The Diamond in the Window

Sighting Land

I have my beliefs, and I have my experience, and, yeah, they're not always identical.

I've spent a fair amount of time on this blog arguing for a child's right to read what she (or he) wants. We don't know, I've noted, what a kid is really getting from a book. The alchemy that happens when the words go from the page to the brain, it's not to be messed with. This is what I believe. Or at least, what I have always believed.

And then there's Diana. Who read so voraciously as a small one that I used to block her view of bookshelves when we went to play spaces so she could do something else for once. She went down the slide reading Little Women. On play dates she was found under the bed with Amelia Bedelia. Or The Secret Garden.

And then one day, she vanished into the internet.

I tried to play it cool. Or really, I did play it cool, but it was just that: play.

See, early on, I'd thought she was traveling along a specific (and familiar) reading trajectory: Little Women --> Jane Eyre --> The Classics.  

And then it became clear that she was on another trajectory: Little Women --> The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy --> Tolkein, Terry Pratchett, and beyond. But I figured I knew where that one went too. Sci-fi. Fantasy. D&D. Things I knew.

And then it became clear that her trajectory wasn't something I was familiar with. It went to places I have never been. Fan fiction. Fandoms. Manga. Things that weren't manga but were something else? It was scary.

Had she stopped reading entirely? Or had she stopped reading books? Which was worse?

What if she only read Cute Overload forever?

And then one day, she said, "Hey, you should see this funny thing I found online." Note: this was not the first time she'd said this to us. But this time she took us here. (Yes, she's reading The Great Gatsby in school.)

I hadn't realized, exactly, that I had been holding my breath, waiting for her to come back to something that made sense to me—whether online or off or anything. Until she did.

I am finding that it's hard—so hard!—to watch someone suffer through the process of growing up and creating themselves. I guess I should have known that, right? But it's pretty great too.

F*** the Jazz Age is my personal favorite of those. I look forward to her venturing further out, to places I have never been. I will try not to be too scared.

Resistance Is Futile. But Relevant.

Whenever I read a novel with a tough-as-nails protagonist, I wince. Or really, it's more than wincing. I lower my head (metaphorically) and glower (also metaphorically). It always seems like posturing to me, particularly when it's first person and involves a lot of sleeping around and drinking. Particularly, I have to shamefacedly admit, when the protagonist is a woman doing these things. It feels a bit "I think thee doth protest too much." I feel, too, in my self-centered defensive way, like the character is indirectly calling me out, saying "You're weak and soft." 

So it was with great resistance that I got through the first chapter of the terribly titled The Scamp.

First of all, let's look at what an image search for The Scamp turns up:

Now let's take a look at The Scamp I actually read.

Yes, in addition to a terrible title it is a terrible cover. (The faint of heart should be assured that The Scamp in fact refers to the name of a camper type trailer, not to a person.)

But here's the thing: the tough-girl voice pissed me off. The cover pissed me off. Everything about this book pushed me into a state of powerful resistance, which meant I had to complain to poor Aragorn, son of Arathorn, "I hate this book, it's just the kind of book I hate. I mean honestly, fine, so you drink too much, so you're really cool and tough..." while he (maybe not so patiently) wondered why I kept reading it then.

But I kept reading. And at some point I must have let my guard down, because I ended up being captivated by it. It's sort of a mystery, but not really a mystery. It's a love story and a road trip and a strange and compelling voyage through a world I don't know or understand at all. And all of a sudden I was in that place where I kept looking for moments when I could read it some more. 

This is why I read every book all the way through—in the hopes that I'll find out the problem is really me, and once I open myself amazing things can happen. Note: Your results may vary. But still. It's just nice to get over yourself every once in a while, isn't it?

The State of the State

OK, I have thought about posts, I really have. And yet, I have not written them. Instead, for now, I will put my fractured ideas up here, and try to figure out what (if any) might actually be worth expanding on. Or, at the very least, clearing the mental passages of detritus so more interesting things will come along.

