Delaying!

Hi friends!

I finished Lord of the Flies last week, but with Christmas fast approaching and pretty much everyone on my buy list being out of state, I am in a big rush to get finished up and ship everything.  So, forgive me but it may be a bit before I can get to that post.  It may be the week of Christmas or even after before I have any time! 

However, the good news is that I have also begun our next book:  Room by Emma Donoghue.

(Don't click to enter... this is from the book's site and won't work on my blog.  I just want you to see what it looks like so you can find it with better ease).

It is unlike anything I have ever read, so prepare yourself for different.  I'm enjoying it, though.  I didn't even really mean to start it properly.  What happened was that Kyle and I inherited a desk when his mama moved and we needed to find a place for it in our bitty house, so we had to do a good bit of furniture rearranging.  We ended up putting the desk in the hall and kind of declaring it an office, but this meant we had to move the huge armoire thing that was currently there into the guest room and moving the bookshelf that was in the guest room into the hall, and moving the record cabinet that was in the hall into my room (and it will need to be moved again, if I can find a nice place to out it)... Whew!  Then, I noticed the bookshelf had a few books on it that I didn't want, a few that I've had for years but never read, and a lot of space in the bottom if I moved some photo albums to the shelf on the desk.  And so book rearranging took place!  That is my favorite kind of rearranging.  So... all of my shelfless books that had been piled in the guestroom came out to see if they'd find a new home on the shelf, and some lucky ones did!  Of the ones that have been in my collection forever but have gone unread, I read the first page or so of each to decide if its likely hat I ever will read them, and some ended up being sent to the donation box.  Some were interesting/entertaining enough to make the cut.  Room  had been shelved before, but it was sort of out of place and I thought, "Why not read the first page of this one, too?"  The first page quickly became the first 15 or 16 pages, so that's how I knew it would have to be the next read.

You might be relieved to know that I am nearly giving up on taking notes as I go.  I didn't for Lord of the Flies, but I did place sticky notes in where I thought there was something worth mentioning and there really aren't tooooooo many to handle.  I feel that it will be the same way with Room.  I think it must be because I haven't/hadn't previously read these books so how could I know if something with foreshadowing significance had been said if I didn't know what was coming?  I mean, unless it is obvious.

So... I've got nothing else to say right now, but that it is great weather for snuggling up with a good book... that is, if you're not too busy getting your holiday plans in order!

The Dogs of Babel

I'm extremely curious to know your thoughts on our latest read, The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst.  I have read several reviews of it online in my curiosity and have found that it is not, apparently, a book for everyone.  Some people found Wendell Hollis and the Cerberus Society too disturbing.  Some found Lexy's death mask incidents morbid and freaky.  Some thought the Lorelei experiments were over the top and this story should have been left just the love story of Paul and Lexy.  I disagree with them all.  I think it was just right. 

Tied with Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie, the post of which you'll find here, this is my favorite book.  Caught reading while waiting in line this time through, I received many comments such as, "That looks like a well-loved book," and (hooray!), "What are all of those post-its in your book?"  I got to explain a little about my book blog.  However, try to give a synopsis of this book without making it sound really dumb, weird, and uninteresting.  It's hard.  There's a paragraph I found this time through that is going to become my explanation of it.  Let's put it in now in case anyone has not yet read it and wants to give it a try!  First, a briefing to bring you up to speed.  I promise, it's not really a spoiler because it is information you learn from about the first page anyway...  But this guy named Paul, who is a linguist professor, learns one day that his wife (Lexy) has died of a fall from their apple tree and their dog Lorelei was the sole witness to the incident.  There are a few weird things different about their house that day when he comes home.  And now, the paragraph from page 8 in my copy (chapter one):

Maybe these events mean nothing.  After all, I am a grieving man, and I am trying very hard to find some sense in my wife's death.  But the evidence I have discovered is sufficiently strange to make me wonder what really happened that day, whether it was really a desire for apples that led my sweet wife to climb to the top of that tree.  Lorelei is my witness, not just to Lexy's death itself but to all the events leading up to it.  She watched Lexy move through her days and her nights.  She was there for the unfolding of our marriage from its first day to its last.  Simply put, she knows things I don't.  I feel I must do whatever I can to unlock that knowledge.

So there you go.  This man of science is also a man of great feeling and his topsy-turvy wife has always been a sort of whimsical and mysterious creature.  I feel as if Lexy would have approved of this coping mechanism. 

