Litter-ature, and a note about negativing...

Sorry. By the end of this post I will have been guilty of negativing. I don't really mean to negative anything. But when speaking about certain aspects of literature these days, I find it difficult not to negative. Actually, they seem to deserve to be negatived.

Now then, I think I have sufficiently introduced into my vocabulary the verb negative, (presumably rhyming with derive or revive.) The verb negative, you ask? Yes, I timidly answer. But I confess that I, too, am not convinced it's a true verb. Having run across this odd usage of the word in some scholarly tome about English language negation, I've been peppering my informal conversations with it as a way of expressing 'to be negative about,' (as in, That's a perfectly good score for such a difficult final exam, so just don't NEGATIVE it!). And, since my discovery of this term dovetails with my plan to reflect on my rather dim impression of some of today's young adult literature, I thought I'd put it to written use.

I believe that will conclude my use of negative. Don't want to overdo it all at once...

Unfortunately, it does not conclude a bit of a rant on a sub-category of books which I think would warrant much more use of the term.

A disclaimer: I haven't read these novels. I'll admit it. But I've tried. As a matter of fact, I have two of them, both library books, sitting on my desk waiting to be read, but I doubt I'll be able to do much more than just skim them. The A-List by Zoey Dean and Don't You Forget About Me by Cecily von Ziegesar are each one of a series called the A-List books and the Gossip Girls books, respectively. But I lump them together, books of this ilk. To me they're just those awful-looking books that we adults are feeding kids, the mental equivalent of serving junk food for dinner.

Why awful? Aren't I being terribly unfair? Well, I have tried to read them, as I said. So, I'm not totally their stranger. And I've read about them, for what that's worth. Check out this article by Naomi Wolf from the March 12, 2006 edition of The New York Times entitled, Young Adult Fiction: Wild Things.

While covering mature themes, these books do not seem to aim to educate. They seem, to a self-confessed non-reader, to glamourize the inane and the mean. At least, this is what I've gleaned from surveying their covers, captions and content. The titles are catchy, I'll grant you, but what do they mean to impart to the people of that impressionable age for which they're written? Nothing, I imagine, but a sense of fascination that will persuade these kids to plunk down their money in exchange for insipidity like All I Want is Everything, Nothing Can Keep Us Together, Dial L for Loser, Best Friends for Never. The cover art is often photos of glaring, sullen teenage girls glossed up and looking disdainful of whomever dared to pick up the book.

It's not hard to find fodder for criticism. Even if the inanity only goes as far as a few twists on popular sayings, why give that particular age group more superficiality to absorb? And why try to make it attractive? Who does it help? I assume it helps the publishers and authors, but does it do anything for the kids reading the books? This is a far cry from the the young adult reads of yesteryear. Wet bars? Martini's? In a kids' book?

But I guess it's par for the course in today's world. Still, does the book industry really need to be aiding and abetting in the dumbing down and spicing up of the upcoming generation's entertainment? And, if there are saving graces buried somewhere in these books, why must they have titles that reflect and promise to deliver such negativity?

So, now I don't know. Should I actually go ahead and try, again, to read one of these books? There are only so many hours in a day and there are so many actually good books I wonder if the investment of time is worth it. Unless I find a redeeming quality there, somewhere.

Maybe, I'm just negativing.

Touched by an e-mail writing author...

There are papers tucked into copies of some of the books in my library. They're folded business-letter style and sit on my shelves waiting to be taken out, dusted off and unfolded carefully one day when they are brittle and yellowed. They're just copies of emails. In this computer age there's really no reason a computer print-out of an email should be handled so gingerly. Somewhere in cyberspace, I'm told, the message will always be hovering. So if I lose one, who cares?

I guess it's just a mark of a book-lover to fancy that a folded sheet of 8 1/2 x 11 that slips out of a novel five years from now is more romantic, will bring back more memories, than will logging on to a Mac or accessing data stored on a CD. So when I write to an author, this is what I do. And I think it makes my shelves more interesting, adds another story for them to tell beyond the dramas and comedies that already occupy spaces there.

It's a relatively new activity for me, this writing to authors. So far everyone I have written to has responded, and nicely, too. In one case I read Melanie Jeschke's Inklings and, knowing some places and people were based on the real thing, thought that I may have met someone whose fictional counterpart dwells in the pages of that book. I got a couple of really lovely emails from Ms Jeschke while we tried to sort out if my own inkling was right. In another case, I found what I thought to be an allusion to one character's future in the ending of Lorelei Mathias's Lost for Words, emailed, and was let in on the fact that it was actually the writer's joke about the book business. Another time, I happened upon Megan Crane's English as a Second Language in the store (a signed copy!) and enjoyed it. So I told her!

