Girl Detective

My two-year old son Drake makes me aware on a regular basis. Of what, it’s hard to say, exactly, but most definitely aware. There are some incidents that are so beautiful, or so gratifying, that they leave me speechless. Tonight, some milk leaked out of Drake’s cup. He said “Oh, milk,” then went running off to the kitchen. My husband G. Grod followed him, only to find he had grabbed a rag and was running back to wipe up the milk. Drake then turned around and returned the rag to its place in the kitchen. G. and I stared at each other in pleased disbelief at our capable, responsible son. Yet this was also a day in which I had to give him yet another time out for yet another head butt to me–ow. He also threw a screaming fit at the grocery coop, even though he said he wanted to go there, and at each diaper change and car seat strapping in. The range between beautiful and enraging is huge, and I go back and forth along it daily.

My two-year old son Drake is having a hard time with pronouns. For a long time during diaper changes, I’d ask him, “Who do I love?” Then, when he wouldn’t answer, because he didn’t talk until well past 18 months old, I’d say, “You!” Of course, when he did finally answer me, he answered as I did. When I hold out my hand to help him down the stairs, he says, “No, do it yourself.” Often, when he does something for which we’ve praised him in the past, he’ll jump up and down and say, “Yay, you did it!” (I don’t sense he’s hurting in the esteem department.) The past few weeks I’ve been correcting him, which has proved awkward.

I say, “No, Drake, you say, ‘I want to do it myself.’ Or, “No, Drake, you say ‘me’.”

These get confusing even to me, so I’m sure it’s clear as mud to him. He’s a mimic, and I’m sure understanding will come eventually, but for now I think it’s best to just model what I think he means, rather than cluttering it up with more pronouns.

Last year when we bought this house, the inspector told us we should have our chimney tuckpointed within a year. Tuckpointing, I learned, is replacing the mortar between the bricks of a chimney so it doesn’t collapse. Now it’s a year later, winter is coming, and I find there’s good reason I’ve put off this particular piece of maintenance.

First, it’s hard to find someone to do it. We have a two-story house with a high-pitched roof and three peaks, so it won’t be easy getting up there. I’ve asked four people. One said it was too high and he couldn’t do it. Another gave me an estimate of $1200 to $1400. A third waited two weeks to call me at 7:25 in the morning to tell me he was too busy. And the fourth I’m still waiting on an estimate from.

So it’s likely to be expensive, there’s not a lot of choice in who can do it, and finally, it’s not something we’re going to notice or appreciate if we do, only suffer for if we don’t. I shouldn’t complain. I was the one who wanted to buy the old house, as my husband G. Grod often reminds me. But it’s still aggravating.

To all of you living in the United States, a reminder. It’s election day. I know it’s not a presidential year, but go vote! The polls aren’t crowded, the people are nice, and it’s a way to do something good and feel good about it.

Finding out where you’re to vote, and what candidates match your concerns, are easier than ever. Don’t let minor, fixable gaps in knowledge stop you. Spend a couple minutes on Google or at the website of your local newspaper.

Vote!

Rosa Parks died a few weeks ago, and her death was covered in all the major newspapers. Parks became an historical figure when she refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and was arrested.

Beyond that, I bet most Americans could recite many details: she was poor, she was tired, she dared to sit in the white area of the bus. A provocative book I read a few years ago, though, noted that most of these details are either embroideries or untrue. But that doesn’t mean Rosa Parks was a sham, it simply means she was different from the iconic legend that has grown around her.

The book is Should We Burn Babar? by Herbert R. Kohl. In the chapter on Rosa Parks, Kohl notes that she was not poor, but of middle income. She was an active member of the civil rights movement. She, and others like her, were waiting for opportunities of civil disobedience to bring injustice to the attention of the media and the public at large. She was also not sitting in the “white” front section of the bus; she was sitting in the back. The rules at the time said that if a white bus rider asked her to move, she must. She refused, and was arrested. Her arrest was followed swiftly by a boycott of the Montgomery buses by African-Americans that so damaged the local economy that change quickly followed.