From the very first sentence, speech is of the utmost importance.  I've mentioned that Paul is a linguist, but it goes beyond his knowledge.  Check out this sentence, emphasis mine, at the very beginning of the book: "Here is what we know, those of us who can speak to tell a story..."  The speakers, the humans, know by verbal communication.  Their knowledge is limited.  The things that are unspoken: why Lexy was in the tree, why the book cases were rearranged, why and how the steak was eaten, the feelings, the moods, the triggers that make us do each and every little thing we do, are all unkowns.  From the beginning, Paul is referring to the fact that Lorelei may know more than he, or the neighbors, or detectives know about the day his wife died tragically.  His grief brings to light that Lorelei knows all about Lexy and all about him, but that what she knows cannot be made known... yet.  And so he proposes to teach his dog to talk.  I love Parkhurst's descriptions of other language acquisitions in dogs.  The studies of various breeds (all of which I Google searched... I'd never heard of a keeshonds, but the look kind of like chow chows) in different times and places meeting varying levels of success was an excellent segue into Paul's own attempts to communicate with his Rhodesian Ridgeback.  It made it seem like he was not completely crazy.  I also loved Paul's way he would have liked to explain his new endeavor to the academic world (page 13 in my copy.  "I sing of a woman with ink on her hands and pictures hidden beneath her hair...").  It was very reflective of the Trojan epics The Odyssey and The Iliad by Homer.  This is Paul's own odyssey. 

I love the fact that I can relate to the book in some small ways.  Paul wonders what Lorelei is really thinking when he looks at her.  I wonder what goes on in my dog's head, too.  I feel guilty leaving her alone while I am at work, but I wonder what adventures she gets up to.  I think my cats are just fine without me home to give them attention during work, but I think Akira gets bored and lonely.  In the intelligence testing Paul does with Lorelei, he experiments with syllables to see if she actually knows her name.  I do this all the time with my pets.  The verdict:  Akira and Polly know their names.  Fiona could not care less.  (Polly and Fiona are cats, by the way). 

In chapter four, Paul discusses the fact that the most unkind thing he has ever done was to trespass on a widow's grief, though she probably never found out about it.  This came at a good time for me.  During our reading of The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, my boss's best friend died and she was having trouble with how to cope.  She did not want to go to the funeral, though did decide to go eventually.  She said, "I loved him in life."  I do not consider this book to be a morality tale, but one thing I did learn was never to judge a person on how they grieve. 

Isn't the way that Paul and Lexy met just the best?  (Actually, my notes say "Freaking cutest, weirdly romantic meet-up ever!  I love garage sales.  I love how silliness can be so charming).  The garage sale and the square egg press and the way he took her a plate of square eggs later just melted the quirkiest little romantic notion in my heart the first time I read it.  I have seen square egg presses for sale and nearly bought one more than once... just to have.  Just as a keepsake belonging to this book and its memories.  I'd also make square devilled eggs.  I similarly have always wanted to meet a Ridgeback in real life.  Each time I read it, I look up pictures of them.  Before I did, I thought Lorelei would look much like my old lab, Max, who was super intuitive with my moods.  Alas.  She would not look like Max.  However, imagine my excitement when, as I was reading through this time and discussing the book with my dad, he told me that our Great Dane mix from my childhood, fondly remembered as one of the best dogs of all time, was actually a Great Dane/Rhodesian Ridgeback mix!  I wish I had a picture to share with you, but I don't think we have any pictures at all of Marge, which is a real pity. 

Here's a nice picture of a Rhodesian Ridgeback showcasing its most distinctive feature.

Chapter Five begins with a talking dog joke that bids the question that, if a dog could talk, would it be honest?  I think so, don't you?  I tend to think they are far more innocent than we are.  Also, HOLY COW, is Parkhurst a wordsmith!  Paul picks Lexy up for her first date and describes the way that he had been recalling her since their first meeting had been slightly off and each little difference in her appearance.  "I saw now that she was beautiful." practically gives me chills.  So simple, yet so profoundly lovely!  The wedding they attend on their first date also seems like the most perfect fairy tale wedding EVER and I kind of wish it had been mine.  Mine was lovely, though, so I'm fine with it :)  I'm just so in love with the idea of it all: a freshly mown field, garlands of roses marking the path, choosing a whimsical mask to wear, etc.  *sigh.  Someone do this wedding, please. 

Let's talk about Lexy as the mask maker.  Her livelihood is to let people be someone else temporarily.  It's a reflection of her own self.  We do not learn about it super early in the book while Paul's reminiscences of Lexy are veiled by his grief and blurred to think only of her good and lovely qualities, but Lexy suffered from a deep, harrowing depression and frequently wore a mask of happiness for the outside world to see.  Lexy's brighter, sweeter, happier moments filled with joy are absolutely real, but her darker side, which she keeps at bay behind a mask, is downright disturbing at times.  Her vivid dreamlife, too, reflects the two sides of her.  In sleep and in consciousness, she can be drastically different.

