The Diamond in the Window

Recalibration, or: Why Sometimes It's Worth It to Read a Book That Wears You Down

You know how you're supposed to keep your phone and/or computer alive by letting them/it run completely out of power? And then the device is supposed to come to a fuller understanding of its capacity (sort of); it recalibrates and once again knows the meaning of "empty" and "full" and "dying as you are trying to text your family."

Well, I have been slogging and slogging my way through the end of a book that I did not love at all, thinking (as I read): Why do I make myself read to the end? Even if it's for my book group, shouldn't I somehow give myself a pass? I have only so many hours on this earth... (etc etc).

And then I did finish it. And guess what? I was recalibrated! The next book I picked up (The Overstory, which I will blab on about in a while, I am sure) I met with unbridled joy! Never mind that I sometimes find Richard Powers compulsively cerebral. It was fun to read again! I plunged through pages, fast and happy. I was renewed!

Anyway, that's how I came to believe in recalibration for reading. And my extremely terrible illustration at the top (it's an empty gas tank of course!) is my newest attempt to avoid running afoul of various copyright issues and to be truer to what's in my head. Sorry that it looks like the Nightmare Before Christmas, we all have our troubles.

Half-baked ideas: A Meditation on Autism and a Little Bit on Children's Books

(Image courtesy California Lightworks)

There are books—there is art of all kinds, really—in which it seems that the person creating does not see the limits the rest of us see. The writer will have the child party with the monsters or walk through the back of the metaphorical wardrobe or let the pigeon drive the bus. (Yeah, that's right, they're examples and metaphors, baby.)

For a long time, I have watched someone close to me move through the world bearing with her the clanky burden of her autism, at least that's how I have seen it. It's part of her, and it makes so many things more difficult. What for me is easy—trying on shoes in a store, making small talk with a neighbor (OK, that can be brutal but I can still do it), staying through to the end of dinner. When social cues, and rules, and reality don't register in your vision, it's like missing a spectrum of light: you bump into things you didn't even see were there.

But. Here is the thing. While missing that whole spectrum of light makes things like, say, trying on shoes in a store, difficult, that wavelength, those social constructs, those invisible ties that they rest of us can see and negotiate, are also boundaries. And we see them and instinctively avoid them, duck them, go around them—we don't press against them, because we can see something there.

So: I'm thinking that there is a reason that being on the autism spectrum is so often associated with people who have broken through artistic and scientific walls—because those social constructs the rest of us happily, freely negotiate are those barriers. Social constructs are the box in the "think outside the box." That Edison and Turing and Austen—all rumored to have autism, though who the hell knows—blew the world away is because of their autism, not in spite of it. That the ability to block out social expectations and constructs is a superpower of sorts, not only the clanking burden that it is in shoe stores and restaurants but a turbo-powered engine that can blast people through beyond what anyone expected or envisioned.

I have been thinking about this a long time; I read Neurotribes by Steven Silberman, which I highly recommend. I am thinking about it all still.

Half-baked riddle: Which Mythic Greek Figure Is Like Your Mother? Or Maybe Your Father?

Here's the thing(s): I know my children. Also, I have read a fair number of books. I am fond of matching books to people, in the hopes that the book will bring the person in question joy.

However, I long ago reached the point at which any book I recommended was rejected out of hand by my children. Of course.

The same is true, also of course, with any knowledge, information, or advice I might be trying to offer them. Anything from "Oh, I think that charger cord doesn't work" to "I think finding someone to help you with your organization skills might help." Rejected!

Granted: These are annoying things to hear. I know that. I annoy myself when I say them. And they are always, always either ignored or more actively contested. My response, even internally, is understanding and acceptance. Because it is my fate, I realize, to be ignored/defied/shrugged off.

Which is when I realized who else is like that. That's right, Cassandra, baby. Fated to see the future, and have no one ever believe her. Do you know what Cassandra sounds like? She sounds like someone's mother. 

Problems With This Theory:

1. It is possible that book recommendations for my kids are not the exact same as the gift of true prophecy.
2. As far as I know, my (and every other parent's that I know) inability to be believed does not (probably) result from denying Apollo the pleasure of sex.

However, it is really, really annoying to try to (subtly!) foist a book (or belief system) on my child, only to be denied and denied and denied, until some other person comes along and toss off "Hey, have you checked this out?" upon which my child falls upon it hungrily.

