Rereading Sense and Nonsense

Not constantly, bur fairly consistently, I like to reread. Sometimes it's the usual suspects: To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride & Prejudice, yadda yadda English Major delights. Lately, it's been works I rarely go back to, but which I've been nudged towards by other texts. When I go back to these past loves, I'm invariably assaulted by sensory data from the time and place I fell for the text to start with. On top of that are the new takeaways that an intervening 5 or 15 or 30 years of life add to my reading. So:

Frances Hodgsen Burnett's The Secret Garden. I saw it on a list of award winners from the past, or a 100 Books quiz on Facebook, or some such fleeting internet blip. This is a novel I was devoted to in my tweendom, and though it struck me as a little quaint now - in a world of YA literature that is so much vaster than that of my youth - I enjoyed reliving it. Mostly, I kept picturing my - our - old copy. It had a hard green cover with a pasted-on picture instead of a proper dust cover, and for whatever reason it lived on the bookcase that was just outside of my older brother's bedroom door. (With the four of us kids in the house, most of the literature ended up living in the public bookcases instead of in our own rooms. Especially the books my sister and I both read - we're only 14 months apart and, well, we tended to get possessive. I had my own treasured set of The Chronicles of Narnia, and it probably still has the gift tag from when my godmother gave it to me stuck to the top of the box, to prove that they were MINE, damnit. I'd learned well from the Debacle of the Little House Series.) Given the "bookcases in every room of the house" life I lead now, it seems too strange to me that I didn't actually have book shelves in my room growing up - I kept a few on my closet shelf, and tons, of course, piled bedside, but most books ended up in the central room we called the study. Older brother was the only one with bookcases of his own, so if you wanted to Choose Your Own Adventure, go off-planet, or check up on Alfred E. Neuman, you had to apply to him.

Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities. It was the best of times, and so on. After Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution I wanted to spend a little more time in embattled France. As one does. (I also pulled out the soundtrack to Les Mis recently, and the 11 year old is unexpectedly quite taken with the story - I've narrated him through almost half of it now. Soon the barricades will arise!) Anyway, I don't remember when I first read ATOTC - probably high school - but every time I think about it now, it's the edition in my mother-in-law's house. One rainy, jet-lagged afternoon in Dublin, I picked this out of a matching leather-bound set, curled up under the duvet with a cup of tea, and just bonded with this book. I'd somehow never realized before then that Dickens is hilarious. And keen. And devastating. I listened to it on audio this time, which led to many moments of surreptitious tear-wiping at work, and finally ("...a far, far better rest I go to....") all-out sobbing one afternoon. (This does not at all debunk my claim that I can do most of my job while listening to audiobooks. Hush.)

William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar. After Stacy Schiff's Cleopatra: A Life, I was planning to re-read Anthony and Cleopatra, but got sidetracked with old Anthony's first Shakespearean run instead. (It's also referred to in Schiff's biography, but obviously less often.) This play I definitely first read in high school - a couple of the books on those study bookshelves were Shakespeare's complete plays, and that kept me happy one hot summer. (No, wait, I was a social butterfly! Hardly ever at home, and when I was, I was thinking of new ways to style my hair!) My English class read Julius Caesar, as well, and since I was taking Latin at the same time (oh, I mean - um - volleyball! Yeah, I was one of the cool jock girls and also everyone imitated my very stylish mode of dress!) I loved all of the Ides of March, et tu stuff. I believe this was the first time I really got the point of delving deeper into the text, understanding the context, and subtext, and, I don't know, protext and intertext and supertext et al. (See? Latin!) It was quite the little intellectual awakening, and I owe it all to Caius Cassius and his crew. Still, I never felt sorry for Anthony before this time. He just seemed so alone, even in the midst of the crowd of Friends, Romans, and Countrymen. I suppose it was knowing what all would happen with Octavius that cast the pall.

While I was being all Shakespearian, and since it was recommended for the Sandman: Dream Country book club (first discussion this Thursday - you're not too late to join in), I also went back to A Midsummer Night's Dream. This one, despite the Summer of Shakespeare, I wasn't really mindful of until Robert and I saw some friends in a production in the park when we were dating. It was getting on towards Midsummer, and it was dreamy, and fun, and to my Visiting American Student self, an extremely English thing to be doing. I was a passionate young soul, in love with being In Love, and Literary, and Artistic, and Experiencing the Freedom of Living Far from Home (and Ignorant of the Fact that I would Proceed to Spend the Next Twenty would Attend the Same High School where I Learned Latin....) So - long live Puck, is what I'm getting at here. The eternal trickster, but always good to hang out with, if only to see how far you've gone (emotionally if not geographically) since childhood.

