The Whole World Over

I know Julia Glass' first novel, Three Junes, was much acclaimed, but I've not read it. I never got past the first chapter! I expected that to happen with her newest book. But I was hooked from the beginning.

I didn't think it would take me so long to finish this though--it's under 500 pages but the type size has got to be 6. It took me about 9 days!

The Whole World Over tells the story of New Yorkers (and one Connecticut-er) in the roughly year-and-a-half before 9-11. There's Greenie, a pastry chef, married to Alan, a shrink, with one son, George. She decamps to New Mexico to be private chef to the governor, leaving Alan behind. There's Walter, Greenie's good, gay friend. There's Saga, the Connecticut-based animal lover. Julia Glass tells the big and small of their lives before 9-11 changes them or forces them to choose or opens their eyes or all of the above.

I enjoyed the book very much though doubt I'll read it again (that font size!!!). The characters came alive. I feel like I could walk down Manhattan's Bank Street and really sit in Walter's Place (his restaurant) or browse in his neighbor Fenno's book store. I appreciated Greenie's torment and guilt and Alan's professional ennui.

I loved how Julia Glass left some mysteries unresolved almost till the end. Particularly the events that led to Saga's circumstances. And how she'll backtrack in the middle of the present then jump back.

It's generally a happy book--in spite of 9-11. Maybe especially because of 9-11. Then again, none of the characters lose anyone of utmost importance in the tragedy, but it does wake them up and help them seize the day or value what they already have.

Can't Wait To Get To Heaven

This is Fannie Flagg's latest book, and a sequel of sorts to Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! and Standing in the Rainbow. I really enjoy Ms. Flagg's books--Fried Green Tomatoes is still my favorite among them. She writes sweet books where a few bad things may happen but things generally end well for most characters. This is no exception. It's got an interesting interpretation of life after death.

I got to know Aunt Elner a little better in this book--she was a supporting character in the first two books. Her ways may drive some readers crazy but I wouldn't mind growing old and staying as interesting as she managed to be. I loved her good-natured perspective. I imagine that it wouldn't be so bad to grow old the way she did--optimistic, trusting, warm, never turning cynical or jaded.

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to say in this post. Then I realized: If you like Fannie Flagg, as I do, you'll enjoy this book, and if you don't like her, nothing I can say will change your mind.

The Men I Didn't Marry

Crapfest.

OK, maybe that's too harsh. If this book were a real crapfest, I'd have chucked it after the second chapter.

My big problem with this book is that it felt like an Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy. Or a Disney animated feature from the last 10 years--full of funny one-liners, but no real story, no real character growth. (I feel you gotta have one or the other at the very least!)

The characters felt pretty one-dimensional. I couldn't muster up much sympathy for the main character, Hallie. So her husband drives into Manhattan after they drop off their daughter at Yale, hands her the keys, and moves in with his new girlfriend. So she ends up spending a fortune on QVC and gorging on Double-Stuffed Oreos. This was nowhere near as enjoyable as Olivia Goldsmith's First Wives' Club. I didn't find myself rooting for her in any way.

I finished the book, only because I kept hoping something good would happen. Also, the one-liners were funny enough. But after a while there were so many that you couldn't appreciate them any more.

I have nothing against writing tandems--I loved The Nanny Diaries and The Talisman, to name a few--but I'm pretty sure I'll be staying away from this particular writing pair.

Not Technically a Book Review: Nightmares and Dreamscapes

Did I mention I'm a Stephen King fan? Have adored his work since 1989 or so?

I read Nightmares & Dreamscapes back in 1995 when it came out in paperback and was given to me as a gift by one of my graduating daughters. It's King's 3rd collection of stories. I confess I actually only truly enjoyed about 5 of the stories here--I liked Skeleton Crew and Everything's Eventual much more. But TNT is showing a mini-series (kind of like Twilight Zone) based mostly on the stories in this book, though a few episodes will be taken from other collections.

I loooooved the first episode, Battleground, with William Hurt. Absolutely wonderful. Reminded me strongly of The REd Balloon--if you've seen that, then see this, you'll know why. This episode was directed I think by one of Jim Henson (yes, Kermit's daddy)'s kids.

I hated the second--Crouch End--but then again it was one of the stories I didn't ever want to read again. So maybe my bias just transferred. I dunno, though--Benjie isn't a King fan but he was as hooked as I on Battleground and felt as I did that Crouch End was too messy, too arty, and had actors acting badly.

This week's episode I await anxiously--it's based on one of my favorites in the book (The End of the Whole Mess). And the other episode, with William Macy, can't be half-bad!

I generally hate any movie or tv adaptation of Stephen King's work. His work is highly adaptable but I think the ones that have been done have been unlucky enough not to get the kind of respect and attention to detail that they deserve. But this series is very promising!

Baby Proof

I was prepared to like this bit of chick lit even before I got past the 2nd chapter. (That's my cutoff point for deciding whether I should soldier on or give up. I've mentioned in my nextdoor blog that I used to be an equal-opportunity reader and an in-for-a-penny-in-for-a-pound reader. Having Teo and NOT having the same amount of time I used to be able to devote to reading changed that. In these new times I figure a writer had better have you hooked by the second chapter or else he or she just isn't worth the bother. And if I've been disappointed or unimpressed by one book, I probably won't pick up another by the same author. My exceptions to this rule include Stephen King and John Irving. I'd read anything they write to the bitter end, no matter how badly I hate it. With the exception of Setting Free the Bears. Love John Irving but I cannot, cannot get beyond the 4th page of that book.)