Here we go:

A Little Life: This was a terrible book, I believe. I was going to let it just be terrible and go on its merry way, but then it got nominated for the National Book Award, and I feel (somewhat) called to bear witness. It uses all the devices of the type of campy book I love—Scruples, Hollywood Wives—like "the most expensive house ever!" and "he was a famous movie star AND well respected!" and "brilliant AND rich AND feared AND...." And then it spends a huge amount of time detailing sexual abuse, and makes all the characters men instead of women. Voila! It goes from being prurient gossip to Literature. I feel like it's a weird sexism that makes people take it seriously, when really they want to be reading Sidney Sheldon, but can't bring themselves to, because women being abused and then becoming fabulously rich but never happy isn't as noble.

The Purge: Both kids have gone through their shelves and put behind them childish things, and what the childish things are (the annotated Gilbert & Sullivan? Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH?) is confusing and weirdly heartbreaking.

The Genius Idea: This is all Chestnut's. As a response to two extremely unpleasant (and past! They're in the PAST) bedbug infestations, we have a PackTite. As others have become afflicted, our PackTite has made the rounds of NYC, visiting Queens! Brooklyn! Manhattan! killing bedbugs for those in need. Chestnut wants to rewrite Paddle to the Sea from the PackTite's point of view, which I think is nothing short of genius.

George R. R. Martin, for Kids!

On One's Ultimate Lack of Control Over Anything One's Children Reads, and Other Horrors

Probably there are more? Perhaps there will be part two tomorrow? Or perhaps I will pull it together and actually write a post. Time will tell.

What I Wish

Ah, school has started. And yes, there are the good things: new and exciting-seeming teachers. And subjects. And (for some) friends. 

And, to be entirely honest, as a person who works from home, it is a huge relief to me to have my house to myself again. Periods of quiet, in which no one (as far as I know) needs me at all, in which I am not actively messing anything up—these are a balm.

However.

Diana is now 16 (yes, I am sure the thing in the margin is wrong, I will fix it someday) and in 11th grade. And she is taking AP English Composition. And it is not—yet, I must remind myself that this is yet—giving her things to read that make her soul sing.

Admittedly, this a tall order. She is not overly fond of nonfiction, and, too, she has become a most exacting critic, difficult to please and extremely persnickety. But...oh, how I wish she were not reading Malcolm Gladwell.

Is this unfair? No doubt it is extremely unfair. Malcolm Gladwell is, after all, an extremely readable writer. I read The Tipping Point, I read the pieces in the New Yorker. I understand why a teacher would go for him. There is just such a deep longing in me to see her read something that moves her, that breaks her open, that inspires. And for that, I fear, Mr. Gladwell simply will not do.

When I was home with tiny ridiculous babies, or even before that, when I was pregnant and we would play "What would you do if..." bullshit scenarios of a theoretical parenthood: What would you do if you found a bong in your kid's coat pocket? If you had an emergency meeting you were late to, and the light was red and you were with your kid? If we have a boy and he wants to wear high heels every day, possibly damaging his achilles tendon permanently?

But of course, life never asks you the questions whose answers you know. It's just that I never anticipated that school would become such a question. It  seemed a given to me, a thing people just do. I have no way to explain this lack of imagination. I myself was not the world's most natural student, I did not take to school like the proverbial duck to water. 

But for me now, as I watch Diana go through the trials and tribulations, it all seems to revolve around books: the books I wish she were reading. It is far beyond my power to offer or recommend books to Diana anymore. The last success I had was the To Be or Not to Be Choose Your Own Adventure, and since then nothing. I made Rainbow Rowell, Lev Grossman, and maybe a few others unreadable through my recommendations, and then I just stopped.

I guess I hoped that where I had failed, school would succeed. When I see Diana as a reader, I see her as a warehouse filled with explosives (in the very best sense of the term). I wanted school to (ahem) light her fire some more.

I must remind myself that it is only September 16. And she is finding recommendations other places. And the world is a large, strange, unpredictable place, and you don't always know how things will turn out, or what is making a difference.

Oh dear, but the truth is, I devoutly wish there were a Shakespeare course for juniors at her school.

And a good thing: Chestnut has landed an English teacher who wants them to deeply explore old versions of fairy tales. 

Shade? Truth? Character? The REAL Truth About Greek Gods and The Just City

For Diana's birthday we got her The Just City, because she so loved Tooth & Claw, and she's a mythology buff, and—well, it just seemed like a good bet.