Petty? Of course. Childish? You betcha. Inevitable? Apparently. And all of it makes me thing that Aeschylus was for sure writing about either his parents, or being one. Of course he was! He knew! He wrote like someone who knew the feeling, did he not?

And the bitter irony here, of course, is that no one will believe this. 

Half-Baked Theories: The Fear of Turning the Page

So, I've written here before about Being Susceptible to Fiction, and I still think it's true (it's not so easy to disabuse me of my half-baked notions!) but what's hitting me about it lately is how it affects reading tastes.

For me, there are certain intense books where I have to put the book down, repeatedly, because I can't take it. And what I think is, that it's just too easy for it to seem real to me. So if everything signals to me that, say, a person is about to make the most terrible choice possible (oh fictional characters, why must you always develop the story?), I have to look away. And the beautiful thing about a book (unlike a movie, say), is that I can.

But...is everyone like this? Is it like being a super-taster except with your mind instead of your tongue? I kind of think so, based on exactly no evidence! This post is, perhaps, the very epitome of half-baked theories: Gee, it's true for me, let me make a semi-grand extrapolation based on it!

So now, I must ask you: true for you too? As a reader, do you fall for it too much? Do you need to put down the book when it gets to intense? Or do you fall on the other end of the spectrum: are you impervious to the foibles of the fictional? Except, if that is true, is that maybe why some people don't like to read?

Help, I need answers!

Food, Children's Books, and Does Anyone Have Any Yellow Cake?

I'm trying to remember how I got here. Part of it was—sob!—no doubt due to the news that Mary Berry is following suit with Mel and Sue and The Great British Bake-Off is no more.

And then I was thinking about Adopted Jane, in which a 12-year-old orphan is asked to visit two different families over one summer, and then has to choose which one to stay with. And (it could have been just me) but a large part of the experience seemed to revolve around the different foods at each home. With the lonely widow, she had a yellow cake mixed up in a bowl! And a floating island! With the farm-friendly family, she had biscuits and fried chicken!

And then theres the sausages Lucy has with Mr. Tumnus, as part of the very lovely tea. Or the hamper full of food that the beavers pack. Or, dear god, the Turkish delight!

I guess it's not just children's books, I mean Hemingway and his onion sandwiches are very compelling. But I feel like there is a particular and special connection children's books have with food, and I am not sure why that is. It's not just the candy, right—not all Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Surely adults love food just as much. And yet.... For some reason right now it is making me both hungry and wistful.

Do you have a favorite children's book meal? I keep thinking of the box of chocolates in The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, the one that's tied up with the wide lavender ribbon. And if I could only taste that yellow cake, I feel sure I would know why Jane chose her.

Half-Baked Ideas: The Narrative World—or, Why We Get Mad

I've been thinking some about the idea of the unresolved ending in fiction, though I must say that Chestnut is mostly over it. A smart commenter suggested that series, particularly fantasy series, force you to pause in the middle of the narrative, and it's something to adapt to.

And I think this is an excellent point, but I also wanted to note that in the case of the Jo Walton book, the unresolved ending was an intentional question to the reader: which of these do you think happened? Never to be resolved explicitly by the author, in that book or any other.

Which made it clear to me why it bothered me so: Because both Chestnut and I believe that the narrative world in any given book is real.

Perhaps it's not in this "plane," and it's true that we can never enter it except through the magical conduit of a book. But—I have to face facts. I believe everything I read. In some part of me, I feel that all these fictional worlds exist, and I get tastes of them through books: Narnia exists, Wonderland exists, all of it exists, but you can only get these quick book-length glimpses. And when an author says "You decide," it seems to claim (or acknowledge, depending on your belief system) that these worlds aren't real, that what is said to happen is just based on the author's whim, not on actual fictional events in the other world.

I realize that this is maybe a little crazy? But it feels to me, in my heart of hearts (should such a place as that really exist), true.

Half-Baked Theories: Your True Age

Speaking of age, I have been blogging so long that I don't really know what I've posted at this point, and a search only turns up so much. My fear is that I have posted this theory before, as it is one that is central to my half-baked view of the world. If I have, let's just hope I have acquired NEW and USEFUL insight into the human condition (ahem).

OK, so I have this theory that every person has one age that most, well, typifies that person. I don't mean the age at which you "peaked" (with any luck, our lives are not that linear). I mean, some essential part of you was always meant to be, say, 9 or 17, or 43, or 60. It might be something of a maturity thing, but then again it might not. I apologize for the vagueness of all this, but I just mean: it's the age that echoes for you.

