More Boring Blather

Where have I been? Packing up a kid for college. It's not as bad as it could be. I have friends whose entire minivans are stuffed with "necessities" like televisions and mini-fridges. Because my son is going abroad he's limited to two 50 lb. suitcases, so obviously he's not taking that kind of stuff. I am still hemorrhaging money though. Included in his list of "must-haves" were a 50mm prime lens and some kind of gazillion gigabyte external hard drive, neither of which (needless to say) I had when I left home for the first time. He's taking In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan to read on the plane, so that makes me happy. On his urging I am working my way slowly through The Omnivore's Dilemma, a book I swore I would not read, but which I find I am enjoying.

Even though I haven't been posting I've still been reading. You can always count on that. I've got two books to post about in the next little while: The Dressmaker by Elizabeth Birkelund Oberbeck, and Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach. I've just started reading Beguilement by Lois McMaster Bujold, which is the first book in her new fantasy series known as The Sharing Knife. So far I'm really enjoying it.

He leaves Tuesday so I'll be back after that. Meanwhile, enjoy this picture of a cat.

Help from a Stranger

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I left a library book (Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay) in the airline seat pocket on a flight from Madison, Wisconsin, to Minneapolis, Minnesota. A few days ago I went to the library, armed with my checkbook, to pay for this lost volume. When the library clerk pulled up my record she discovered that the book had been returned! I don't know if thanks are due to someone who works at Northwest Airlines, or to a good Samaritan passenger (maybe someone en route home to Madison?) who found my book and returned it to the Madison Public Library, but whoever did it, I am very grateful. Thanks for saving me the cost of a hardback and for making this book available for others to read. What a nice feeling it was to discover this!

Happens Every Day by Isabel Gillies

I thought this book was a novel about a crumbling marriage. It turns out that it’s a true story about a crumbling marriage which makes it a little weirder to read. If it were a novel it would fit squarely into the “domestic fiction” category that I love so much. Is there such a thing as “domestic nonfiction?”

Isabel Gillies had the perfect life: two perfect children, a handsome husband, a beautiful house. Then along came the perfect other woman and poof went the husband, the house, and all the trappings. Isabel had to move back in with her parents, but she’s gotten the perfect revenge by writing this book. Husband Josiah comes across as a cold-hearted jerk who abandons his family, and the French mistress Sylvia is portrayed as predatory and conniving.

Josiah and Sylvia are pseudonyms, but most of the rest of the story’s details are true. I found it by turns sad, funny, fresh, and maddening. Most of the drama takes place in Ohio, where Josiah was (and still is) a professor at Oberlin. Gillies possesses a certain kind of naïveté sometimes found among native Manhattanites and she spends much of the first part of the book exclaiming over the shocking novelty of life in the Midwest where no one has nannies. I found these parts really annoying (as you might guess) and had a little trouble warming up to her because of this. I was embarrassed for her when she admitted being surprised that Ohio had cable TV. Nevertheless, her honesty is endearing and you can’t help but take her side. Which I guess is the point.

(Book 30, 2009)

Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

This was an emergency purchase in the Minneapolis airport last week. I was changing planes there (en route to Portland) and realized too late that I had forgotten my book on the first plane. But hooray: A kiosk selling paperbacks was right across from my gate. I grabbed this, the only thing that looked even half way palatable. It’s nearly a four-hour flight from Minneapolis to Portland. Without a book I’d have been crawling out onto the wing before I got there.

And this book was surprisingly good. Evanovich usually sacrifices plot for laughs, but in this she balanced the two fairly well. It actually had a somewhat interesting mystery and the solution was plausible. I would call this a well modulated effort, and certainly good enough for an airplane read. You do need some familiarity with the setup and the characters in order to get the most out of it but I can’t imagine anyone would try this who hadn’t at least read a few of her previous numerical endeavors.

The book I lost was Ysabel by Guy Gavriel Kay. I wasn’t particularly enjoying it. I wonder if I lost it subconsciously on purpose? That’s still kind of dumb because I’m going to have to pay the library for it.

Portland was great. I had never been there before. I visited Powell’s, Mecca for all serious book lovers, and was suitably impressed. I was pretty restrained and only bought three books. I could have bought 20 but I didn’t have room in my suitcase. I did make sure I put all three in my carry-on bag for the return flight. I was taking no chances on a bookless flight home.

(Book 29, 2009)

Fan Fiction

Does everybody know what this is? I only discovered it this summer, and wow, what a surprise. It turns out lots of people are writing original fiction about popular characters from television (e.g. Buffy the Vampire Slayer), movies (Star Wars), fiction (Harry Potter, Twilight), and real life (American Idol). Who knew? The Internet makes it all possible—lots of it is posted on LiveJournal and another site called FanFiction.net but you can find it via Google. Just enter the name of your favorite show or characters along with the words “fan fiction” and you’ll be all set. When I searched for “Twilight fan fiction” the first Google hit was an archive page from FanFiction.net with links to 99,591 stories. That will certainly keep you busy.

I hear that some original creators are more receptive to fan fiction than others. I read that J. K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer are very supportive of their fan fiction writers but that some other authors are less thrilled by it. And I have to wonder what the real life subjects feel about it. Has anyone asked the Jonas brothers, I wonder? Interestingly (and I guess not surprisingly) there’s a whole subgenre of R-rated stories that are extremely popular.

Before you scoff at it, give some of it a try. I have spent a lot of time this summer reading some really creative, really well written stuff.