Category: BookLust II

Second Sex – Failed

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Second sexde Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971.

Okay, I admit it. I got two paragraphs into the translator’s preface then skipped to the author’s introduction. There, I got as far as page v . Mind you, the introduction starts on page v. Then, I skipped to chapter one, got as far as paragraph three where I promptly fell asleep. I couldn’t get a single page entirely read. Not a one. Here and now I’m evoking the BookLust 50 page rule and admiting defeat with The Second Sex (see Book Lust Rules). Women everywhere hate me now for what I’m about to say.

I am not a diehard feminist. I have strong beliefs in what a woman can and can’t do. I’ve said before that women are more cerebral than men. They frequently change their minds, then change them back again. This makes them flighty, indecisive. Not exactly the type of person I would want in combat. The ability to drive a car? Please, don’t even get me started! I could go on, but I don’t think I can take the hate mail.
My second reason for not wanting to finish (or even properly start) Second Sex is the fact that it was written in 1952 (from a treatise written three years earlier, in 1949). Much has changed for women since that time. We’re more accepted in the corporate world, the political realm & even the far reaches of outer space. It’s becoming more acceptable for women to be the bread winners while their husbands stay at home with the kids. One might argue that reading Second Sex would be good from a historical standpoint. True, but I’m just not that interested in standing in that light.
My third reason for not reading Second Sex is purely a selfish one. The book is long – over 750 pages! I just don’t see myself devoting my entire summer vacation to something that reads like a textbook.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “I Am Woman – Hear Me Roar” (p 120). Pearl calls de Beauvoir a pioneer  of the women’s movement. I’ll take her word for it.

Note: This makes the seventh book I have given up on since starting the Book Lust Challenge.

Abbreviating Ernie

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Abbreviating ErnieLefcourt, Peter. Abbreviating Ernie. New York: Villard, 1997.

At first glance this humorous book is just plain cut and dried funny. Okay, bad pun. Read on and you’ll see why. Here’s the surface premise, the tip of the iceburg, of Abbreviating Ernie. Ernie and his wife are having sex. He drops dead of a heart attack. She’s blamed for his death. Here’s the just under the surface details: Ernie likes to dress in his wife clothes while having sex. He also likes to handcuff his wife and he can’t seem to “do the deed” anywhere normal. Long story cut short (there’s that pun again): Wife is found holding an electric carving knife, chained in the kitchen while hubby lies dead on the floor missing his “tommyhawk” as one character put it. All of this happens within the first twenty pages of the book so I found myself wondering what in the world Lefcourt would have say in the remaining 271.
Here’s the rest of the iceburg. Abbreviating Ernie is a commentary on the legal system, mental illness, women’s rights, the sensationalism the media can create, the Hollywoodization of a tragedy (what famous actor will portray the prosecutor?), and the exposure to human nature, often seen as failings. It’s about how warped our society can be when confronted with the dark secrets of suburbia. Yet, it keeps you laughing.

BookLust Twist: Abbreviating Ernie shows up in Pearl’s More Book Lust in the chapter on “Alabama” (p 207). While Abbreviating Ernie doesn’t take place in Alabama Pearl makes mention of Lefcourt’s book because Crazy in Alabama has an electric carving knife in its plot.

Aspects of the Novel

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Aspects of the novelForster, E. M. Aspects of the Novel. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co., 1940.

I loved holding this book in my hands. Old and musty, it just felt right to read. There is an inscription on the inside cover, “Presented by Miss H. Miller’s Freshman English Classes, February 1941.” My father was four. My mother still had another seven years before even being born. But, anyway.
Aspects of the Novel came out of lectures Forster gave at Cambridge University in 1927. In these lectures Forester divides a novel into six crucial parts: story, people, plot, fantasy, prophesy and pattern and rhythym (counting as one element). Story asks the question what next. The trick is to keep the reader asking that very question. As soon as they can predict the next “they either fell asleep or killed him [the author].”  (p 46). There is a grave price for being predictable in literature.
In the element of character (or people as Forster refers to them) love is an emotion highly questioned. Love can be more complicated than food or sleep and Forster begs the question “How much time does love take?” (p 79). 
In the element of plot readers are not supposed to be asking what next, but rather, why? Why does this happen? They keep reading to find out more.
Fantasy and prophecy are the mythologies, the magic of writing. This is where the reader *thinks* the next twist in the plot should be obvious, but acutally isn’t. It’s the unbelievable made believable. 
My favorite elements are the combined Pattern and Rhythym. I like that Forster draws from art for the description of pattern and music for rhythym and continues with one of my favorite words, symmetry. “History develops, art stands still.” (p 244)