Since her birthday (April), it has wended its way through the family, until it finally landed in my hands this past week, and I read these lines.

OK, wait: before I get to them, I have to say that it's a novel about the attempt to bring the ideals of Plato's Republic to life, and that both Apollo and Athena are characters. 

Near the beginning, there is a scene between Apollo and Athena, in which they are trying to decide the right place to conduct this experiment (and Apollo's personal experiment in becoming temporarily human). Apollo is speaking:

"Look, if you're about to suggest I go to some high-tech hellhole where they've never heard of me because it'll be a 'learning experience,' forget it. That's not what I want at all. I am Apollo. I am important." I pouted. "Besides, if they think the gods are forgotten, why are they writing about us? Have you read those books? There's nothing more clichéd. Nothing."

I know this is the wrong, small, gossipy way in which to read fiction, but...is Apollo dissing the Percy Jackson novels here? What do you think?

Also: to the wonderful reader who recommended Rosanna Lippi, thank you forever. That was a wonderful book.

What We Lost When We Lost Print—Uncensored!

OK, it's been a decade or two of adjusting to vanishing newspapers, dying magazines, and the steady ant-like forward march of e-books. And I like to think I haven't been too big a baby about it.

I still get my newspaper delivered to the house like the old days, sure. But I read the newspaper online too, during the day sometimes. I can't get with the Kindle, but I've downloaded a book or to to my phone. I'm trying, OK?

And I try not to bitch about it too much, mostly because I think revolution can be a really good thing. I write so many more emails to my friends than I ever did letters, and I am grateful for that. 

Still, I hadn't realized—until yesterday—what we were really losing, until I was sitting on the couch with Chestnut, reading my alumni magazine of all things, and I started to read aloud to her from the personal ads.

Remember the personal ads? And don't start with the whole OK Cupid/Tindr/Craigslist, because THE WHOLE POINT (to me, anyway) is that with the olde tyme personals they were right there in the paper! Or the Pennysaver! Or The New York Review of Books! (the best and saddest ones). You didn't have to go searching them out. And they weren't just people looking for each other either (though those are great), but also crazy job postings and bizarre research requests and, and, and...everything! And these ads—you just came upon while reading about other things.

That's what I miss. I know it's easier now to find things, but it's harder to stumble across them. You have to go down long dark internet halls, when things used to just turn up on random pages of the paper you were reading. I miss that. I miss the hodge-podge of it, the ridiculous inappropriate disjointedness, the mix you'd come up with. 

I feel a certain randomness is gone, and oh how I miss it!

HOWEVER. May I recommend you start your teens, particularly the soft-hearted ones, on the personal ads in the New York Review of Books, your alumni magazine, or any other PG venue? If Chestnut is any guide, they'll immediately begin trying to match the letter writers up with each other, and it will rocket you back to everything tender and painful about being 13, and the two of you can hang out together and it will be excellent.

News You Can (or Cannot) Use, as You See Fit

1. There was a line to get into the library this morning at 9:45am. A line. It opened at 10, and the line was mostly made up of women with strollers looking unhappy.

2. I'm having overly emotional responses to books right now—Rage! Joy! Resentment!—and I don't know how to make it stop. It's generally directed at the authors for some reason. Maybe if I read something that is unattributed, it will get me out of it.

3. I have determined beyond doubt that blueberries really enhance a salad. NOT dried blueberries though.

4. I got A God in Ruins for mother's day, and I'm saving it up like it's a super special chocolate. I don't know what will make me break through this feeling and actually read it. I am afraid I will respond weirdly to it (see #2).

5. I reread The Golden Compass, which I loved when I read it the first time, and I was...not as impressed this time. Maybe it's me?

6. It is my duty to make the list of books, which my book group will winnow down to one selected book, and I don't know what to put on it. Suggestions?

7. I love John D. MacDonald beyond reason (or did when I read all the Travis McGee books), but I am afraid to reread them because his sexism/homophobia/another-time-ism feels like it might be too much for me right now. Except I really want to read them again.

8. What is up with you, my fellow readers?

6th Grade, Reading, and...Romance?