I think that these writers are not yet such big names that they can afford the time to email back to a reader. Not that I begrudge them a healthy readership, but I think it's rather nice that there are writers who are being read but are not so phenomenonally successful that they become unapproachable due to time, work, ego, or whatever. (And, as for being successful, I think just getting something good written and published and enjoyed by a few people who can then discuss it is being successful.)

I've got itchy fingers. I'd like to write to someone else. I'd better get reading....

This is not an example of one....

Some writers are blessed with an ability to produce thought-provoking or unusual titles for their works, not the formulaic kind that just consist of the main character's name or maybe a noun and adjective. Perhaps it's their editors writing them, but somebody has a talent for it.

Every once in a while I'll run across an impressive title and store it somewhere in my memory where it settles in a corner and gathers dust until something jogs the gray matter and the title resurfaces.

There have been so many over time and I haven't kept track of them so I am QUITE irritated because I know there are more and I'd like to remember them. What a fun thing that would be for bibliophile list-maker to be able to do! But the thing is I can only recall one of them and it's a great one, but I know there are more and perhaps one day they'll come to mind but where's that mental list when I need it? Well, you see the frustration, don't you?

So, here's a list of titles because they deserve a mention somewhere of how great they are and because it's always nice to re-read great writing, or even to re-read that lure, that tease, that encapsulation of an idea that takes 70,000 words to fully articulate, the title.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers (the best title on this list by far)

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
(so expressive)

Anne's House of Dreams by Lucy Maud Montgomery
(ethereal)

Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe by Fanny Flagg (a noun phrase anda prepositional phrase!)

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (Yeah, it's just an adj and a noun, but what a combo!)

How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life by Mameve Medwed (intriguing)

Tolstoy Lied, A Love Story by Rachel Kadish
(a short complete sentence that makes the reader wonder,"Lied about what?")

I am America (And So Can You!) by Stephen Colbert (have no idea what it means, but love the enthusiastically bad grammar)

Love's Labour's Lost by William Shakespeare (a play this time - gorgeous use of alliteration, though again, what does it mean?)

As you can see, it's not an exhaustive list and maybe more reflective of guilt and misery than this blog's name indicates. Still,not a bad list since the books and play on it make me want to know more (especially since I haven't read them all yet!)

Anyone have a favorite title of their own?

Trees or books? What's a lover of words and paper to do?

My former English professor called it one of life's great pleasures: reading outdoors.

How ironic then that that master work of nature, the tree, so loved by so many as cool company on a hot summer day of reading in the park, is threatened by the same people's love of books. You go out, maybe it's spring, everything is blooming and blossoming, maybe it's rained and the darkened barks and newborn leaves are smelling fruity in the breeze. You sit on a bench and pull out a dog-eared copy of your favorite annual re-read and breathe a sigh of regret that what you hold in your hands was once a fruit-smelling, life-giving tower of nature just like the ones around you. But worse is when you buy a new glossy copy of some recent release or old classic and know that you just contributed to the demise of a tree.

Sounds like dog-eared copies may be the way to go, as this article in the The Guardian seems to point out, at least if you want to read with the clear conscience that seems requisite for outdoor reading enjoyment.

Looks like book-swapping is big nowadays and may be a good way to help the cause of tree survival, but check out the reaction of the author mentioned in this piece. It's a legitimate issue - authors should get paid. But I balk at the comparison to the file-sharing woes of the music industry. One might want to ask her, ever heard of libraries, sister? They circulate books. And what about friends who share books? Should they be stopped? The book swap sites talked about in this article are like the "take a book, leave a book" program also mentioned, just on a large scale. Does their size render them somehow wrong?

I love a new book as much as anyone, but there's merit in this book swapping idea. Were I only so loyal to nature that I did more of it, but occasional used book-buying of hard to find titles is about as close to it as I get. Kudos to those who book swap. Love those books, love those trees!

One woman's quest to meet her love - Is it a touching story or just a bit touched?

If you've read 'Someday My Prince Will Come, True Adventures of a Wannabe Princess'by Miss Jerramy Fine, you know what I'm referring to. This little book is a confection like cotton candy. It's yummy, pretty to look at, as girly as the color pink, and so light and ethereal that once you've consumed it, you question its ever having really been there...except that you now have a stomachache. Well, not a bad, bad stomachache, just a little gnawing at your gut making you wonder, Could this be true?