Yay, Me!

I was bestowed with honors this weekend, so I shall enumerate them here. It's all to do with elementary school - in particular, the school one or both of my sons has attended for the past ten years.

Friday was the PTA meeting (led by my dear friend L, who is PTA President this year) where they give various year-end awards to parents. A small slew of those awards traditionally go to the volunteering-crazy moms whose youngest kids are graduating, i.e., me. K is in 5th grade this year, and I kind of can't imagine not going up there anymore. I've served for repeat years as newsletter editor, coordinator of various competitions, library volunteer coordinator, and silent auction set-up chairperson, plus various other jobs here and there. (My friend M & I still have to finish the video for the 5th grade graduation, but all the rest of these tasks are done done done! It's a strange feeling.)

Anyway, despite the slide show full of embarrassing childhood photos, it was sweet to get my PTA Life Membership and a gorgeous bouquet from L. My friend C was also getting this award, and our girlfriends showed up to see our slide shows (somehow hers had far cuter photos) and they gave us even more flowers. So what I'm saying is, I had armfuls of gorgeous bouquets as I headed out to the PTA luncheon Friday afternoon. (Mmm, Mexican food and frozen margaritas. The real reason I took Friday off work!)

So, today. One of those volunteer jobs of mine was to coach K's Odyssey of the Mind team for the past three years. This involves meeting with 7 boys for a couple of hours every week from September through March or April, keeping them on track as they solve a long-term creative problem, and coaching them in solving spontaneous creative problems. The biggest trick to Odyssey is that there can't be any outside assistance - the team comes up with and executes the entire solution. So as much as you want to tell them "a little cross-bracing would stop that platform from falling over all the time" or "if your back is to the audience they can't really see your funny expressions" and so forth, you can't. And neither can their parents or sisters or best friends who aren't in Odyssey. It can be a little frustrating! On the other hand, going to the competition and seeing them perform an eight-minute murder mystery play they've written, using costumes and props they've created, performing songs and dances and many kinds of humor - and knowing that every ounce of it came from their own minds and teamwork - it's so amazing.

Anyway, today was the end-of-year party for the Odyssey team, and my friend A very graciously hosted it at her house. They brought in Indian food, the kids ran rampant for a while, the adults sat around and talked and laughed and relaxed, then I presented each team member with a certificate to note the especially strong traits each brought to the team. After that, the parents gave me a gift basket with a card signed by the team. The basket contained (um... past tense already...) three bottles of alcohol, seven kinds of chocolate, and two book store gift cards. I think these people know me well!

So, in conclusion - it's not that I volunteer for the flowers and candy and booze, but I'm feeling very loved and appreciated this weekend, and very rewarded for those hours.

Plus, I can barely imagine what I will do with my new masses of free time. Probably I'll start volunteering at the middle and/or high school.

(Robert: That's a joke. Breathe.)

Detectives, Literary and Otherwise

Quiz time! Match these investigators with their authors:
A. Resides in Alterna-Swindon, or sometimes Fictional-Alterna-Swindon, reads a lot, doesn't mind a good bit of violence, especially if it will protect those she loves most (and she does seem to love those who get in the way of trouble almost as often as she does.)
B. Resides in a Boston chock-full of depressing characters scarred by traumatic childhoods, knows her team better than herself and plays to their strengths as she tries to stay one step ahead of the criminal element. Tends to get there in the nick of time, though not without serious collateral damage.

C. Resides in Sicily, apparent land of more inventive seafood-based meals than anywhere in the world. Excellent (if whimsical and befuddling to his team) investigator when not pausing to savor some meal or another (or another.) A bit short-tempered (okay, that applies to all of these detectives), rigidly moral, and far from forgiving.

1. Gardner 2. Fforde 3. Camilleri

Answers (yes, I know it's not that hard a quiz. My husband's the teacher, not me.)

Jasper Fforde brings Thursday Next back (or does he?) for more detecting in the Book World (and in Swindon of the Outland) with One of Our Thursdays is Missing. I so enjoy this series (of his three, it's my favorite) and the chance to dive back into the weird wonderful world Fforde creates. This time, Thursday is missing, and is needed both within Fiction (or peace talks between Racy Novel and Women's Lit will fall to pieces) and in the Outland (or the cheese mafia and Goliath Corp will succeed with their evil plans), so the Written Thursday has to step into Thursday's shoes as never before. Fortunately she has the aid of a clockwork butler, since things at home are a little dicey too, what with the Men in Plaid and the thieving goblins next door. Confused? Then you're on the right track.

