Alexander Maksik's You Deserve Nothing was just the read that I needed during the week of dread that was the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Hannah, my roommate, recommended it to me and mentioned that it was like Dead Poets Society mixed with some international intrigue. The book certainly peeked my curiosity because I love Robin Williams, used to date artistic/troubled school boys exclusively (you know who you are), and think that bilingualism is hot. However, the book turned out to be a little different than all of that...
The book was told from three different perspectives: the three main characters. However, each character in the novel was so fleshed out that I almost remember it as having several more point of view narrations than there actually were. The names are almost unimportant. I remember them as their archetypes. The "sexy professor," the "awkward teenage boy," and the "teenage girl too sexy to know what to do with herself." Each is on their own personal journey and must make the kinds of life choices we all make, and are all pushed around by the waves of reality that make our desires more difficult to obtain and our choices harder to make.
There's definitely lots of existentialist influence and underlying tones. The French setting helps this along, and of course, all of the existential discussions that occur in "Mr. S's" (that's the sexy teacher) advanced English class for high school seniors at the International School where he is employed. Eventually he has the affair with Marie (the sexpot high school senior), and has a really meaningful experience with Gilad (awkard teenage boy, aptly named), which, consequently, has made me nervous every time I'm on a subway or train platform.
So, overall, I give it four stars out of five for being a great read that's also really smartly done. It may be a little too smart for it's own good, and maybe let's Mr. S off a little too easy in the end. But then again, life is never fair and we all must do the best we can with the hand we've been dealt.
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Sunday, June 17, 2012
Run, Don't Walk
Every twenty something that I know should pick Dr. Meg Jay's new book The Defining Decade: Why your Twenties matter- and how to make the most of them now. I read the book in a 12 hour stint, purchasing the book late Saturday night and finishing it, after a morning of Father's Day breakfast and attending church, on Sunday afternoon. And when I mean every twenty something, I mean every twenty something. Twenty somethings who are nannies, yoga instructors, and baristas should read this book. Twenty somethings who are grunt workers or entry levels at any kind of businesses, corporation or company should read this book. Twenty somethings who are in graduate school, law school, or med school should read this book. Twenty somethings should read this book, regardless of what they are currently pursuing in their lives. Can I say this again? Read this book!
The book is divided into three parts: "work," "love," and "the brain and the body." Each contains anecdotes from the author's own life as well as from patients from her practice and experience as a clinical psychologist. The book doesn't contain a guide about how to make choices that will make your life better. The book informs you about the ways in which the choices you make in your twenties could impact your life, and how to make the best, most active choices for you. This book does what a lot of self help books cannot do: it gives you a tailor made approach to fit your own needs and desires.
I recognized a lot of the passages in the book from articles by Dr. Jay that I had read in the NY Times. Although they were tremendously insightful and interesting as stand alone articles, they were much more helpful in the context of the overall book. Instead of feeling guilty about where I am in life, and guilty about the way I feel (lost, excited, anxious, ready, nervous, hopeful, terrified, confused), I left the book feeling reassured. My feelings at this stage of life are normal, but I don't have to stop there. There are positive things that I can do in my life that both allow me to enjoy my twenties and also begin building my future.
As I said, I feel as though each reader will gain a different insight into his or her life by picking up and reading this book! Five stars.
The book is divided into three parts: "work," "love," and "the brain and the body." Each contains anecdotes from the author's own life as well as from patients from her practice and experience as a clinical psychologist. The book doesn't contain a guide about how to make choices that will make your life better. The book informs you about the ways in which the choices you make in your twenties could impact your life, and how to make the best, most active choices for you. This book does what a lot of self help books cannot do: it gives you a tailor made approach to fit your own needs and desires.
I recognized a lot of the passages in the book from articles by Dr. Jay that I had read in the NY Times. Although they were tremendously insightful and interesting as stand alone articles, they were much more helpful in the context of the overall book. Instead of feeling guilty about where I am in life, and guilty about the way I feel (lost, excited, anxious, ready, nervous, hopeful, terrified, confused), I left the book feeling reassured. My feelings at this stage of life are normal, but I don't have to stop there. There are positive things that I can do in my life that both allow me to enjoy my twenties and also begin building my future.
As I said, I feel as though each reader will gain a different insight into his or her life by picking up and reading this book! Five stars.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
If a man don't treat you good...
