Books, Check 'Em Out

Hello, Krusty Krew! I hope your summer is treating you well. I am still in the midst of searching for that Holy Grail of Full Time Gainful Employment. I had some family reunion time, both at my Gramps's funeral (on my Dad's side -- got to see a bunch of cousins, one I haven't seen since I was about 14) and a family reunion of aunts and uncles on my Mom's side. Huzzah and all that, right? X-p

In the mean time, my reading has picked up in June. Twelve books so far and I'm hoping to polish off A Greyhound of a Girl by Roddy Doyle either tonight or tomorrow. It's a slim little novel, so it shouldn't be a problem. Most recently I read A Map of Time by Felix J. Palma and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

I don't remember where I first learned about A Map of Time, but when I learned that HG Wells was a character, I was intrigued. As you might recall, I read The Time Machine for school this year and The Dead Authors Podcast is one of my favorite audio treats (alas that it only updates once a month). HG Wells (as voiced by Paul F. Tompkins) is the host of the DAP. Good stuff.

For me, reading A Map of Time was a little like learning to drive a car. I was really excited to start. HG Wells! Time travel! Jack the Ripper! Victorian London without any of this steampunk nonsense! There were a few jerky stops and starts. Occasionally, Palma's turns of phrase or vocab choice would make me pause in a way that took me right out of the story. For instance, a half paragraph describing Mr. Wells's, er, package. We might chalk some of this up to this book being translated from the original Spanish. There was another phrase about a character and shell shock and trenches, which was a nice turn of phrase until I remembered that this book is pre-WWI and trench warfare, so it wouldn't make sense in a Victorian-set novel. But then the narrator is revealed to be an omniscent and outside of the time of the novel, so I decided that was an okay phrase to use. It's never revealed who the narrator is, exactly, but this book is the first of a series, so hopefully readers will find out.

The most interesting thing about this book is the way in which time travel is handled. However, that is all I can say because to tell you any more would be totally spoilerific. Although I can say that as I read some parts. I was picturing the Smashing Pumpkins video for "Tonight Tonight," which was fun. I liked this book well enough, and I'm sort of interested to know what happens to HG Wells, but probably not enough to finish the series. So many books, so little time and all that.

The next book I read was I Capture the Castle, and I am going on record to declare this to be one of my favorite books ever. I only regret that I didn't read this as a teenager because Cassandra Mortmain belongs in the pantheon of my girlhood idols. I suspect she and Anne Shirley would be bosom friends.

This book is set in England in the 1930s. Cassandra and her family live in "not-so-genteel poverty in a ramshackle old English castle" (from Goodreads). In fact, the castle is a falling down wreck and the family lives on the edge of starvation. But this isn't an Angelas Ashes  tale of woe so much as it is a 20th century heir to Jane Austen, although perhaps not consciously so. I don't know why it took me so long to read this book. I knew that there was a movie long before I knew this was a book, but I made myself wait until I'd read the book to see the movie. Well, I finished the book today and I got the movie to watch this weekend.

Really, the word that most comes to mind when I want to describe this book is "charming." It's also "nice," but don't let those words fool you into thinking that it is simple or twee or silly. It is a good story, well told, with nice people and enough conflict to drive the story. I'm also tempted to call this "Jane Austen Lite" but only because Smith sticks to a relatively uncomlicated story line. That is to say, she sticks with Cassandra's point of view and follows it through to the end. But seriously? Just go ahead and read the book.

Finally, a bit about lists. It should come as no surprise to you that I love lists and that I love Rory Gilmore. Apparently this has made the rounds before, but I only saw this on my Facebook today. Bust magazine posted a blog about Rory Gilmore's bookshelf and it lists books that dear Rory read throughout the series. I'm sad to say that I've only read 34 of the 120 books on the list, most of which are classics or modern literary fiction, both areas in which I am rather under-read and don't care as much about, but it's always fun to tick boxes on lists, and there are some books on Rory's list that I really probably should read.

Crazy by Han Nolan

Crazy by Han Nolan

Jason's mother is dead and his father is crazy. His mother died after a suffering from a stroke and his father, who has had delusional episodes his entire adult life, is now off his meds and Jason is trying to keep it together, keep his dad fed and get him back on his meds while coping with general high school issues, and he's not handling things particularly well. One of his coping mechanisms is his audience of imaginary friends. Jason watches his life like a movie, and his inner monologue is the studio audience watching along with him. 