For a far more straight-forward cop-based suspense, I've plowed through several of Lisa Gardner's D.D. Warren novels. Love You More is the fifth one, but other than a certain amount of progression in her private life, D.D.'s investigations don't change her much, so if you like a thriller with damaged psyches, smart villains (though they sometimes profit from not-smart investigation, which does not seem to be intentional on Gardner's part), tense action, and a bit of inter-agency bitching, these are a good enough pick. Just don't do what I did and read a bunch of them in a row - they're too much alike, not in plot, but in the makeup of the players involved. Hopefully by the time #6 comes out, I'll have forgotten or Gardner will have added some more choices in her "Pick two traits from Column A and three extenuating factors from Column B" approach to character building.

Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano mysteries are as much repast as reading. Montalbano is a gourmand, and more than a bit of a self-centered, arrogant prick sometimes, but his world is all light and scent and taste and dream. I just finished The Snack Thief (and boy am I hungry!) and am still lingering on Sicily contemplating intrigue and base motivations while also grinning at the way poor Mimi is thwarted by Montalbano at every turn. For all of his bastardly qualities, Montalbano is a brilliant strategist with a keen sense of how far he can push people, and when to deploy those skills. Camilleri unfolds it all in a seductively simple way, and the fun here isn't trying to second-guess the detective or talk back to the characters, but in watching Montalbano perform.

The "I Will if You Will" Book Club is Back in Business!

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This is the book selection for the book club at the pop culture blog at NPR.org

(Made plans for Passover today, can you tell?)

The deal with this book club: it's online, natch, and the idea is that there are books out there that many readers wouldn't normally touch with a ten-foot stack of bestsellers. Too snooty, not snooty enough, whatever. The first book they did was Twilight, which I'd already read and wouldn't re-read, but I had a lot of fun following the discussions. The second book was Moby-Dick, which I'd never read and approached with caution, only to find unforseen shoals of delight in the text, and of course much wit and wisdom in the discussions. So now comes the third book, and they went with a graphic novel: Neil Gaiman's The Sandman Vol. 3: Dream Country.

I was a latish-to-the-party Gaiman convert. A few years ago I picked up Anansi Boys at an airport book store, drawn to the whole Native American Mythology thing that always draws me (double major at UCSC: English with an emphasis on Creative Writing, and American Studies with an emphasis on Native American Literature. Go Banana Slugs!) So I devoured it during that vacation, and looked up the rest of his novels as soon as I was home. I read Coraline to the boys, and got them hooked as well, but none of us have yet looked at the comics. I'm just not a graphic novel kind of gal, but for this book club I was (in the spirit of "IWIYW") willing to give it a whirl. The fact that it's a Gaiman title is a bonus for me.

Anyway, I picked my copy up from the library this afternoon and I'm raring to go. Anyone else want in on this?

A House and a Home

I read these two the wrong way.

Nicole Krauss's Great House is a novel which deserves its acclaim. The interwoven plots on the surface center around the possessors of a fairly awesome-sounding desk. Deeper, they center around parent-child expectations and relations, while the consequences of oppression and racism orbit the main action. (Also, I now feel bad about the extremely overburdened but much loved roll top desk I received from my parents when they were downsizing their house. I really ought to do some serious sorting and culling.) Anyway, although I was too-often reminded of how much more I liked the puzzle box built by David Mitchell in Cloud Atlas, I really just wanted to settle down with Great House and devour it whole. Instead I dipped into it and out again, sometimes wrangling a long session, more often just a few pages.

Bill Bryson's At Home: A Short History of Private Life, on the other hand, is just the sort of cultural anthropology/historical trivia that's fun to pick up and peruse and come back to later, and instead I powered through the whole thing. It really did me a disservice as a reader, and I should have known better. In addition to bringing back memories of my Anthro 101 research paper about the use of space in the double rooms in my dorm (I concluded, with no bias at all, that my roomie and I were not destined for a lifetime of friendship), Bryson's latest is a charming and interesting treasure box in its own right. Especially when handled correctly, there are lots of "wow, I'd never have guessed that about 'sleep tight'!" and "Got it: India cotton = Indian-derived words for fabric and fashion" moments to tickle your mental funny bone.

So there you have it - two good reads, which can be made better or (if ye heed not my warning) worse by your approach to reading them.

Things I Ate in 2 1/2 Days in New Orleans

Crickets, mealworms & waxworms in various forms at the Audubon Insectarium. The chocolate chirp cookies were my favorite, but the boys liked the mango mealworm salsa. Not the re-introduction to NOLA cuisine that we anticipated, but unique, to be sure.