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust, mentioned twice- Once in the chapter “Commonplace Books” (p 53) and again in the chapter called “The Writers Craft” (p 236).

Above The Thunder

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Above the ThunderManfredi, Renee. Above the Thunder. San Francisco: MacAdam & Cage, 2004.

Once I started reading Above the Thunder it was like a giant boulder building momentum down a hill. I couldn’t stop turning the pages. I like that it’s all about journeys, big and small. Personal and global. On the surface its four people, on the whole it’s humanity. The plot is simple – it’s about the life of Anna. She starts out being a cynical, bitter widow who “doesn’t want to get involved.”‘ She doesn’t want to get involved in living, period. She has all but disowned her daughter whom she hasn’t seen in 12 years. She has one friend. When her son-in-law and granddaughter return to live with her and she reluctantly agrees to help moderate an aids support group she ends up being the center of a collection of people so diverse and wonderful she can’t help but change and, in the process, grow. Sounds predictable and nice, but it isn’t. There is a harsh reality to this coming-into-the-light story: aids, suicide, divorce, miscarriage and sadness all play an important part in the plot.

The thing I liked best about Above the Thunder are the characters. They are believable. Anna is introduced to us as closed off and inflexible. In time she changes, but when faced with a new tragedy she reverts back her old self and craves solitude where she can grieve in private. In shrugging off the comfort of others she is still the same person we meet in chapter one. Even Jack, a homosexual with problems with fidelity, doesn’t change his desire for sexual freedom once he discovers he is hiv positive. All the characters go through a period of growth and acceptance, but at the core are all still the same unique individuals.
Some favorite lines:

  • “She doubted it was possible to understand someone else’s suffering. Even her beloved husband whose pain had become a private geography on which she couldn’t trespass.” (p 21)
  • “Holy God, man, how long does it take to cook a hot dog? I’ve been in line long enough to break a habit, backslide, and recommit.” (p 183)

And a favorite scene: two homosexual men trying to teach a pubescent girl how to use a tampon for the first time. It’s hysterical and poignant all at once.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Maiden Voyages” (p 159). I have always loved discovering someone’s very first novel. Katherine Weber’s maiden voyage is one of my favorite, but Above the Thunder rates right up there, too.

Spring and Fall

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Hopkins, Gerard Manley. “Spring and Fall: To a Young Child.” The Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. London: Oxford University Press, 1967. 88.

Short and sweet, bitter and sad, Hopkins seems to be telling a child (Margaret), “don’t question the death of things too quickly. Life will be over before you know it. Enjoy what you have.” While the child is easily upset by the falling of leaves Hopkins doesn’t belittle the child’s distress, nor does he cater to it. He calmly explains that more disappointments in life will follow and that is the nature of life.

BookLust Twist: More Book Lust in the chapter “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Twenty-One Balloons

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21 BalloonsDu Bois, William Pene. The Twenty-One Balloons. New York: Viking Press, 1947.

I like coincidences. I was nearly finished with Zelda Fitzgerald’s biography when I picked up Twenty-One Balloons. I’ve gotten into the habit of reading prefaces and author’s notes before diving into a story. In the past I would skip over them but now I like the little tidbits if information before getting to the heart of the plot. It was a huge surprise to read that Du Bois’ publisher noted “a strong resemblance” to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story called, “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.” Du Bois states in his note, “The fact that F. Scott Fitzgerald and I apparently would spend our billions in like ways right down to being dumped from bed into a bathtub is altogether, quite frankly, beyond my explanation. William Pene Du Bois January 16th, 1947.” I find this compelling and made it impossible for me to delay reading Twenty-One Balloons!