The experience of reading Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea was like that of going into a time machine. First, I had heard of the book years ago from my dear friend Emily Childress-Campbell way back when she was just just Emily Childress and we lived in a cramped dorm where she kept illegal hamsters (or something like that...maybe they were gerbils? Anyway...), so memories of our Jane Eyre-esque conversations and the first time I ever watched the film, with her, came flooding back. Second, the book has not been released on Kindle yet, so I had to order it from Amazon, and I found myself reading a real paper book again. Although I love my kindle, I do find a few things frustrating: like having to click a million buttons to flip back to a passage that was half the book ago, or not being able to see all of the cover art. Well, none of those technology fueled frustrations with which my grandchildren won't sympathize! I was able to flip back to reread certain passages to clarify something in the book as I read with ease, and the cover art was exotic and saturated, just like the world of the book into which I entered.
Wide Sargasso Sea was certainly the "tour de force" that the quote on the cover promises it will be. A neat 171 pages, including the introduction by Francis Wyndham, I read it in an evening. Being a Harry Potter generation-er who takes it seriously, I think that I have been indoctrinated into that kind of 3rd person narrative where we experience the events as if from over the shoulder of the main character, only sometimes going outside of the world of Harry's experience to get an outside perspective. My ride through Wide Sargasso Sea was therefore, at times, a difficult journey because the first person prose could catch me off guard or make me feel a little lost. But never, I believe, was this without purpose, as I will later describe. Rhys takes us on a first person journey first from the perspective of Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole girl who has been in raised in the Caribbean and is, at the beginning of the novella, under the care of her widowed mother, Annette, and her nurse maid, Christophine, just after the Emancipation Act has been passed on her island. The family, now being the descendants of former planters and slave owners, is shunned by the village they are near as well as isolated from other whites on the island due to the political climate and Antoinette's mother, who has a less than reputable history and soon is interred as a "madwoman." Later we see the story through the eyes of Mr. Rochester, who is never named but whom we recognize from Charlotte Bronte's famous Jane Eyre. He is there to marry our heroine and gain her wealthy dowry. Finally we are returned to the story as it is in the hands of Antoinette during her final days locked away in an English manor under the same accusations as we saw befall her mother.
Through the first person narrative I was admitted into the world of the book not through detail of place and action, but through thought and emotion. The place descriptions were lurid and lush, giving me also the hazy feel of the heat, the saturated quality of the island. Much was often left unsaid until a character chanced to mention it, giving the storytelling a mysterious edge, which mirrored the mystery of the culture on the island. Sometimes I caught myself feeling frustrated by the inaction of the characters to defend themselves, only finding that this was probably how Rhys expected the reader to feel; as in the end I found that this kind of lethargic prose helped to illustrate the inability of some of the characters to express their desires or, once they had, the inability of the other character to comprehend. They were stuck in their own dreamlike perceptions of the world, captured in the dream like quality of the passages the write had given to us.
The book certainly makes me frown on the handsome and romantic figure of Mr. Rochester as he in cut in Jane Eyre's cloth. The Bronte novel makes a sympathetic case for him, in which he is not without sin but repents and is worthy of the honorable Jane's love. However, seeing the sad case of his "Bertha," the nickname he gives Antoinette, one cannot help but feel sorry for the madwoman from Jane Eyre, because the books gives us such a compelling glimpse into the world of a lost and confused little girl who lived in between worlds and only hoped for happiness.
It is not that I like Antoinette better than I like Jane. I find both to be compelling heroines and that each book, both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, gives us interesting insights into how society thinks that women should behave in regards to love and relationships. Both Antoinette and Jane overcome their fair share of obstacles. Jane is mistreated by her foster family, whereas Antoinette is cutoff emotionally from her mother and witnesses a mob burn down her own home. Jane is sent away to a horrid boarding school where she is starved and abused both mentally and physically, whereas Antoinette is sent to a nunnery where the people there confuse her and she is tormented on her walks through town. Jane, described as plan once reaching adulthood, persists through her circumstances and becomes both educated and independent, although guarded and unsure, whereas Antoinette, described by all as being beautiful, attempts to further please her step family by marrying a stranger, whom she readily begins to love. Whatever her abilities, Jane makes choices that are good and not wholly selfish but not too simperingly selfless either. She is a woman of dignity. Antoinette is just the opposite, a woman of fire and passion and full of love to give.
When Rochester does them wrong they each react in their own distinct ways. Jane runs, runs, runs. Meanwhile, Antoinette runs, but only to her nurse maid Christophine, to whom she begs to make Rochester fall back in love with her. Antoinette screams and cries for Rochester's love, and is never rational. The triumph of the novella comes only from Christophine's speech to Rochester at the book's climax. In the most champion moment of the book, Christophine berates Rochester for his ill treatment of Antoinette and says, "I tell her so. I warn her. I say this is not a man who will help you when he sees you break up. Only the best can do that." By "break up" she means become heartbroken. Rochester could have been as patient as Jane, as forgiving as Jane will be to him in later years when the next part of the story unfolds for him, but rather we see him become the cruel Mr. Rochester that we recognize from the beginning of Jane Eyre. Antoinette is lost to him, becoming his mad little "Bertha," a wife to be hidden away.