In his book, Kohl asks the compelling question of why the myth of Rosa the poor, tired individual was the one that got perpetuated, and why so few people know or remember the boycott, which was critical to changing the laws. He argues that it is as powerful a story, and perhaps more useful as a lesson about injustice, to learn that Parks was a member of a group that was actively seeking non-violent ways to overthrow the unjust laws they had to live with. It is also interesting to note the the actual circumstances around her arrest were more unfair than those that are more popularly known. Wouldn’t it be a better lesson, Kohl argues, to show that working together and planning can bring results?

It’s been several years since I read the book, and I passed it on to a teacher friend of mine. I no longer have it to refer to, so I fear some of these details are a bit fuzzy. What struck me when I heard about Parks’s death was the clarity with which Kohl’s passionate argument came back, and the intriguing duality of Parks the real woman and the legend, both fascinating, both brave, and both integral to change in America. The one I admire more, though, is not the mythical one who had a bad day and reacted, but the smart one who knew that there can be strength in numbers. She saw an opportunity, seized it, and history was not the same. That, to me, is the more compelling person, and the more compelling story.

Harold Bloom has a written a new book in which he says something that has been quoted a great deal already:

I have only three criteria for whether a work should be read and reread and taught to others, and they are: aesthetic splendour, cognitive power, and wisdom.

The quote is short, pithy, and really pretty good, which is probably why it’s being quoted all over the blogosphere. I will paraphrase what I take away from it, which is that a work much be beautiful, provocative, and wise. I think Bloom’s criteria are good ones, especially in conversation with the questions I asked in a recent entry on novels, is there such a thing as a Great Novel, and if so, what are the determining factors?

Bloom’s criteria, though, don’t make the question of what is a great work and what is not any less subjective, because whether a work has aesthetic splendour, cognitive power, and wisdom is a matter of opinion. For example, I noted that I did not think Zadie Smith’s novel, White Teeth, belonged on the Time best-novel list. One of my readers, Duff, disagreed. White Teeth has many strengths, among them a canny portrayal of individual voices from disparate cultures and insightful relationships of family and friends. I think these things give it cognitive power and wisdom. But I found its ultimate plot, which centered around a mouse, to be conventional and overly tidy. Because of this, the book lacked aesthetic splendour for me, and I consider it good, not great.

Bloom’s criteria, then, can be useful in discussing and disagreeing on what works have merit. Bloom earned many enemies when he trashed the Harry Potter books in a Wall Street Journal piece titled “Can 35 million Harry Potter Fans Be Wrong? Yes!.” I’ve enjoyed reading the Potter books, yet I can’t honestly say they have aesthetic splendour, cognitive power, or wisdom. I find them fun to read, and cleverly plotted. I’ve enjoyed the evolution of the characters over six books. But there are greater books out there, ones I eschew when I read a Harry Potter novel, so Bloom has a point. He’s an intelligent person, so this should not be surprising.

Yet when I read Bloom, my hackles rise, and I want to dismiss him as a hide-bound racist who perpetuates on an intellectual level the kind of fascism he decries on a political one. In an interview with Bloom at Eurozine, he says, right after he makes his comment about the three criteria he uses

And those are not the standards now applied in the universities and colleges of the English-speaking world. Nor are they the standards applied in the media. Everyone is now much more concerned with gender, sexual orientation, ethnic origin, skin pigmentation, and twenty other irrelevancies, whereas I am talking about what I have never talked about before, and that is wisdom.

Throughout the interview, the link to which I found at Arts and Letters Daily, Bloom refers to the female interviewer as “Dear” and “dear child”. He names writers who exemplify wisdom to him. All are male; nearly all are white and dead. I don’t disagree with him on many of the writers he names, especially his author of particular expertise, Shakespeare. In the interview he has some fascinating analysis of Hamlet and the experience of reading Hamlet. I did find it curious that he didn’t talk about the experience of seeing the play but only of reading it. But when he says things so absurd as that he is one of the few teachers left who truly care about teaching, and when he refuses to recognize the worth of work by authors who are not male, I question whether any of what he says can be of value.

In the interview, Bloom quotes another influential but problematic author

Nietzsche said: “Jedes Wort ist ein Vorurteil”, which I would translate as “Every word is a misjudgement”. He also said in Twilight of the Idols — and I quote it again and again teaching about Shakespeare — “Anything that we are able to speak, to say or formulate, is something which is already dead in our hearts” — we can’t even feel it anymore, you know.