Oyster po-boy and gumbo at Felix's. R & K had soft shell crab po-boys, and D went with jambalaya and a shrimp po-boy. Not one of us regretted our decisions. Plus we were super comfy and happy while we watched the lines hardly dwindle across the street at Acme. I've eaten at both establishments plenty of times and I'm just as happy either way.

Eggs, biscuit & grits at Clover Grill. Everyone else went for shakes and burgers, give or take the chili. They grill the burgers under an American-made hubcap to sear in the juices. (I presume that the foreign hubcaps aren't adequate for some reason.) I have to say, every person in that place was cheerful, including K, who is still talking about his chili burger a week later.

Mocha, veggie omelet, more grits (yum!), and beignets at Cafe Beignet - I know, I know, but we were going on a coach tour and didn't have time for both Cafe du Monde and lunch before it left, so this seemed reasonable. Sigh. But K (my foodie, clearly - D is annoyed every time I discuss various restaurants because I "sound too fake") is also still raving about the Bourbon Croissant he had there, so no worries.

A soda at Oak Alley Plantation, just to tide us over until....


The mother of all meals at Mother's. Wow. I had the Famous Ferdi Po-Boy and a dish of bread pudding. The ham was astounding! Did I say wow? Wow. D's po-boy was like mine but with cheese, making it the Ralph, and he chose pecan pie. R & K (the 11 year old with the bottomless pit stomach) had Seafood Platters. The sides were scrumptious, especially the cabbage. (R liked the greens better.) So full!

Finally, cafe au lait and beignets at Cafe Du Monde. And bliss. I told the boys beforehand the stories of the first time they'd each eaten there at age 1 (D quickly discovering that wet fingers are ideal powdered-sugar-transfer devices, K's big round eyes getting rounder than I'd ever seen them and not once setting his beignet down.) At 15 and 11, their reactions weren't all that different. See, guys? That's why we stand in line!

Our final meal (Smoothie King at the airport don't count) was at The Camellia Grill. Ruben, cheese fries, hot tea. More chili for K, more burger for D, and I don't remember what kind of sandwich R had, but we all remember the cheesecake he had for dessert.

So, basically - a lot of deicious food. My conservative estimate is about a million calories. But with a million joyous memories, too.

Books That Talk to Each Other in My Head

Tonight I finished In the Heart of the Sea, Nathaniel Philbrick's fairly captivating history of the tragedy of the whaleship Essex. I didn't know a thing about the Essex before reading it (the ship was attacked in the Pacific by a sperm whale in 1820, leaving 20 crew in three whaleboats to try to navigate a couple of a thousand miles to South America. Some of them made it.)

What I did know was Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, which I read for the first time last year (only because of the "I Will if You Will" book club at MonkeySee, which was a fun experience indeed.) Melville used the at-the-time-infamous events of the Essex as fodder for Ahab's venge-quest against the White Whale. So as I read In the Heart of the Sea, I kept burbling up with "oh, that's the back story on all the Nantucket Quakers!" and "so, the stuff with the races on board was even more divisive, then," and various other jump-backs to the Melville story. (Not to mention that Philbrick gives a far less cuckoo-pants version of whale anatomy and dismemberment than Melville did. But Melville clearly had more fun with it all.)

Meanwhile, when I read Moby-Dick, I constantly hearkened back to the Master and Commander series by Patrick O'Brian, which I read (or actually had read to me by audio-crush Simon Vance) between fall 2009 and spring 2010. So reading Melville I had a lot of O'Brian floating around in my head defining topgallant sails and watches and various other nautical rigmarole.

So by the time I picked up the Philbrick, I had Melville and O'Brian bouncing around in my brain, and really, they just wouldn't shut up with the chit-chat amongst themselves. Yarns about Galapagos turtles and fishy first mates and that time in Valparaiso went sailing round and round in my thoughts. Not to be outdone, Unbroken contributed plenty of compare-and-contrast stories about being adrift in the Pacific 125 years apart. And I loved it all. I love when books get together. Especially when they jump genres - when it seems like everything I pick up has to do with twins, or Paris, or whatnot, no matter how little else the books have in common. It's just a delight.

Coming up soon on my reading pile is Philbrick's book about Little Big Horn, which will play nicely, I'm sure, with Empire of the Summer Moon and The Worst Hard Time, which have already had a few play dates in my mind. (You wouldn't think those two would play nicely with anyone, but they're surprisingly congenial.) I'm very much looking forward to the ruckus.