So here is the moral of the story as I take it from Wide Sargasso Sea, especially as it relates to Jane Eyre:
We should all be free to love as passionately and as unrestrainedly as Antoinette, but we all have to try to be like Jane, lest we be labeled madwomen.
Or we could all be more like Christophine, who holds my favorite quote in the whole book:
"A man don't treat you good, pick up your skirt and walk out."
Amen, sister.
Wide Sargasso Sea was certainly the "tour de force" that the quote on the cover promises it will be. A neat 171 pages, including the introduction by Francis Wyndham, I read it in an evening. Being a Harry Potter generation-er who takes it seriously, I think that I have been indoctrinated into that kind of 3rd person narrative where we experience the events as if from over the shoulder of the main character, only sometimes going outside of the world of Harry's experience to get an outside perspective. My ride through Wide Sargasso Sea was therefore, at times, a difficult journey because the first person prose could catch me off guard or make me feel a little lost. But never, I believe, was this without purpose, as I will later describe. Rhys takes us on a first person journey first from the perspective of Antoinette Cosway, a white Creole girl who has been in raised in the Caribbean and is, at the beginning of the novella, under the care of her widowed mother, Annette, and her nurse maid, Christophine, just after the Emancipation Act has been passed on her island. The family, now being the descendants of former planters and slave owners, is shunned by the village they are near as well as isolated from other whites on the island due to the political climate and Antoinette's mother, who has a less than reputable history and soon is interred as a "madwoman." Later we see the story through the eyes of Mr. Rochester, who is never named but whom we recognize from Charlotte Bronte's famous Jane Eyre. He is there to marry our heroine and gain her wealthy dowry. Finally we are returned to the story as it is in the hands of Antoinette during her final days locked away in an English manor under the same accusations as we saw befall her mother.
Through the first person narrative I was admitted into the world of the book not through detail of place and action, but through thought and emotion. The place descriptions were lurid and lush, giving me also the hazy feel of the heat, the saturated quality of the island. Much was often left unsaid until a character chanced to mention it, giving the storytelling a mysterious edge, which mirrored the mystery of the culture on the island. Sometimes I caught myself feeling frustrated by the inaction of the characters to defend themselves, only finding that this was probably how Rhys expected the reader to feel; as in the end I found that this kind of lethargic prose helped to illustrate the inability of some of the characters to express their desires or, once they had, the inability of the other character to comprehend. They were stuck in their own dreamlike perceptions of the world, captured in the dream like quality of the passages the write had given to us.
The book certainly makes me frown on the handsome and romantic figure of Mr. Rochester as he in cut in Jane Eyre's cloth. The Bronte novel makes a sympathetic case for him, in which he is not without sin but repents and is worthy of the honorable Jane's love. However, seeing the sad case of his "Bertha," the nickname he gives Antoinette, one cannot help but feel sorry for the madwoman from Jane Eyre, because the books gives us such a compelling glimpse into the world of a lost and confused little girl who lived in between worlds and only hoped for happiness.
It is not that I like Antoinette better than I like Jane. I find both to be compelling heroines and that each book, both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea, gives us interesting insights into how society thinks that women should behave in regards to love and relationships. Both Antoinette and Jane overcome their fair share of obstacles. Jane is mistreated by her foster family, whereas Antoinette is cutoff emotionally from her mother and witnesses a mob burn down her own home. Jane is sent away to a horrid boarding school where she is starved and abused both mentally and physically, whereas Antoinette is sent to a nunnery where the people there confuse her and she is tormented on her walks through town. Jane, described as plan once reaching adulthood, persists through her circumstances and becomes both educated and independent, although guarded and unsure, whereas Antoinette, described by all as being beautiful, attempts to further please her step family by marrying a stranger, whom she readily begins to love. Whatever her abilities, Jane makes choices that are good and not wholly selfish but not too simperingly selfless either. She is a woman of dignity. Antoinette is just the opposite, a woman of fire and passion and full of love to give.