But his coping mechanisms aren't working as his father's condition deteriorates, and Jason is assigned to a support group that meets with the school counselor and three other students. The story follows a pretty predictable arc from here (Jason learns to trust his friends, social services gets involved, etc). Crazy is a fairly typical problem novel, but that's okay. Typically, I don't enjoy these types of books. They tend to be preachy or cheesy like a Lifetime movie or overly gritty and shocking, but Nolan strikes a good balance in this story. She pulls just enough punches so the readers get a good, emotional ride through the story but aren't left completely wrecked by the end. Looking through the descriptions of her other books, it seems like they follow a similar pattern.

I read this book in two sittings. Nolan's prose is very easy to get into, and I really liked Jason's voice and the descriptions of his father's mental illness were interesting (the path his delusions followed), so while this sort of novel isn't really my cup of tea, I would definitely recommend her books to the kids at my library who like Ellen Hopkins-esque stories (although this book isn't nearly as gritty as a Hopkins book). Crazy is also one of the nominees for the 2013 Young Readers Choice Awards, so if you live in the Pacific Northwest and your school or public library participates in the YRCA program, consider checking this book out.

This is cross posted at Guys Lit Wire.

On symbols, and the hunting down thereof

Still in a fog about most things these days, but I did want to share something interesting. Mental Floss posted this fun article about a young man sent a questionnaire to a bunch of authors asking them about the (intentional) use of symbols in fiction. The post has been circulated and commented on by a number of folks, including my nerd crushes John Green and Wil Wheaton. There are a lot of good points in all the articles, from the authors commenting about symbolism to Wheaton's recollections of high school lit classes.

You may or may not know this, but I taught high school English for a couple years. The main reason I'm not teaching now is because when I moved from my hometown to the Big City, I couldn't find a job. But that's another story. Anyway, I posted a link to Green's response on my Facebook page because many of my friends are teachers and lit nerds. So far, only one of my friends has commented, but she said that, along the lines with the authors, that it is what we make of the symbols, the conversation we have with the book and author (as Green writes) that is important. I agree with all parties that literary analysis should not be some version of Duck Hunt, where we aim to take down as many tropes and devices as possible, and I'm reasonably sure I avoided this (most of the time) when I taught.

I will say this, though. The authors who have responded thus far are, as near as I can tell, adults whose critical thinking skills are probably better developed than your average high school student's skills, especially in the current climate of US education. This is NOT to say that teenagers aren't capable of nuanced critical thinking. They TOTALLY are and should be treated as such, and that means teachers really need to carefully examine their methods in order to avoid turning analysis into a check list, because as teachers, the only thing we can really control is our actions in the classroom. I do think pointing out things like symbols can be useful places to start a discussion. But we HAVE to move beyond that and we have to do it quickly. NOTHING enraged me more as a teacher than to get to the state tests and see that high school freshmen are asked to find gerunds and conjunctions. Find, mind you, not use properly. It's a FUCKING disgrace. Who the FUCK cares if you can define a gerund? Can you write a clear, cogent, interesting sentence?

Given the constraints placed on teachers, vis a vis testing, it's easy to understand why teachers fall into the Duck Hunt model of literary analysis, but that doesn't make it right. If you're gonna sit around with your multiple choice tests and shoot-to-kill lesson plans, kindly retire or quit and open up the jobs for those of us who give a damn about literature, who have the passion and the energy to share not only 1984 but Little Brother by Cory Doctorow, who will take 9th graders though Romeo and Juliet and help students open up to the connections that exist between their lives and Renaissance Italy, and going beyond English, to history teachers who are more than coaches* and who do more than rattle of dates that students memorize for the test and then promptly forget, etc. etc.