The quote reminds me that I don’t have to write clearly about how troubling and problematic I find Bloom and some of his views. It’s better if I don’t have clarity, and continue to wrestle with it. Like Nietzsche, Bloom has written some great things, some troubling things, as well as some things that have been used by others to maintain outdated and exclusionary status quos about whose value has work. Great work has been and will continue to be produced by all people, male and otherwise. Reading work by authors whose lived experience is different from one’s own allows one to expand one’s consciousness, one’s awareness of the subjectivity of great work, and one’s empathy. Bloom calls this irrelevant. Here are a few books that have earned permanent spots on my bookshelf, and that are good examples of why I think Bloom’s white male focus is wrong.

When I went to get my two-year old son Drake up from his nap, he smiled at me, called out “Mom!” excitedly, then said “I love you, mommy,” unprompted by his dad, for the first time. It was such a simple thing with such an emotional wallop that it nearly knocked me over.

I won’t write, and I don’t believe, that moments like this “make it all worth it.” I think life is a complex series of ups and downs that are impossible to nail down onto some karmic balance sheet. It was a moment of great joy and no ambivalence. Moments like that have great worth of themselves, not in comparison or contrast to other things.

Oh, lovely food, we said. Then we gobbled it down. (With a nod to Mrs. Wishy-Washy.)

Last night a friend watched our son Drake so my husband G. Grod and I could go to dinner. We tried again at 112 Eatery, which was fully committed on our anniversary last month. Last night we got there early and were seated immediately. 112 is a small space with only a few reservations to be had. One must either take a reservation at an off time (5 pm and 10 pm were available when I called), book far in advance, or take one’s luck on walk-in seating. Yesterday’s early arrival was key to our success, because by 6:15 every seat was taken.

I have eaten at 112 several times already, but G. Grod had never been. Based on portions, I suggested we share an appetizer, each get an entree, and split a dessert. The appetizer I’ve gotten before and enjoyed was the romaine salad with roquefort dressing garnished with breadcrumbs. Because there’s some disagreement on the safety of blue cheeses during pregnancy, I decided to try something different, so we got the lardon/foie gras salad, which was just as unhealthily oxymoronic as it sounds. Lardons, like thick chunks of bacon, are fried, then tossed with frisee greens and rice wine vinegar and served next to sauteed foie gras. G. Grod defied me to remind him of anything we’d eaten that had ever tasted better. I thought of two things (one, “duck three ways” from a tasting menu at Cosmos restaurant in Minneapolis, and another from a tasting menu at a restaurant in the Black Forest in Germany). Both also involved foie gras, so I think I see a trend in what we favor.

As per my usual, I ordered the small portion of the stringozzi pasta with lamb sugo sauce. This is a red sauce with lamb simmered until it’s soft, then shredded, served over thick, squiggly, house-made noodles. Each time I’ve ordered it, I think, “Oh, the bowl’s too small” until I can barely finish it, and then I’m amazed that I’ve just consumed something that’s so delicious, so savory, so filling, and that only cost $8.

G. Grod got the deceptively plain sounding “French cheeseburger”, which is a half pound of ground beef and onions topped with a slab of soft brie on an English muffin. He also got the french fries, served in a cone, perfectly done, and accompanied by a lovely aioli that caused us to completely ignore the ketchup. He couldn’t finish the burger, though he tried, which left me on my own for dessert.

In the past I’ve ordered the chocolate pot de creme, which has been rich, smooth and with a satisfying punch of chocolate. I wavered between the new version on the menu which is “spicy”, and the pumpkin flan. Our server, who had an enthusiastic knowledge of the menu that he communicated very well, swayed me to the new version of the pot de creme. As he’d promised, the heat of the spices was subtle, but built, and was an especially good complement to the chocolate now that the weather is cooler and autumnal. The texture, though, was no longer smooth like a pudding, but thick and more like a ganache than a custard. I preferred the new flavor but the old texture, which lent a heaviness to the end of an already quite rich meal. I could finish barely half of it.

