day are tandem parenting, but it’s a struggle to get even the basics done lately, and I’ve had to put writing off again and again.

#58 in my book challenge for the year was The Last of Her Kind by Sigrid Nunez. It is the carefully crafted tale of Ann Drayton, an heiress with a conscience, who gets in trouble during the 1970s. Told by Ann’s college roommate, Georgette, the narrative takes several interesting and unexpected diversions, which all contribute to a satisfying whole. I re-read many passages as I went, because they offered up more with each new encounter.

I have been blamed by others for my timidity; I have heard my passionate love of reading denounced as an addiction, a vice, a cowardly avoidance of the challenges, dangers, excitements, and even duties of real life.

A few things troubled me about the book. Part Five makes a daring switch from first person to third, and nearly pulls it off, except that there are too many things that the author couldn’t have known. Otherwise, I thought the varied points of view in the novel were extemely impressive. A segment near the end written by a prison inmate was too long, and varied too much in voice. Finally, the last two paragraphs are a quote from The Great Gatsby, and a comment on it that didn’t flow well for me from what went before, which was an interesting critique of that great book.

These things are small, though, especially compared to the richness of the story and the characters. The voices are strong, and their lives are compelling. It was a fascinating history lesson as well.

The reunion show confirmed many things for me about this season of Project Runway. Robert was funny. Bradley was strange. Alison was kindly. Kayne was charming. Keith was a liar, whose claims were about as believable as his nose. Laura thinks dressing up is a virtue.

And Vincent lives in a separate reality from the rest of us.

My boys haven’t been napping, I had to pack for a weeklong visit to family, and at the last minute I decided not to take my laptop, hence my lack of recent posts. I flew out with my husband and both boys, then G. Grod returned to work, and I stayed longer so the grandparents could have more time with the kids. While packing, I was daunted by the thought of taking my laptop, various liquids–baby Tylenol, children’s Tylenol, my eye drops, two containers of baby food, and two juice boxes–AND the boys by myself through security, so I left the computer behind. The flight back went mostly well, but Drake’s listening is sporadic, the security guy confiscated the juice boxes, and Drake cannily refuses to wear the monkey backpack/leash we bought. It wasn’t easy.

Before I left, a friend said to me, “Have a good vacation.” I responded that I find family visits different from vacations. While family visits can be enjoyable, they usually don’t have a high enough ratio of relaxation to obligation for me to feel restored enough to call them vacation.

Apologies for the inconsistent posting. I hope to have things back on track soonish.

Episode 11 of Project Runway was both a surprise, and a letdown. The judges did not eliminate a designer, so the four remaining–Michael, Laura, Jeffrey and Uli–would all prepare for fashion week. I had picked Uli to lose, since she kept doing the same loose, flowy patterned dress each week. Instead, the other three choked. Jeffrey went so overboard trying to prove he was romantic that he did something boring and demure. Laura did the exact same thing she always does. Michael didn’t recognize that sexy, sensual and sultry all mean largely the same thing, and his evening gown flopped. I found the judges comments on him odd, though, since they kept saying he was clearly a sportswear designer, when they’ve praised his gowns nearly every time. Uli pulled victory from the jaws of defeat. She was about to do another loose flow-y dress, but correctly realized it would look like a “kitchen dress.” Instead, she changed course for something short, fitted, and daring. I think the judges had probably planned to eliminate her, but when her dress was clearly superior to the others, they couldn’t do anything but award her the win, and let the others stay on the merits of their past work. All four prepared collections, and all four seem to be all over the place with their designs, so I don’t think the winner or losers are so obvious after this episode.

As always, I checked out Manolo the Shoe Blogger’s thoughts, and was amused and impressed.

or, Why I Didn’t Blog on Tuesday

Not yet up an hour
Caught in a gale of screaming
Both boys mad at once

This does not bode well
Can hold just one at a time
Peace does not come soon

Sometimes, a haiku is a good way to distill a hard morning. I got the idea from the book Haiku Mama, that rarest of things, a non-cheesy gift book. The author, Kari Anne Roy, has a blog, too.

Hard on the heels of my post about not buying books before I am able to read them, or even before I’ve read them, I bought a book last night that I haven’t read, and don’t intend to read soon. Jodi at I Will Dare wrote that Mary Gaitskill was doing a reading last night, so I grabbed her books that I own (Two Girls, Fat and Thin; Bad Behavior; Because They Wanted To) and the issue of Harper’s that had her essay on rape, which blew my mind when I read it, and tried but failed to lay my hands on my copy of her essay from Vogue on Little Women.

I had been so virtuous for so long, not buying or even putting Gaitskill’s new novel Veronica in my library queue, because I had not yet read her last story collection, Because They Wanted To. But sometime within the past year, I read an article that said she was one of a handful of talented writers who can barely make a living, and since I agree with the talented part, I thought I should put my money where my ethics were, and buy Veronica. So I did, directly contradicting nearly everything I wrote earlier this week, except for how good I am at rationalizing.