This has gotten a little off track from the original point. Mainly, it makes me sad to see that the same frustrations that drove the young student in 1963 to write to authors (although what a cool thing to do and how cool is it that so many wrote back??) are still shared by students (and teachers) today. I re-read The Great Gatsby last summer, which I did love as a high school junior, but as I read it as an adult, an adult the same age as the characters, I did get more out of the story than I had before. I don't think that is the  fault of my English teacher but rather shows that I've grown. And think about it. Do you have the same sorts of conversations and ideas now that you did as a teenager? as a middle schooler? as an elementary student? Of course not. You grow. And also also, can I just say how incredibly GORGEOUS the prose in this book is? I don't think I've ever read a more beautiful book in my life.

So what's to be done? Certainly teachers need to take the plunge and rethink the way we work with literary analysis. It would most definitely behoove teachers to bring modern YA lit into the classroom, because let's face it. We're never going to be able to read EVERYTHING. Hell, I have an MA in lit and the gaps in my reading are big enough to fly a rocket through. I picked up a copy of Eliot's poetry last week because it dawned on me that I'd never read The Wasteland.

 It's a hard call to make -- how could I ever consider dropping To Kill a Mockingbird? I think the key there is to let teachers use the books they're passionate about because passion can help stave off the temptation to use a checklist. After 20 years, or even 5 years, the most wonderful book can become stale. Trust students to be capable of nuanced thought and let them show you how thoughtful they can be. NO MORE MULTIPLE CHOICE TESTS EVER! At least not after elementary school. It's demeaning, even if it is easier to grade. Let them write, let them explore their ideas. Stop focusing on grammar and mechanics so telescopically. Of course these are important skills, but they are not the MOST important.

So yeah. [descends from soap box]



*No disrespect to coaches in general, but at least in Idaho, coaches jobs are bundled with history teachers jobs, so many history teachers are really lousy teachers, even if they're great coaches. It's colossally unfair to those amazing, passionate, bright folk who adore history, understand the importance that a solid grasp of history has for humans to be really great people that they are denied jobs because they don't also coach. And it unfairly stigmatizes people like Coach Lewis, my AP US History teacher, who was excellent at both teaching and coaching.

Round-up of Recent Reads

I was so looking forward to getting back into reading fun stuff and writing and posting once school was finished. Alas, Life has different plans, and so I've been under the Duvet of Malaise, not wanting to read or write or frankly do much of anything. Old Will knew what he was about when he wrote "When sorrows come, they come not single spies / But in battalions" (Hamlet IV, v, 52-53). I won't bore you with the details, but my Gramps died last week, and while we've been expecting it for quite some time and are relieved (he was in his mid-90s, suffering, just shutting down), it has been unexpectedly rough to handle. Sometimes I wonder if big, showy grief isn't easier to bear than mild, persistent, lingering gray feelings.

Anywhosies! Y'all don't come here to read about my blahbitty blahs. Well, you do, but the bookish blahs. So I've worked through a few books in the last couple weeks. They are:
1. Let's Pretend this Never Happened by Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess)
2. Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter
3. Carnet de Voyage by Craig Thompson
4. An Elegy for Amelia Johnson by Andrew Rostan, Dave Valeza and Kate Kasenow
5. Thor, Vol. 1 by J. Michael Straczynski and Olivier Coipel
6. Thor & Loki: Blood Brothers by Robert Rodi and Esad Ribic

So we'll start with book one. I love The Bloggess. My good friend Quinn turned me on to her blog last year and I'm so glad. Jenny Lawson is damaged, wacky and amazing. I love reading her posts. It's really pointless to describe her work in regular reviewer-like language, so I would say to just go read her blog and follow her on Twitter. One of the things I love best is how open she is about her anxiety disorders. There is so much shame attached to mental illness and I think we need more voices like Lawson's that let us know how normal it is to be "not normal." That said, I was a little disappointed with the book. What works well in the blog somehow did not, for me, translate into the memoir. And it's not a fault of Lawson's, per se, because I felt the same kind of let down reading Bossypants and Nerd Do Well. I'm glad I read this book and glad I used my graduation gift cards to buy it, even if it didn't knock me out.

Uncommon Criminals is a sequel to Heist Society, which I wrote about a couple weeks ago, and I love love LOVED it. I love capers. Once again, Carter has created a YA Ocean's Eleven and it was satisfying in the same way that a good cupcake is satisfying. In this installment, Kat Bishop finds herself conned into stealing the Cleopatra Emerald, a cursed jewel, for another master thief, and she and her crew must get it back, or at least get it to it's rightful owner. I polished this book off in a few sittings and am thinking of checking out Carter's Gallagher Girls series about teen spies. This book is escapism at its best.