When Rochester does them wrong they each react in their own distinct ways. Jane runs, runs, runs. Meanwhile, Antoinette runs, but only to her nurse maid Christophine, to whom she begs to make Rochester fall back in love with her. Antoinette screams and cries for Rochester's love, and is never rational. The triumph of the novella comes only from Christophine's speech to Rochester at the book's climax. In the most champion moment of the book, Christophine berates Rochester for his ill treatment of Antoinette and says, "I tell her so. I warn her. I say this is not a man who will help you when he sees you break up. Only the best can do that." By "break up" she means become heartbroken. Rochester could have been as patient as Jane, as forgiving as Jane will be to him in later years when the next part of the story unfolds for him, but rather we see him become the cruel Mr. Rochester that we recognize from the beginning of Jane Eyre. Antoinette is lost to him, becoming his mad little "Bertha," a wife to be hidden away.
So here is the moral of the story as I take it from Wide Sargasso Sea, especially as it relates to Jane Eyre:
We should all be free to love as passionately and as unrestrainedly as Antoinette, but we all have to try to be like Jane, lest we be labeled madwomen.
Or we could all be more like Christophine, who holds my favorite quote in the whole book:
"A man don't treat you good, pick up your skirt and walk out."
Amen, sister.
Friday, May 18, 2012
Stranger than [fan]Fiction
I entered the reading experience of Fifty Shades of Grey like that of a seasoned fanfiction
connoisseur.* My canon (the original
published work, in this case Twilight
by Stephanie Meyer) knowledge was brushed up on, I had read the appropriate
“warnings,” and was ready to discern for myself whether or not this new thing
by E L James was a good read. When
beginning a fanfiction, I notice a couple of things in the first few paragraphs
that determine whether or not I keep reading: one, is the narrative crisp,
clear and descriptive, and two, am I reading this author’s perspectives on a
character, or are the characters merely caricatures of canon characters? Right off the bat, Fifty Shades of Grey reminded me of those well done fanfictions
that I choose to “favorite;” that is, the author was threading together a story
with grace while building anticipation for what comes next, and so I was
excited to keep reading. There
were also lemons* promised, and every fanfiction reader knows that sometimes a
good fanfiction can be brought to the next level by a good old-fashioned lemon
or two.
I was impressed with the character work. In the beginning, it seemed a bit
bumpy. I could see “Bella” and
“Edward” isms throughout, and had to stop myself from guessing which of the
other characters matched up with which (i.e. “Jose” for Jacob…good one, E L
James, good one). By the end of
the book, however, Anastasia, this book’s Bella, had surpassed the heroine from
which she was derived by… well…by actually
being something of a heroine for herself.
I won’t spoil the ending, but let’s just say that in this case,
Anastasia fights for what she wants
out of the relationship, and that doesn’t include begging to be turned into a
Vampire so that she can spend all of her eternity in soppy awe of Christian
Grey (the books older, cooler and more disturbed version of Edward
Cullen). Sadly (I will spoil this
for you), Mr. Grey never does reveal himself to be a Vampire, and we are left
with the impression that his fucked-upped-ness actually stems from real human
trauma. This I appreciated in
multitudes.
By the end of the book, I declared to myself that the
grasshopper had truly exceeded the master (although...how hard was it?). Fifty Shades of Grey
author E L James took a difficult subject matter for a mass audience, a BDSM*
romance, and related it easily to the masses. As the main character Anastasia puts it herself, “The BDSM is a distraction from the real
issue.” The real issue is
compromise, and what two people from seemingly opposite worlds must do in order
to share a meaningful relationship with one another. I found myself personally moved by
the trials that our main duo struggle through: not just what each individual wants out of a relationship, but what they are willing to give. The BDSM component actually forced me to see this more
clearly; I was jolted, out of my comfort zone, and therefore able to look at
the text with a more critical eye (a distancing affect Bertolt Brecht would be
proud of…maybe).
Of course, the book is not without faults. It is no work of literary genius, and
often the prose becomes repetitive and a mere means to move the story
along. If I saw one more character
say “Jeez” one more time, I might’ve flipped a table. However, faults aside, if you want to read this for pleasure and maybe also to learn a little bit more about yourself, go for it.
Oh, and the sex is smokin’.
Treat yourself.
*see one post prior for an explanation of how Fifty Shades of Grey came to stand as a novel on its own after originally being posted as a work of fanfiction, or go here
*smutty scenes, often described as lemons on fanfiction sites
*I'll let you look that one up
Friday, May 11, 2012
The (Working) Hit List
Welcome to my summer of reading women authors and playwrights. This happened (mostly) by chance.