Gaitskill was a good reader, and seemed a little shy in front of the audience. Her writing was mesmerizing, and she had interesting things to say about how she wrote Veronica years ago when she had an emotional idea about the book, but wasn’t able to finish it till she had a more intellectual handle on it and could tackle the manuscript holistically. She has arresting white-blonde hair, and wore a pin-striped brown suit over boots that looked both fashionable, and sharp enough to poke a good-sized hole in someone’s shin. And her outfit was a good reflection of how she seemed: smart, talented, with an edge.

Related to yesterday’s post about book stockpiling is the thorny issue of book weeding. I am a fierce de-crapifier. We live in a small house, and clutter makes me anxious. My husband G. Grod, however, is a pack rat. He never wants to throw or give anything away. Recently he had an “I told you so” moment when I was making an 80s mix CD, and no longer owned several CDs of songs I wanted to include. I’d sold them off years ago to make room for new ones, and because I was certain I’d never want to listen to them again. Similarly, I recently bought a copy of Kate Atkinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum. I read it years ago for my dear former book group, and didn’t love it, and could not imagine reading it again. But when I read and loved Case Histories last year, I thought I’d like to read BtSatM again.

Getting rid of books/comics/music/movies is a tough call. Yes, it’s nice to clear out room, and not have it taking up space in the house or in my attention. And over the years, I’ve gotten rid of loads of things that I haven’t missed one jot. Yet there are those few instances, like with the 80s CDs, that were so annoying that I must admit my husband has a point. A book in hand can be a wonderful thing when the urge to re-read, or even just to flip through, strikes.

SFP at Pages Turned is auditioning a remedy for book stockpiling:

I can buy any book I want, but the catch is, I can’t buy it until I’m prepared to read it. No more stockpiling, no more bumping library books to the front of the queue since an owned book means a book I can ignore until I run out of material with due dates. No, if I buy a book now I should intend to read it immediately.

Like other readers, I’ve tried the “I can only buy what I’ll read right away” method; it didn’t work. There are too many exceptions, and I’m too good at rationalizing. I’ll find something rare at a used bookstore, or be seduced by some sort of incentive, like a coupon, percent off, or BOGO (buy one, get one). I worked in marketing; incentives aren’t fabulous deals. They’re lures to get me in the store (be it real or virtual) so I spend money I otherwise might not.

The only cure for stockpiling I’ve found is to avoid shopping. If I don’t shop, I don’t buy. Lest this sound like I’ve got my act together, even this doesn’t work. I’ve cut back (not out) book purchases, and I’m better about reading purchases right away. But I’m still reading more new purchases than old purchases. And I’ve read about the same number of old purchases as library books, even though I planned otherwise. This summer I took all books off my library queue and was able to complete my summer reading challenge. Once I did that, though, I put several requests in at the library, so I’m right back to bad habits.

My current plan for the library is not to add any book requests until I’ve read more of the older books on my shelf. When I read about a book that sounds good, I send myself an email, then store it in a folder of recommendations for some potential mythical lull in my reading future. The good thing about electronic lists is that they don’t accumulate in drifts around the house and in my purse, wallet, or diaper bag.

My current plan to avoid stockpiling is to buy a book only after I’ve read it, loved it, and am about to read it again, or urge it on my husband. This has resulted in a few purchases this year already (King Dork and Black Swan Green), but overall, I’m buying far fewer books than previously.

I think book stockpiling is like any other bad habit. Different things work for different people, or even at different times for the same person. Like any bad habit, it’s not able to be undone in a day. Recovery is a process, not an event, and is measured by progress, not perfection. While there are many worse habits out there, book stockpiling isn’t harmless. I learned a few things with my summer reading list. I could manage without books on reserve at the library. I could stick to a book plan if I put my mind to it. But a book plan, as opposed to a loose and changeable list, made reading less enjoyable. Once I acquired a book, by stockpiling or borrowing, it became an obligation, rather than something I wanted to read. For me, stockpiling books not only takes up space and is fiscally irresponsible, but it also takes some of the fun out of reading.

A farmer friend of mine once shared her theory that humans–farmer or not–feel an urgency around the summer solstice that corresponds to the rhythm of the earth to get the crops planted in the ground, and then again at the autumn equinox to gather the harvest before the fall.

Everyone I talk to lately feels harried and overscheduled, and I am no exception. I’m hoping that this means we are simply creatures of the earth, and once the equinox passes, and our harvests (physical or metaphorical) are in, things will feel less hectic.