I’ve gone back to 112 Eatery because it has excellent quality food and menu choices, as well as friendly and knowledgeable staff. While it’s possible to spend a lot there, it’s also possible to eat grandly and spend little. My only quibble is how difficult it can be to get in, yet I don’t blame the owners, who are a husband and wife. They’ve got a small, excellent restaurant, with a small menu that they execute nearly flawlessly. It deserves all the accolades and crowds that it draws. I hope it’s around for a long, long time, so I can keep going when I have the chance.

Finding books that both our two-year-old son Drake and his parents like to read is sometimes a challenge. Also, sometimes a book has a good story, but so-so illustration, or vice versa. So books that we all like and that are beautiful both to look at and to read are something of a trifecta.

I came across Mo Willems’ books during a search at www.amazon.com. I find amazon’s links to “people who bought this also bought this” is useful to learn about books and music that I haven’t heard of. Many people dismiss amazon and its links out of hand–”oh, anybody can write a review, how can you tell anything by that”. But I use the links to browse, and I can often readily identify more and less reliable reviews. I usually only attend to the editorial ones, anyway.

There are four Mo Willems pigeon books–two hardcovers and two board books. In Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus, the pigeon begs the reader to drive while the bus driver is away. It’s an interactive story that allows a toddler to yell “No” with abandon, unless s/he’s feeling sympathetic to the pigeon. In The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog, a cute duckling heckles the pigeon before it can consume the serendipitous weiner. The board books are shorter and sturdier than most, and quite charming. The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too! shows an interchange between the pigeon and the bus driver. The Pigeon Loves Things That Go caps toddler-fascinating vehicles with a clever appearance by the duckling.

Willems’ two other recent books, Knuffle Bunny and Leonardo the Terrible Monster, are very good, but did not inspire the mad repetition Drake demanded of the pigeon books. Willems worked at Sesame Street, and was the creative mind behind the strange but charming and short lived cartoon Sheep in the Big City. His simple but engaging illustrations combined with the clever, odd humor make for a great set of books.

“Is he as cute as you are?”

“Nobody is.”

Bogey. Bacall. Sexy banter adapted by Faulkner from a Chandler novel. The Big Sleep was #55 in my movie challenge for the year, and the third Bogey/Bacall film of the year, following Key Largo and To Have and Have Not. The plot makes sense only if you think about it a lot, and doing so takes away some of the fun. This is a joy of a film noir, and the extras on the DVD are worth watching to learn why this film sat on the shelf for almost two years, and why letting it do might have saved Bacall’s career from an early death.

#85 in my book challenge for the year, All Rivers Flow to the Sea has all the trademarks of McGhee’s impressive collection of novels. It is sad and beautifully written. It focuses on new characters in her fictional town of Sterns, NY, but includes characters from former novels as well. This is a young adult novel whose main character, Rose Latham, struggles with grief as her sister languishes in a coma. Rose’s flawed coping behaviors, as well as the persistent people around her, are sharply touching and real. As with all of McGhee’s books, her characters continued to hang out in my mind after I finished the book, and I’m so glad to have them. They are wonderful company. I saw McGhee at the Twin Cities book fest recently, and she described her original three novels, Rainlight, Shadow Baby and Was It Beautiful?, as “saddest, sad, and sadder.” I’m not sure where she would place All Rivers Flow to the Sea on that continuum, but I think it falls into sadder, while her middle-grade novel Snap was sad. Someone asked which book she recommended reading to start. She said Shadow Baby, since it was not only an audience pleaser, but less sad than some of the others. I say, read them in order. Start with Rainlight, which is the saddest, but still my favorite. They’re all of a piece, and they’re all wonderful.

#84 in my book challenge for the year, Mothers and Other Monsters was recommended at Blog of a Bookslut. It is a collection of speculative short fiction by McHugh, a much-awarded speculative fiction writer who has formerly published novels. There are stories about Alzheimer’s, ghosts, parents and children, other worlds, and werewolves. What is most impressive about this collection is its strong writing across a huge variety of settings and topics. I usually prefer novels to short stories, but this collection kept me engaged, and better yet, it made me think.