I'll start. For me, I believe, it's 10. Something about 10-year-olds strikes such a resounding chord in me that I feel it must have to do with my being essentially 10 inside. And when I write, or at least when I write well, I feel that I am in some way connecting with that true core of myself, and channeling that strange moment when I made sense to myself, the most sense to myself I might ever make.

OK: how crazy do I sound? And what is your true age?

Half-Baked Ideas: On Trying Too Hard, Lemony Snicket, and How Things Work

Chestnut was reading a book called (I believe) The Hero's Guide to Being an Outlaw. I asked her how it was and she said, "Pretty good. You know, it does that funny Lemony Snicket thing where it talks to the readers, but it's trying a little too hard."

Of course I knew what she meant (or thought I did, without reading it), in one painful wince of recognition. Why is it so difficult to walk that funny, irreverent line? Why do we always identify the failure to do it successfully as "trying too hard?" I mean, I'm fairly certain that Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler tries really, really hard to make his books good and his narrative voice work. And yet, and yet...we don't ever really say, "Not funny enough" or "Doesn't really work" when something tries to be funny in that way and fails, but rather "Trying too hard." It feels so damning, and also such a bad lesson on some level. As if a more removed, less active "cool" approach can ever really help you. I don't think it can, especially when you're writing.

Except that her judgment does resonate with me, and what I want to know is: Why? Is it just that trying (and failing) to be funny means the seams show when they aren't supposed to? Hence there is an awareness of the effort, when there shouldn't be?

Is it the author's neediness?

Is it simply a too-heightened awareness of the way in which the author is playing to the audience? There is a certain disdain in Snicket that plays well (partly because it's false I think, and there is no disdain for the readers), but also because the reader doesn't feel that pressure on the part of the author's need to be liked, or to be funny, or to win the reader over.

Is that it? WHAT IS IT?

This is driving me a little crazy. Perhaps I am trying too hard.

The Man with the Money

I was thinking about GUM, or Great Uncle Matthew, who swoops in at the end of Ballet Shoes with his huge amount of money and his freethinking ideas. 

And then I was thinking of The Diamond in the Window, and how the prince comes in at the end with his...huge amount of money and his freethinking ideas.

And The Wolves of Willoughby Chase? Check. Her parents return, with the free-flowing cash to rescue them all from poverty and restore order and happiness. Check also: freethinking ideas.

It's funny—I hadn't quite seen it as a whole before. I mean, I know it happens in grown-up movies: no matter how bad things seem, the guy in charge will somehow come in and show you that there is order in the universe, and somehow that's a good thing. And I don't know that I would exactly equate it with the prince rescuing trope, exactly, because these princes are—. Well, they're grown men, come to save the day, actually, now that I think about it.

Help, this is starting to freak me out. There are other ways that books end, aren't there? Books where the heroines have a brush with abject poverty and adventure? The books I loved beyond reason as a child? They aren't all Great Uncle Matthew—are they?

I mean, I know money brings with it at least the hope for freedom from care. And so often children's books, especially those with plucky female heroines, turn on money, or the absence of it. I mean, in The Wizard of Oz she doesn't end up magically rich at the end (thank heaven).

Is this a more modern phenomenon? Have any of you noticed it? What's it all about?

Half-Baked Theories: Digital Natives and the Model-T Ford

When my kids were in elementary school I realized that computers had taken over the world. And that my kids would never remember a time without them—just like I never knew a time without television, and my parents never knew a time without cars. Their connection to computers, I thought, would be seamless. They would speak computer languages with ease, while I, no matter how technologically savvy I became, would always have an immigrant's accent.

But I feel—a little—differently now. While it's true that they are deeply (deeply) connected to computers, I am still (sometimes) the one who they come to about what does and doesn't work in terms of setting up a blog, say, or figuring out how to make a tilde appear on top of an ñ.

And then I realized: it's just like cars. When Model-Ts first came out, if you were going to drive one, you had to know how to fix it. So everyone who drove also had to be a mechanic. People then understood cars in some deep way. But now we all drive cars (or at least some of us do), most of us have no idea how they work at all. We don't understand them anymore—we just know how to use them. And so it is with computers, I think.

I guess it's just that what you need to know changes.

How this is related to children's books I have no idea.