Twenty-One Balloons is the clever children’s story of Professor William Waterman Sherman. He taught arithmetic for 40 years and decided he was in need of a vacation of solitude. He decided ballooning would be just the thing and masterminded the invention of a balloon that could take him around the world. Except he doesn’t make it and the adventures that follow are more exciting than had he actually made it around the world. This book is delightfully illustrated by William Pene Du Bois as well.

Some of my favorite moments are when first, when Sherman first crashes (on Krakatao) he is told, “you may think that your landing on this island was all by accident…” setting the scene for something little more ominous. It’s followed up by the escape which is equally fun.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust  and the chapter on Krakatau. Pearl says, “Du Bois’s book is a glorious fantasy…” (p 183). Indeed!

One Morning in Maine

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One Morning in MaineMcCloskey, Robert. One Morning in Maine. New York: Puffin Books, 1989.

Who doesn’t love Robert McCloskey’s books? For starters, all the illustrations are great. For another, I always loved One Morning in Maine because I could compare Sal’s life to my own growing up…She lived on an island in Maine, boat trips were something to get excited about and she had a younger sister…the differences were her family lived close enough to row over to the mainland (when their boat engine died) and her family could go digging for clams right outside their house. Our boat rides took over an hour, full steam ahead and I hunted for periwinkles in tide pools.
Even her parents reminded me of my own – always playing the Big Girl Card. Compared to my sister I was supposed to be more mature, more responsible. They used my elder status to get me to behave, “but you’re growing into a big girl and big girls don’t cry about things like that” (p37).

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust. Pearl mentions in the intro (p ix) she started her obsession with reading with books like One Morning in Maine. Me too!

As I Walked Out

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AudenAuden, W. H. “As I Walked Out One Evening.” Collected Shorter Poems 1927-1957. New York: Random House, 1966. p85.

I liked this poem. I saw it as questioning time which is something I do all the time. I often wonder what makes time move the way it does. Perceptions of time can differ between two people having the same experience, just by their emotions.
I also saw this poem as pondering life and all that it has to offer. This is yet another thing I ponder as well. Am I living this life the way I’m supposed to? Is there even a blueprint to follow? I got the feeling the voice in “As I Walked Out…” is watching life pass by and speculating on what life really means.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust and the chapter on “Poetry Pleasers” (p 188).

Autobiography of an Unknown Indian

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AutobiographyChaudhuri, Nirad. The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968.

I admitted defeat with Autobiographyby page 92. Maybe I was spoiled by all the easy reading over the vaca. Maybe I just couldn’t wrap my brain around Chaudhuri’s lengthy descriptions. Maybe it was the subject matter. I don’t know. I do know that I literally fell asleep every time I cracked open this book.
From the very beginning I was confused about the nature of this story. Fiction? Nonfiction? It’s the first hand account of an Indian growing up in Kishorganj, India. A memoir of sorts. It sounds nonfiction because he refers to the Chaudhuri family off and on and he goes to great length to describe everything – the huts his family lived in, the landscape, the weather, the townspeople, the politics, the culture, even the animals. Chaudhuri lost me in the chapter about his mother’s ancestral village. It was more of the same. 
But, the reading wasn’t all dry. Littered in between the descriptive are little stories about childhood and memories. Those little pieces were fun and added color to the overall plot. 

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called “India: A Readers Itinerary.” Nancy puts Autobiography under fiction but it reads as dry as non. What cracked a smile on my face is when Nancy described it as an “exceptionally informative.” She wasn’t kidding.

The Awakening (w/ spoiler)

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AwakeningChopin, Kate. The Awakening. New York: New American Library, 1976.