The collection included excerpts from two of McHugh’s novels, Mission Child and Nekropolis, the former of which I’ve read. I liked but didn’t love it when I did; I remember it as distant and chilly–not emotionally engaged. Reading the segment, here, though, made me want to revisit it. I wasn’t as drawn in by the segment from Nekropolis, a more recent novel that got many impressive reviews.

#54 in my movie challenge for the year, Layer Cake is a stylish, clever gangster flick. Why is it that the English excel at this type of movie (e.g., Get Carter, The Long, Good Friday)? What is the American equivalent? Is it the mob epic, as my husband G. Grod suggests? Layer Cake has a likeable main character who, as per the formula, struggles with issues of character. The ending twists, turns, and doubles back in a satisfying ending that moves so quickly it defies prediction. Like most gangster films, though, Layer Cake feels nihilistic and a little soul-less. This is an engaging movie, but not one that prompts a great deal of inner thought.

#83 in my book challenge for the year, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson is a Great Novel, if such a thing exists (see last entry.) It certainly is one of the best novels I’ve read, at least this year, if not ever. Robinson has written only one other novel, Housekeeping, though she has written other books. Many wondered if Housekeeping would be the only novel by Robinson, since there was a gap of more than twenty years between them. A writing instructor of mine told the story of the publishing editor who stood in the doorway of a colleague’s office. “Guess what I’m holding?” the editor asked, reverently. “Marilynne Robinson’s second novel.” Gilead is a series of letters written from an older (seventy-ish) father to his young (seven-ish) son, meant to be read when the son is older. I can’t conjure enough adjectives to do this book justice. Lovely, timeless, seamless, touching. That the letter conceit works, in addition to telling history, new story and characterization, is a stunning feat of writing. I am accustomed to reading at a fast clip. This book defies quick reading. It is rich, complex prose to be savored. Housekeeping made the Time best-of list I wrote about yesterday. Gilead belongs on that list, too.

Time magazine recently released a list of the 100 best novels since 1923. Thanks to Blogenheimer for the link. Blogenheimer also includes a link to this Morning News article that included dissenting opinions, including one by someone who contended that 1984 was not as good a novel as Harry Potter.

Most of the quotes from the Morning News are easily laughed at. Yet what isn’t obvious, to me, at least, is why Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, which was a good first novel in my opinion, certainly not a Great Novel, was on there while other novelists like Michael Chabon and Joyce Carol Oates did not appear at all. I’m sure there are many, “why this and not that?” arguments that can be made, because best-of lists are dubious things, created more to stoke sales and promote controversy than for any value themselves.

I had a recent email exchange with the author of Mental Multivitamin in which we discussed whether there is a difference between great and good novels, and whether its snobbery to say so. I attended a talk once by film director Peter Greenaway. He marked a distinction between art for enjoyment, and art for pleasure. The former was simple; the latter complex. Are these distinctions false, and merely subject to individual taste, as the critic of 1984 contends?

My own conclusion is that there is a difference, but it’s hardly black and white. There’s lots of gray middle ground. And I don’t think it’s snobbery to make a distinction, but I know it will be called so.

What think you, readers? Is there a difference between great and merely good novels, and is it snobbery to say so? Does the Time list have any worth?

I did not clean my kitchen floor. I did not do any laundry. I did not blog. I did not read blogs. I did not run more than one errand. I did not bake brownies. I did not run to the grocery store. I did not succumb to my obviously tired toddler’s pleas to read him more than two books before his nap. I did not read an entire short story. I did not return phone calls.

Instead, I did a final edit of my novel to complete the latest draft, which I hope is the penultimate one before I send it out. I also gave several sharp looks and comments to the baby monitor whenever Drake stirred before I finished. But, bless him, he took a good, long nap, and I did finish.

I am averaging two drafts a year. I wish it were better, but it could be worse. I wrote the first draft in National Novel Writing Month in November of 2002. For any reader who ever thought they’d like to write a novel, I highly recommend NaNoWriMo. It’s not easy, but it’s rewarding. I’m not participating this year. Instead, I’m getting this manuscript ready to submit. But I did it last year as well, so as soon as this one is out the door, I’m setting to work on last year’s novel.

Someone had cause to translate this blog into French. Thanks to Blogenheimer for the link.