Novels/Novellas/Essays
The Witching Hour (Anne Rice)
A Room of One's Own, Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
The Robber Bridegroom, The Optimist's Daughter (Eudora Welty)
Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)
The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)
Fifty Shades of Grey (E. L. James)*
The History of Love (Nicole Krauss)
Nonfiction
Let's Pretend This Never Happened (Jenny Lawson)
Plays
The Verge (Susan Glaspell)
Demon Baby (Erin Courtney)
Stoning Mary (Debbie Tucker Green)
The Maids (Jean Genet)
Far Away (Caryl Churchill)
Execution of Justice (Emily Mann)
Shakara: Dance-Hall Queen (Osonye Tess Onwueme)
The Well of Horniness (Holly Hughes)
*This book was recommended by a friend, and upon further research I discovered that this book series began as Twilight fan fiction. Because of articles like these, and my own first hand experience with it, I am a public supporter of both the fan fiction universe and of all interactive reader experiences (like my BFF Pottermore). This book may mark just another step in legitimizing the controversial genre. We'll see how the series holds up; I am simultaneously tantalized and made anxious by the reviews and summaries available.
Novels/Novellas/Essays
The Witching Hour (Anne Rice)
A Room of One's Own, Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
The Robber Bridegroom, The Optimist's Daughter (Eudora Welty)
Beautiful Creatures (Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl)
Beloved (Toni Morrison)
Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)
The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)
Fifty Shades of Grey (E. L. James)*
The History of Love (Nicole Krauss)
Nonfiction
Let's Pretend This Never Happened (Jenny Lawson)
Plays
The Verge (Susan Glaspell)
Demon Baby (Erin Courtney)
Stoning Mary (Debbie Tucker Green)
The Maids (Jean Genet)
Far Away (Caryl Churchill)
Execution of Justice (Emily Mann)
Shakara: Dance-Hall Queen (Osonye Tess Onwueme)
The Well of Horniness (Holly Hughes)
*This book was recommended by a friend, and upon further research I discovered that this book series began as Twilight fan fiction. Because of articles like these, and my own first hand experience with it, I am a public supporter of both the fan fiction universe and of all interactive reader experiences (like my BFF Pottermore). This book may mark just another step in legitimizing the controversial genre. We'll see how the series holds up; I am simultaneously tantalized and made anxious by the reviews and summaries available.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
A BRIEF UPDATE
Dear All:
I have decided this summer that I am going to officially have this blog up and running as a book review site. I'd like to go with a theme, and I think I want that theme to be reader-driven (like, you guys pick the next book I read out of three choices every week). Since that pool is very limited (hi, friends!), I'll try and expand it over the next two months.
Until May hits us, however, please be satiated with a short list of must reads as I have found them over the past year and a half:
Series:
The Stieg Larsson Trilogy (Girl with the Drago Tattoo, etc)
A Song of Ice and Fire (favorite book in series: Storm of Swords)
Classic Literature:
Jane Eyre (finally. love.)
Wuthering Heights (finally. love.)
Plays:
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
Two Trains Running by August Wilson
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl (I have a newfound devotion to Sarah Ruhl)
Nonfiction Award:
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Vampire Novels Worth Reading:
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
I'm about to start The Hunger Games. Would have read them this week but left my Kindle at home :( and I hate computer screen glare.
That being said,
Happy Reading!
Clellan
An Adults-Only PS:
The Risque Reader might enjoy "The Taking of Sleeping Beauty" by Anne Rice. A classic among Anne Rice followers, it is artfully done and perfectly scandalous and I enjoyed every minute.
I have decided this summer that I am going to officially have this blog up and running as a book review site. I'd like to go with a theme, and I think I want that theme to be reader-driven (like, you guys pick the next book I read out of three choices every week). Since that pool is very limited (hi, friends!), I'll try and expand it over the next two months.
Until May hits us, however, please be satiated with a short list of must reads as I have found them over the past year and a half:
Series:
The Stieg Larsson Trilogy (Girl with the Drago Tattoo, etc)
A Song of Ice and Fire (favorite book in series: Storm of Swords)
Classic Literature:
Jane Eyre (finally. love.)
Wuthering Heights (finally. love.)
Plays:
Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
Two Trains Running by August Wilson
Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl (I have a newfound devotion to Sarah Ruhl)
Nonfiction Award:
Cleopatra: A Life by Stacy Schiff
Vampire Novels Worth Reading:
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
I'm about to start The Hunger Games. Would have read them this week but left my Kindle at home :( and I hate computer screen glare.
That being said,
Happy Reading!
Clellan
An Adults-Only PS:
The Risque Reader might enjoy "The Taking of Sleeping Beauty" by Anne Rice. A classic among Anne Rice followers, it is artfully done and perfectly scandalous and I enjoyed every minute.
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