Every so often a meme goes around the blogosphere that asks about favorite books. Not only does this often yield non-illuminating answers (people who name only classics, or don’t say why they chose a title), but the lengthy entries are a reminder that the word meme is made up of me and me. While they can be fun to write, they are usually less fun to read.

Some recent disappointing books have gotten me thinking about books I haven’t loved, and perhaps have even hated. And hated books, I thought, are possibly more interesting than favorite ones.

This is not a meme, but a question: what is one book you hated, and why?

I hated Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. I disliked the main character, who did not grow or develop over the course of the narrative. I disliked how long it was, and how much time I felt I’d wasted by the time it was over. I disliked it even more when I found it had gotten numerous positive reviews, and was selected by the New York Times as a best book of 2005.

At six months old, our son Drake refused rice cereal, veggies AND fruit, presaging the years since of picky eating. Twice I tried to make my own baby food. Twice he refused it, and I was stuck with veggie puree and tons of dishes. Forget it, I thought. He can eat out of jars.

When baby Guppy was waking frequently in the night after four months, I offered him a tiny amount of rice cereal. He slurped it down. This is going great, I thought. Then he was up with gas all night. I tried again after six months. He became constipated. So I mixed in a little prune juice, which caused gas. What to feed him, then? I unearthed my two baby food cookbooks, Mommy Made and Daddy Too by Martha and David Kimmel, and First Foods by Annabel Karmel.

Both books say cooking for kids is easy. As I found before, it’s not the cooking that’s hard, it’s the cleanup. The Karmel book is particularly bad for dirty-dish intensive recipes. While it’s pretty with lots of glossy photos, the more I spend time with it, the more I dislike it. Page 35 shows 12 panels of brightly colored infant purees. But they repeat three of the photos twice, identifying them as different foods, e.g., the same photo for carrots and sweet potato. Additionally, the Karmel book does not give details on what foods to introduce when. It simply recommends avoiding common allergens early.

The Kimmel book give details on what to introduce and when, but it’s not clear that the recommendations are from the American Academy of Pediatrics. And the website in the book is no longer owned by the authors. The Kimmel book swears that fresh baby food is far superior to jarred. I’m not completely convinced, especially because even conventional baby food doesn’t contain additives these days, and there are at least three readily available organic brands to choose among. Yet once again, I’ve been swayed into cooking my own baby food. I baked sweet potatoes and bananas, and steamed peaches and pears. Then I pureed them, and froze them in tablespoon dollops. I was reminded that sweet potatoes should be riced or put through a food mill; putting them in the food processor makes them gluey, which the Kimmel book doesn’t caution against. Guppy is mostly rewarding my efforts by being a good eater, but he doesn’t seem to mind the jarred stuff, either. And we’re still having bouts of tummy trouble.

Most of my 3yo Drake’s friends stopped napping every day a while ago. Drake, though, continued to nap nearly every day. One day I even wondered whether he was doing it out of habit, but then we skipped a day and he melted down that night. Still needs it, I noted. And within the last two months, I finally managed to get both Drake and his baby brother Guppy to take afternoon naps about the same time.

Then a few weeks ago it was getting close to nap time and Drake said, “I’m really tired. I want to go up for my nap.”

I picked my jaw off the floor, rushed him up for his nap, and he fell asleep almost immediately.

And that was the last real nap he took.

Since then, I put him in his room, and instead of napping he gets out books and “reads” them. While I could put a lock on his book closet door, that feels terribly wrong. How can I, in good conscience, stop him from doing what I usually do every day?

When I’ve told my friends that he’s stopped napping, they ask if he does “quiet time.” I grimace. Drake’s version of quiet time is reciting books from memory, singing loudly, kicking the wall by his bed, saying “mom, mom, mom” into the monitor until I go up and ask what he wants, or, last week, shouting the ABCs while stomping along on the floor till the walls shook, while I crossed my fingers that baby Guppy wouldn’t wake from his nap. Currently, he’s doing something (banging on the wall with a book?) that is loud enough to register on Guppy’s monitor, the next room over.

I don’t think this is just a phase. I think he’s given up naps. He goes to sleep faster at night and sleeps longer in the morning to compensate. Now I just need to find a way to get him to be quiet while Guppy naps.

I never knew how tricky pronouns were till I started teaching them to my son Drake, who is now three. At first, he had a lot of trouble with “you” and “me”. Recently, though, he demonstrated how far he’s come. He looked in the mirror while my husband and I held him and said, “Mom is looking at HERself, Dad is looking at HIMself, and I am looking at MYself.” His recent mastery, though, has been shaken by a book he got for his birthday, My First Truck Board Book.

I’ll say “Do you want me to read My First Truck Book?”

He’ll respond, “NO! I want to read MY First Truck Book, Mom!”

Me: “Yes, we’ll read your first truck book.”

Drake: “NO! MY First Truck Book, Mom!”