First, I must say that what I'm about to relay is based on hearsay. I am not the person going out with a sixth grader (hooray), nor the parent of the sixth graders in question—heck, I'm not even at the school in question.

But.

I found this tale fascinating (sort of) and you will see why:

An unnamed parent of a sixth grade boy reports that her sixth grade son has a girlfriend.

OK—not exactly typical, but neither is it uncommon. Proceed:

The sixth grade girlfriend of this sixth grade boyfriend had a specific request, and she (allegedly) noted that it was really important to her, and would help him better understand her. Would he please read The Fault in Our Stars?

To which I say: huh? I mean, I know that in that selfsame book the girlfriend requests that the boyfriend read a book. And so maybe it seems like, "Oh yeah, this is something people do." And it is something people do. But is it something that sixth grade people do? In your neck of the woods? And to better understand them?

In our neck of the woods, boys are routinely classified as "good kid" or "jerk," nothing more, and the idea that someone would have enough clarity about herself to say, "You should read this book in order to better understand me," is both thrilling and mystifying. I don't think I would think to do this, and if I did I have no idea what book it would be.

You? Would you do this? Have you done this? Were you in 6th grade? What was the book?

Help me understand other people, please.

What's the Deal with Rabbits?

I finally—finally—got Chestnut a copy of Watership Down. The trick, it turned out, was to look for the book not in fiction, not even to look it up on the computer, which pretended the library didn't have it, but to look in assignment books. Oh, how I hate the "assignment books" designation. It exemplifies everything that is wrong with labeling groups of books. It's like putting a skull and crossbones on them, and then (for good measure) taking them out of the library at all, because who's going to look there when browsing?

But I digress.

I'm here to talk about the back cover copy on Watership Down. Witness:

Er, notice anything...strange? Any...euphemisms? Any important information that is left out? Like maybe, rabbits? But why? What could it mean?

Here's where things start to get weird. Take a moment to appreciate this, if you will: 

What...is this creature? What...will we do? What...is the deal with rabbits?

I'm sensing a conspiracy. Wait—hear me out! Look at the evidence! People are, for reasons we can only guess at, avoiding mentioning rabbits. Is this about how rabbits are supposed to procreate all the time? Is it because we ran out of creatures to be scared of? When is the next YA about killer rabbits coming? (Hint: please make it soon.)

Or, if you're more this way, explain to me some other reason you might write a description of Watership Down without mentioning rabbits at all—a reason other than abject terror!

Also, in case you're wondering, here is the cover the copy:

Would you know this was a book about rabbits? I didn't think so.

I rest my case.

What's Not There

I love libraries, I truly do—the massive and magnificent, and the small and endearing. But I just made a trip to our local library, a tiny place that went through years of being closed, and emerged from its "renovation" with handicapped-accessible bathrooms (hooray!) and approximately 1/3 fewer books (huh?).

I think the idea was to make the whole physical space less cramped, more available as a place for people to read, or research, or sleep (judging by the impressive snoring the guy upstairs was doing), but—.

But I miss the books. A friend of mine tells me that I just need to use it as a way station, and to request books online that I can pick up there, and I do that and all, but it sort of kills me. I was just there with Chestnut, and I was unable to get:

Watership Down

Clan of the Cave Bear

The World According to Garp

The Color Purple.

I mean—nothing by Alice Walker? I feel like all those kids I see hanging out there would go ga-ga for The Color Purple, and it kills me that it's not there to just pick up. I know that list is a bit like "hits from the 70s and 80s!" but...it's the library. Aren't they supposed to hold on to books?

I think about how much Chestnut would enjoy those books, how much she had a great time reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette?, and what a drag it is that there aren't more books just lying around. I know, I know—e-readers, contemporary YA, space concerns, the internet, etc etc—but I say to you (or to me, who is really saying all of this of course): It's propinquity! Being near tons and tons of different books makes it more likely that people will pick one up and just like Alice fall down the rabbit hole into another dimension.

I want there to be a lot of different dimensions for people to fall down, that's all. Or maybe I'm being unfair, and I want her to fall through a rabbit hole into 1979? Probably so.

At any rate, she is downstairs contentedly reading Terry Pratchett, and I am up here complaining on my keyboard, and we have a whole slew of books on request. I'll let you know how it works out.