Not because I was a big fan of Emily Griffin's first 2 books. I've read Something Blue, and I liked it fine, but not enough to want to ever read again. (And it's not like I'm stingy with that compliment--there well could be 100 books that I'm hoping to read again before I die, most of which I've probably already read at least 5 times.) I loved the premise described on the book jacket--what happens when an otherwise happy couple is thrown for a loop by a very bad case of "I changed my mind"?

I loved this book because I imagine that I am a lot like Claudia. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I've never wanted children (she claims that when she and her sisters played house as children, she was always the loving, generous, childless aunt). At one point in my life (OK, at least 2 points: when I was delusionally convinced I'd grow up to marry Simon le Bon, and very early in my relationship with Benjie) I thought I wanted 8 kids. But Benjie and I have been married almost 9 years. Until my drugstore pregnancy test results came back in late January 2005 we were convinced that we would have lives just as joyful and blessed as anyone else's if we chose to remain childless. And I have to admit there have been many days since Teo's birth that I have missed those carefree days with a passion.

Claudia and Ben meet, fall in love and marry. They are a truly well-matched pair, not least because they both don't want to have children. But a few years into marriage, Claudia is still the same girl--content with life with Ben--but Ben is hankering for a child.

This book is about dealbreakers, good choices, and bad choices within relationships. I loved the fact that Emily Griffin kept most of Claudia's relationships spinning simultaneously, with the complexity and authenticity that real-life women can empathize with and enjoy. You never get the sense that any other character Claudia interacts with is superficial or unreal. (In many a chick lit I've found that at least one important character becomes a caricature. Maybe it has to do with author decisions about plot, or brevity, or whatever. With Baby Proof you develop a sense that you've gotten to know the people in Claudia's life almost as well as if they were your family and friends and significant others.)

I loved that Claudia was a strong female character, someone who knew her mind and priorities, but wasn't afraid to look them over and wonder whether she'd made mistakes.

I loved that this book has a happy ending, if not necessarily the kind of happy ending you get used to looking for in chick lit.

Jane Austen Mania

Big, awful bookworm confession: I've only ever read Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Haven't read Sense and Sensibility, or Mansfield Park (though I did borrow it and got to the second chapter) or Emma or anything else.

(Actually, there are many classics I haven't read. I figure I have time enough in the future to get to Dickens when Teo's old enough to appreciate Great Expectations in read-aloud, and to Austen if and when I have a daughter who'll enjoy 19th century chick lit.)

Notwithstanding, I did read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler last year (or was it the year before) and liked it. I guess I would've loved it if I'd read Jane Austen more, but there you go.

Anyhoot, there's a rash of Jane Austen-inspired chick lit on the shelves, and here are two that I read in the last few months. Like JA's books, these two novels are set among the wealthy and literate. Each novel has an admirable heroine--beautiful, intelligent, accomplished--whose big flaw is spurning the love of her life because of class differences and family pressure. Each novel details the ways in which The One comes back into the heroine's life and heart.

In spite of their similarities, I still enjoyed each book. For one, they're both very well-written, and full of the foibles of Homo Dinero. For another, the happy endings come almost just as I'd given up on them. I loved that the characters were well into their thirties and comfortable with, though not dejectedly resigned to, the idea of possible lifelong spinsterhood. I loved the Boston setting of the Family Fortune (some familiarity with a novel's geography is always a thrill) and the descriptions of the overbearing parents and overachieving students in JA in Scarsdale(think The Nanny Diaries in senior year high school).

I think I prefer Jane Fortune, the character in Family Fortune, a tad above Anne Ehrlich (in Scarsdale), if only because she was a bit less passive in making things happen in her life. (Anne seems to have mostly let things happen to her.)

I like imagining that if I'd given in to family pressure and not married Benjie when I did, we still would've found each other later the way Jane and Max and Anne and Ben did. (Though the differences between us were much narrower!)

The Knowledge Deficit

(Thanks Amazon for the picture of the book!)

I picked up this book because I felt my son's stroller basket was too full of chicklit and otherwise lightweight reading. I wanted some non-fiction and this was slender and short enough to guarantee at least the possibility of getting beyond the first chapter.

I wasn't too keen to read it--I've read Cultural Literacy, and I have to admit that my left-leaning biases made me agree too quickly with the liberal and politically correct criticisms of that book (mainly that Hirsch favors a western European model of curriculum to the detriment of other ethnicities in American schools).

But the book surprised me by giving me several lightbulb moments--that I actually agreed with!

Hirsch's first idea is that there is too much emphasis in elementary schools on teaching kids to read--phonics, comprehension, etc. His second idea is that we take for granted that giving kids this kind of instruction is enough to guarantee that they'll grow into fluent readers. His third idea is that this assumption (he calls it formalism) is wrong--kids need more than formal reading skills; they need a lot of background knowledge to help them understand what they're reading!

He cites a study (of course I didn't take note of who conducted it!) comparing a group of kids who tested well on reading skills versus a group with low scores but some knowledge of baseball, which was the subject of the passage they were tested on. The kids with low skills but some knowledge actually did better on the reading test.

Hirsch points out that kids who come from homes where educated parents talk with them about a wide range of subjects, where they are encouraged to participate in conversation, begin school with much more background knowledge than kids who come from poorer or less educated homes, and that this deficit will widen as they go through the school system. Schools can narrow this gap if they teach both reading and other subjects very well.

I suppose I'm not so set in my ways that I enjoy getting surprised. I was prepared to hate this book, but it really made me think and to admit that Hirsch argues his case so well that it deserves widespread discussion and debate. Some of the things he proposes (a more common curriculum across the US--rather than letting local districts compose 100% of their curricula, about 40-60% of it should be subject matter that is taught everywhere else; reducing explicit reading instruction time to accommodate instruction in social sciences, science and art, to cite 2) will be controversial for both conservative and liberal education thinkers. But that the debate takes place at all can only be good for America's children.