If I had a tag for “feminism” this book would be under it. Actually, it’s more of a long short story than a book. Only 125 pages long Kate Chopin tells the story of discontented, tragic Edna Pontellier. A wife and a mother she is dutiful as both until a younger man awakens her inner rebel and sex goddess. You can see it start slowly when she states, “I feel this summer as if I were walking thrugh the green meadow again; idly, aimlessly, unthinking and unguided” (p. 17). It grows stronger when she disobeys her husband, “Another time she would have gone in at his request” (p. 33). Finally, the ultimate of rebellion reaches its peak when she is seduced by another man, Arobin. “He did not say goodnight until she had become supple to his gentle, seductive entreaties” (p. 100).

BookLust Twist: While Pearl doesn’t think anything really happened with Edna (” …poor Edna Pontellier…who doesn’t actually do anything but suffers the consequences anyway.” More Book Lust, Wayward Wives p 232), I strongly disagree. What Edna doesn’t do is be a good mother to her kids (they’re shipped off while she pretends to be an artist), or a good wife. She moved out of their home while hubby’s away. He’s left making excuses to save face (said the house was being renovated and that’s why his wife took up another residence).

In the end Edna commits suicide. She knows she’s not a good mother. She knows she isn’t a faithful wife. She can’t have the man who truly awakened her sexuality. Trapped in a life she cannot conform to she walks into the sea never to emerge.

About a Boy

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About a boyHornby, Nick. About a Boy.New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.

I have heard so much about this book. Maybe it’s because I’ve liked other Hornby books that have been made into movies~ Fever Pitch & High Fidelity. Will is a pretty interesting character. He’s a single guy, bound and determined to never work a day in his life. He spends his time watching movies, listening to music and trolling for women. His newest tactic is to join SPAT (Single Parents Alone – Together). Needless to say, he’s not a single parent. In reality he hates kids. He’s callous and shallow but you can’t help but like him, especially when he gets involved with Fiona and her 12 year old son Marcus.

“There were about seventy-nine squillion people in the world, and if you were very lucky, you would end up being loved by 15-20 of them” (p147).

One of the things that struck me about this story is the philosophical ending. Marcus is a boy who acts too old for his age, too serious for his youth while Will acts too young for his years, too immature for the adulthood he is in. In the end they learn to swap maturities – growing down and up. Now I want to see the movie.

BookLust Twist: From both Book Lust and More Book Lust. In More Book Lust About a Boy is in the Chapter, “Dick Lit” (p.79). If you are scratching your head, think chick lit. Get it?

Above Suspicion

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Above SuspicionMacInnes, Helen. Above Suspicion. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovitch, Inc., 1969.

This book smells of stale cigarette smoke when it got to me, like it had been hanging out in a 1980’s bar until closing time. The library issued plastic cover is falling off, the tape is yellowing, too. This is not a book that feels good to hold and that really matters to me. I don’t know how many other readers feel this way, but a book has to look a certain way, feel a certain way… in addition to read a certain way.
Nevertheless, the story was intriguing. It’s the story of a young couple recruited to check out a chain of spies (suspected nazi sympathizers) during World War II. The plan is elaborate and dashing. As the story picked up pace I could barely turn the pages fast enough to keep up with my growing interest. Here are some of my favorite quotes (as usual):

“The party in Frame’s rooms had just reached the right temperature when Frances and Richard Myles arrived” (p 17).

“It was strange how her mind, as well as her stomach, rebelled when the choice was sausage or sausage or sausage” (p. 86).

“At first, Richard would only take her on a short ten-mile walk” (p.111). Yikes! I’m lucky if I get in five miles a day!

One of the things I loved about this novel was the interaction between Frances and Richard as man and wife (only married four years). They took cues from each other, nonverbal signs, and acted accordingly. Their intimate knowledge of one another bordered on parapsychology.

BookLust Twist: Nancy Pearl has some great things to say about Above Suspicion in her second Book Lust book, More Book Lust. She calls it “pure fun” something she “rereads regularly” (p 162). For a person who reads a lot that’s a pretty big compliment.

Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging

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AngusRennison, Louise. Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging: Confessions of Georgia Nicolson. New York: HarperTempest, 1999.

This is the kind of book I would read in the bathroom if my family came to visit. Nancy Pearl calls this one of the best books for teens. Last time I checked I was this side of middle aged. Certainly decades beyond teenager. Nevertheless, it was on the list so I read…in two days. Here are my favorite lines:

“My dad has the mentality of a Teletubby only not so developed” (p.13).

“I wonder how old he is? I must become more mature quickly. I’ll start tomorrow” (p. 50)

“His Mick Jagger impersonation didn’t stop at the lips” (p. 123).

Then there’s the commentary on yoga, being Buddhist and the (gross) idea of coming back as a bug. Despite being tagged as something “teenager” I found it humorous. After all, I was once a teen myself…I think.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter “Best for Teens” (p.25).

The Paperboy (with Spoiler)

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PaperboyDexter, Pete. The Paperboy. New York: Random House, 1995.

For the longest time I have been concentrating on books that begin with the letter ‘A’ such as About Time, Animal Dreams, and Awakening. As if getting through the A titles would be the most reasonable thing to do first. When The Paperboy by Pete Dexter showed up at my library I felt it was a sign to read it. Especially since it’s on The List and academics don’t keep books like The Paperboy around. I listen to signs.

The Paperboy is an intriguing first-person tale about two brothers working to prove the innocence of a man convicted of murdering Moat County Sheriff Thurmond Call. As Hillary Van Wetter sits on death row, looking as guilty as a child with his hand caught in the cookie jar, Jack James and his journalist brother Ward investigate the events leading up to the murder. They get help along the way from Van Wetter’s girlfriend – an apparent death row groupie – as well as other interesting characters.
All the evidence leads towards Van Wetter’s innocence until one day it doesn’t. Instead of all hell breaking loose purgatory unfolds, unwinds for the brothers, slow and sinister like a boa constrictor unfurling itself from a tree limb. Things go from bad to worse until dark becomes death. I couldn’t put it down for three days straight. Even though I saw Ward’s suicide coming the instant he wanted to know more about swimming it still took me by surprise when it finally happened. 

BookLust Twists: From Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust and More Book Lust. In Book Lust in the chapter “First Lines to Remember” Pearl draws attention to Dexter’s first line, “My brother Ward was once a famous man”‘ (p.86) and in More Book Lust in the chapter called “O Brother!” (p180).

1959

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Davis, Thulani. 1959. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. 1992.1959

Part novel, part historical rampage 1959 is 100% rich in descriptive imagery. 1959 is the story of Katherine “Willie” Tarrant, a coming of age girl growing up in racially divided Turner, Virginia. She has all the typical angst of any twelve year old – boys, makeup, popularity, daydreams driven by movies and celebrity fanfare. Woven into Willie’s world is the climate of the times. Segregation and integration push-pull of a racially divided era. While some of Davis’s story is told in first person from Willie’s point of view, much of the political, historical meat of the story is third person – conversations Willie overhears, meetings she eavesdrops on and situations she couldn’t have possibly been in. (Like during a sex scene and towards the end of the novel when Cole gets shot on a desolate road outside Turner.) There were times when I couldn’t believe a twelve year old was my guide, “With each grind your thighs would become sex weapons blowing away his cool” (p56). What kid speaks like that? “Death brought out banquets as if the mourners were starved by their loss, and yet the grievers never ate” (p 195).
What made this book such a page turner for me (I read it in less than a week) was the tension of the times. It builds slowly with the talk of school integration and builds after eight black college boys sit at a white only Woolworth’s counter, quietly demanding service. Davis masterfully weaves fictional characters with the undeniable historical truth of what really happened. I could hear the dogs bark, feel the sting of hate, see the bravery in the protester’s faces. Even though school integration didn’t happen for another six years, 1959 proved to be the catalyst for change and Davis captured it brilliantly.

BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter called, “Southern-Fried Fiction: Virginia” (p 209).