Fine tells her tale of growing up on the American side of the Atlantic knowing full well that her fate was on British shores and his name was Peter Phillips, the Queen's grandson. She finally escapes from her rural upbringing in 1980s Colorado by hippies who never let the age of aquarius end and gets herself into hundreds of thousands of dollars of debts financing her honors degree at the London School of Economics, and just perhaps, her partying. Because the good times really do roll in this author-described true story, but they aren't the most interesting part of 'Someday.'

That anyone would believe from the age of six to adulthood that they were destined for a particular well-known, royal man and would fixate on him, making their lives and life decisions mold to the plan of getting him seems, to me at least, a little, oh, unusual. But Fine says it's true and whether it is or isn't doesn't really matter. It's a good story all the same. That she told people of her plan along the way to meeting him is even more unbelievable. Wouldn't most people have suggested therapy? Wasn't she afraid she'd get kicked out of England?

I discovered this book around Valentine's Day, shelled out the $25 to get it and don't really regret it. It's expensive cotton candy, but I'm quite fond of cotton candy. A word of advice, though: you may want to mooch off your friend the public library's bag of candy before you buy it. Taste test. But I found it yummy. Quite yummy.

Edith Wharton facing foreclosure?

Looks like the economy has gotten so bad it's starting to reach back in time and to foreclose on history and culture. The Mount is the name of Edith Wharton's gorgeous and historic house in western Massachusetts. Like so many others today its caretakers are facing foreclosure and then that's the end of strolls through those fantastic gardens and the rooms this particular author (House of Mirth, The Buccaneers, The Age of Innocence) called home. To get an idea of what lit lovers are potentially losing, check out the last couple of paragraphs of this Boston.com article from February 27, 2008.
To get more info on how you can help visit The Mount's website here. A total of $3 million is needed apparently by May 31st.

'Me and Mr Darcy' and I - comment, with possible spoilers, on new novel

And, now, an example of a good idea gone wrong...

Originally, when I heard the title to this new book by Alexandra Potter, I had a thought - Why isn't it called 'Mr.Darcy and I'? That's more musical, I thought, and more polite. One doesn't say, "Me and Darcy are going for a walk." One says,"Darcy and I are going for a walk," both for grammar reasons and for those of politeness. But I didn't realize that the title was the least impolite thing about this book.

Jane Austen brings to mind thoughts of elegance and good taste. And one would expect a novel which derives its story, its very existence, from the writings of Austen to have in its language, in its tone, a reflection of that elegance and good taste. Not here.

Vulgarity is on practically every page. It comes in the form of lewd references and swears, and the very un-Austen-like personality of the protagonist Emily Albright, whom the reader is meant at some moments to believe is prim and proper. For the rest of the novel she's got the mind, if not the mouth, of the proverbial sailor....Okay, that's harsh - but it was very discordant with the idea of Austen.

Everything from the sex-crazed assistant of bookstore manager Albright to the unnecessary bluntness of sexual references was cheap and gauche. All right, not everything....that's what's tragic about the book, if I'm not being too dramatic -'Me and Mr. Darcy'could have been good.

On that scale of 1 to 10 that everyone refers to, I give it a 4. And I'm not even that reluctant to do so despite the admittedly engaging storyline of woman meeting Mr. Darcy and her romantic adventures.

I can forgive the fact that the book is riddled with subtle Britishisms that an American would ordinarily not use and so are incongruous to the main character, supposedly a true New Yorker. That's minor. But the ugliness of some of the language just lingers and can not be waved away as if it were some unimportant detail. And then there is the superficiality of particularly the main character, putting down others, such as boyfriends, for tired and off-putting reasons like wearing pleated pants or living with one's mother. It's just not interesting and it's irritating. It would be so much more interesting to read of a protagonist that valued and reflected worthier feelings. So much less explored in literature today and, therefore, so much more apt to deliver an engaging and refreshing character.

There is a predictability in the story, as well, but then with which Austen-inspired novel today isn't there a predictability? One always knows there will be a Wickham, an Elizabeth, a Darcy. Nonetheless, the predictability here is pronounced. This novel does have the added dimension of a 'real' Darcy in it which makes the book,in at least one aspect, unique.

Ranting aside, there was, as I said before, an engaging side to 'Me and Mr. Darcy.' And this despite its meager 4 points perhaps, just perhaps, makes it a book worthy of reading. There is an enchanting end to one of the storylines which is charming. In the interest of not spoiling the ending for those who want to read the novel, I will not give away the ending.

In the middle of the book the protagonist Albright has a couple of occasions on which she describes certain foods as disgusting but delicious. Originally, it was a hard idea to get my mind around. But, now, I see....the same could sort of be said about this novel.