Me (realizing we’re in Who’s on First-ian territory and that it’s not worth trying to explain that the word “my” is part of the title, and not about actual possession): Sigh. “Ooo-kay.”

What’s funny is how the pronoun of the title is a stumbling block for him, but he’s memorized every single one of the gazillion trucks in the book, e.g., “No, Mom, that’s a track excavator, NOT a front loader!”

My personal favorite truck is the mass excavator, which looks like the Snort from Are You My Mother?.

Wow. That premiere was pretty good, wasn’t it?

A few thoughts. Amanda Peet, with wide eyes and a weird half smile, didn’t exhibit much range, though she did look good in a pretty, Marc Jacobs-y dress. If you took all the lines on Matthew Perry’s forehead, and all the lines on Bradley Whitford’s forehead, and compared them to the suspiciously smooth forehead of Steven Weber, what would you have? Matthew Perry did a great job of not ever acting like Chandler Bing. He did not, though, act as if he were hopped up on painkillers, or move as if he had recently had back surgery.

While I liked the premiere, I refuse to get excited about this show. I remember how much I liked the premiere of The West Wing, and how quickly it degenerated into mawkishness. Studio 60 reminded me pleasantly of Sports Night, Sorkin’s first television show, which was also about television.

My husband and I went on a date last weekend to the new Midtown Global Market (MGM). Based on the City Pages article, we tried food from three different shops. We got a torta from Mannys, a tamale and liquado from La Loma, and a huarache from Los Ocampo. We got a Coke with real sugar from one of the grocers, as well as a can of chipotle chiles that I hadn’t been able to get when shopping at my regular place earlier in the day, and the cut of meat I needed for our next meal. We splurged on a container of Potion #9, a chocolate sauce made with local Hope butter. The woman who sold it to us confessed without guilt that she doesn’t bother putting it on ice cream; she eats it out of the container by the spoonful. We’ve served it over ice cream, but are so determined to get every last bit of chocolate sauce out of the bowl that there’s little to be heard over the furious clinking of spoons. (The bowls are not wide enough to lick, which is the only thing constraining us. So either I need to serve in a wider, shallower bowl, or get out a spatula next time. Such is the compelling nature of this chocolate sauce.)

Visiting the MGM, I was reminded fondly of the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia. The MGM has great places both for cooked food and for foodstuffs. I left so full I could hardly move, wondering when we could next go back.

#57 in my book challenge for the year was Bangkok Tattoo, the sequel to Bangkok 8, by John Burdett. While I loved B8 both times I read it, I found Tattoo less deft and engaging. I still whipped through it and could hardly wait to get to the end. But there were myriad bumps along the way: infelicitous sentences, mixed-up characterizations, too much going on, and a narrator who was somehow less present and engaging than he was in the first book. Worst of all, the story centers around that most wretched of cliches, the hooker with the heart of gold. As with B8, the sense of place is wonderful, the cultural divide is lovingly detailed, and Sonchai’s past-life and Buddhist insights make for a singular main character. Yet there were too many traffic-jam talk-radio interludes, a dead-end subplot with Sonchai’s new partner, and more information about other characters that Sonchai is privy to than is believeable.

Bangkok Tattoo is the third sloppy sequel I’ve read recently, after Second Helpings by Meghan McCafferty and Magic Lessons by Justine Larbalestier. All three books were less well plotted than their predecessors, and included a distracting and unnecessary number of details. All three would have benefited from more severe editing and at least one more draft. I suspect they were rushed to publication based on the success of the former books. I found all three disappointing in comparison to the first books, on whose merit I bought them. I will not be buying the third installments without having read them from the library first.

#56 in my book challenge for the year was Persuasion by Jane Austen. I’m slowly working my way through the six major novels by Austen. Persuasion is her last, and was published posthumously. Anne Elliott is a typical Austen heroine in that her father is fiscally irresponsible, she has one vain sister and one self-involved sister, and she becomes involved with a man who is not as good as he seems. Her particulars are interesting, though. She regrets that a family friend talked her out of an engagement in her youth, and the novel does a credible job of maintaining doubt as to whether they will get together. Anne is a sympathetic and likeable character, even as she is maddeningly reticent. There are three women in the novel who aren’t entirely good or bad: Mrs. Russell (the widowed family friend), Mrs. Clay (the possibly widowed friend of Anne’s older sister), and Mrs. Smith (an ailing, poor, widowed school chum of Anne’s). There were three other characters who were also widowed: Anne’s father, Captain Benwick, and Anne’s cousin Mr. Elliott. The novel is much darker than the other Austen novels I’ve read, and dwells much on illness and death. It’s filled with regret, and has sharp judgment rather than gentle humor for its minor characters. In constrast with Price and Prejudice and Emma, this is the work of a more mature, less happy writer.