#82 in my book challenge for the year, The Panic-Free Pregnancy, was recommended to me by a food critic, because it debunks common pregnancy myths such as “don’t eat sushi.” (Why? Sushi may cause food poisoning, but not listeria, the only kind of food poisoning that can cross the placenta. Ditto for rare meat.) The book is divided into sections of pre-, during, and post-pregnancy. I found it most effective in the “during” sections for things like what drugs are safe. The author, a doctor and researcher, debunks many commonly held beliefs such as avoiding ibuprofen entirely, and avoiding cold medicines. One of the most interesting factoids he attacks is the “8 glasses of water a day” rule. According to him, there is absolutely no study or test to back this up. It was put out as a nutritional guideline at one point, and people adopted it and now never question it. Instead, he advocates drinking if you’re thirsty. What a concept.

The book is useful, but it’s not world-shaking. Ultimately, much of what he says is common sense, and much of it is able to be found elsewhere. It upholds some of the common advice, such as avoiding deli products, soft cheeses and blue cheeses for listeria. He also is not able to confirm that topical creams that contain retinol are safe, so there are still plenty of common things that are off the list for pregnant women.

This book should be used with caution. A topic can be discussed in a few places, not all of which are listed in the index. For example, in one discussion of listeria that’s not in the index, he recommends avoiding blue cheeses, but not in any other. Additionally, my doctor disagreed with his assertions about ibuprofen. She agreed that it might be used occasionally as needed early in pregnancy, but said that the further on in pregnancy one goes, the more of a detrimental effect it has on the circulation of the developing fetus. Broder’s book is more cavalier than cautious on this point. While this book sells itself as the grain of salt that one should take with the conventional wisdom about what to do or avoid during pregnancy, it should also be used cautiously.

#81 in my book challenge for the year is What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt. It is well-written, with strong characters and a compelling story. It centers around the friendship between Leo, an art historian, and Bill, an artist, and their loves, their children, and their tragedies. The novel also includes a lot of art history and feminist theory, but these are always used in service of the story. They enhance the understanding of the characters, as well as the reading experience.

A friend asked me recently if I’d do anything differently during my second pregnancy than I did during my first. Ha! I thought. Any one thing? I have a few.

The biggest change is that I do not have a job. I resigned mine when my son Drake was 9 months old, because he kept getting sick in daycare. Note that I did not say, “I do not work.” I care for Drake and our home full time. I much prefer dealing with a pouty, fussy two-year old to managing a pouty, fussy so-called adult, as I was often called to do at my former job. Also, most of my deadlines, and decisions to adhere to them or ignore them, are now almost always my own. Finally, I divide my time between family and writing, and do not have to juggle the awkward third party of work as I once did. I am much more fatigued this pregnancy than last, likely because of wrangling Drake, yet I have much less stress than I did. We have much less money than we did, which is an ongoing challenge, but the tradeoffs have been worthwhile.

Against all conventional wisdom, I am exercising less. During the first weeks of my first trimester of this pregnancy, I continued to go to power yoga classes. Then I stopped, and have switched to infrequent prenatal yoga tapes and walking. During my first pregnancy, I did power yoga until the day before I went into labor, which I entered exhausted and perhaps dehydrated, both of which probably contributed to a lengthy and difficult labor. This time I’m exercising, but I’m also resting. I try to take a short nap when Drake does. I want to do what I can to enter labor reasonably well-rested.

To assist with labor, I am going to meet with a hypnotist and work with a doula. When I checked into the hospital last time, all the rooms were full, and I wasn’t seen for a long time. This time, I’d like to have a birth assistant with my husband and me the whole time.

Finally, I know now that planning has limited value. Many of the things that people assume are birth “choices” aren’t, when it comes down to the actual event. Many people think that things like drugs, cesareans, and episiotomies are outdated choices enforced by conventional medical practitioners. Certain books and gurus enforce this perception. But they aren’t always things that are foisted upon you. Instead, they are sometimes medically necessary to protect the health of the mother or the baby. So I’m not going to go overboard on planning or preparation. If things continue, I will be less stressed, less tired, and more supported than I was last time. I think these things will increase my odds for a decent labor and delivery.