Summer has finally come to Idaho, and yesterday was the perfect summer day. It was warm, in the mid 70s, but breezy. Occasional clouds and a shady tree (and judicious applications of sunscreen) kept me from getting too fried. I pulled out the ol' lawn chair and a stack of graphic novels and read for a couple hours. The first book I read was Carnet de Voyage, a travel diary from Thompson's trip through Europe and Morocco as he did research for his graphic novel Habibi (which I have not yet read but intend to) and press/convention stuff. I really like Thompson's style and definitely need to read Blankets and Habibi, although I suspect after my (all too brief) study of post colonial literary theory, I will have "views" Habibi.

I was sorely disappointed by An Elegy for Amelia Johnson. Amelia Johnson is dying from cancer. She sends her two best friends, whose names I can't even remember one day later, on a journey to help her say her goodbyes to her friends and family. Along the way, the two friends find they have fallen in love, which was Amelia's plan the whole time. Maudlin and sentimental in the worst way, and worse, it wasn't particularly inventive. However, I really loved the artwork. Dave Valeza and Kate Kasenow's art embodies my favorite style of graphic novel illustrations, similar to Hope Larson, Vera Brosgol and Faith Erin Hicks. I prefer this style (not sure how to describe it) to the manga and Marvel/DC style illustrations. Craig Thompson's style is similar as well.

Finally, some comic books. As you may recall, I am the tiniest bit obsessed with The Avengers at the moment, particularly with Thor and Loki, so I thought I'd check out a few of the books on which the characters are based, and as you might have guessed, I was a wee bit disappointed. It's not that the art or the stories were bad, but I find that Marvel style comics are just not for me. I did not like uglified Loki in the Blood Brothers book, for sure. I kind of liked the Thor book because it was cool to see the ways the movie was influenced by the comics. I just can't get behind the way the women are almost universally portrayed as busting out of their spandex,including Loki (and I so love the queerness of Loki, stemming from Norse myth). Whenever I voice this reservation, the answer I'm most often met with is that I just have to accept that this is the style of comic books -- characters, both male and female, to be fair -- are exaggerated as the universe in which they live is exaggerated. Well, no, I don't have to accept it. I'm not going to crusade for my realistic art in comic books. I'm just not going to read them. Big loss to DC/Marvel, I'm sure. My not-reading will surely strike a mighty blow to the comics empire, and I wield my disdain like Mjolnir! But yeah, I'm gonna have to get my Loki fix in myth. Luckily I used my graduation gift cards to get Bulfinch's Mythology and The Children of Odin: Nordic Gods and Heroes, which is just fine by me. I also have AS Byatt's Ragnarok at home, although I have not yet found a book by Byatt that I truly like.

So that's the catch-up. Rambly, as per usual. Hopefully I can work my way out of this malaise soonish. It would probably help if I stopped watching Swedish crime dramas and movies about Paris, but instead of considering the consequences of my movie/book choices, I'll leave you with a gratuitous picture of Loki and call it a day.

Source

Actually, can I just say for a second how much I LOVED this scene in The Avengers? It is terrifying and amazing. I am in awe of writers who can put really bad, scary characters on page and bring them to life. I am too uncertain as a writer to really access the darkness necessary to make a character like this believable, in moments like this. I mean, the eyeball scene. I can't even. And the coordination of the music. But mostly, just wow. I so admire writers who will take their characters to the darkest corners. Joss Whedon almost ruined it for me with the old man who stands up to Loki because it was a little cheeseball, but Whedon walked that superfine line of darkness and light really well, amazingly so, but I am so impressed with the darkness. I'm tempted to work on my paper about Firefly and submit it for this Western Lit conference because Whedon is supposed to be the keynote speaker, and I desperately want to pick his brain about writing dark characters. I am pretty sure I can do it, write darkness, when the book calls for it, if I can get out of my own way and write the story that needs to be written. Neil Gaiman is also a master at this. Anyway. Yeah. Loki.