Lexy's logic about meals on their week-long first date is so fun and unique.  Did you, like me, wonder WHY you didn't go to Disney World on your first date?  Or why you're not so spontaneous and fun?  I wonder it about myself.  I want this crazy, perfect date.  It was in this chapter that I began to be able to picture, if ever so slightly, Steve Carell in the part of Paul, as was announced a few years ago but there is still no information about it!  Ok.  I did not want to say that was who was named in the part before you started reading because I would never have pictured him in a zillion years... but his expressive features would lend well to the surprises along the way.  He plays depression well (Little Miss Sunshine!  Dan in Real Life!) and he plays dumbfounded, humorous, and fun well (The Office!), so I can sort of see that taking shape.  The Paul I picture is taller and his features less pronounced, but he probably does not exist.  Here, in chapter eight, we also see how our loved ones can change our entire perceptions in the first paragraph about people with organ transplants having new tastes and other changes... and in that last, beautiful line, "There's nothing new I can say about Disney World, nothing you haven't already heard or seen for yourself.  All I can tell you is that I was there with Lexy."  The Disney World "It's a Small World" incident is also our first taster of Lexy's darker side, when we see what little things can set her off.

Friends, all of the above writing is from my first attempt to write this post... and only covers about the first sixty pages.  I edited down a bit, but really, all of it seems so important and I would not mind discussing every page with you, but I know I need to work on shortening my posts.  Allow me to write a bit more and then open it for discussion.  If you have not read the book and plan to, I do not recommend reading on in this post as I will be posting spoilers.

On the characters themselves (and I am glad that Parkhurst focused primarily on three characters without adding a ton of names and faces into the mix... it helped enrich the important ones [Paul, Lexy, Lorelei] in my mind), we have the most vivid picture of Lexy.  She is unique in that she feels everything so deeply.  In fact, she basically exists to feel.  From her refusal of Paul's proposal on the grounds that he did not know he loved her and feel it with the striking intensity of the discovery at every moment of every day, to her complete, almost sacrificial ruin and all of the fears and joys in between, we do not see a moment when her feelings are not intense.  I like Lexy a lot.  I like her creative spark and her bubbliness and can even relate some to her depression, but she makes herself unlikeable when she feels too much and takes things too personally.  In that way, I can also relate.  I take absolutely everything personally and I wish I had thicker skin.  Lexy's fragility, her fears, and her sickness get the better of her and I feel (at least this time) much sadder for her than mad that she took her life and that of her child.  Don't get me wrong.  It sickens me.  But I just feel so sad for her that she saw herself as too far beyond help to make it work... and honestly, to have her as a mother "as-is" would have been pretty frightening.

In Paul, we do not find a man with so much feeling as we see in Lexy's person, but we do find a person of great understanding, great capacity to forgive, and a thirst for some adventurousness and liveliness.  On his own, Paul might seem a little bit blah, but he does hint that he's always had a curiosity for things mysterious when he speaks of his fascination with the Paul McCartney conspiracy in his childhood.  Though Paul is not the theoretical mask-wearer that Lexy is, he also needs a sort of shield to wear to express himself.  When Lexy and Paul wear the masks of each other, it shows us that she is not completely comfortable being open and has to think of creative ways to tell Paul even complimentary things sometimes, while Paul was born with a sort of impediment of his tongue and has never been able to verbally express himself (as in his first marriage to the woman who couldn't seem to shut up).  Paul is also unique in the field of dog language acquisition.  He sets himself apart from Wendell Hollis and the Cerberus Society in his love and caring for his dog and really for all dogs.  He figures that the difference between Hollis and himself is that he would not use a knife to get a dog to speak.  I, personally, tend to think there are more differences.  Paul is not a raving sociopath, for one.  Whatever his shortcomings, it is evident that Paul truly loves Lexy.

Lorelei is tough to pin down.  She is comfort, joy, sorrow, and companionship rolled in one.  She is hope and she's despair.  She is a great help and also a devastating frustration to Paul.  Her puppyhood was marred by the Cerberus Society's knives and her life with Lexy was one of contentment.  She is the child Lexy and Paul never had.  She misses Lexy fiercely and she did all that she could to prevent Lexy's death.  I think that the saddest part of the book (for me, at least.  For this time through) was when Paul realized that Lorelei tried to stop Lexy from climbing the tree in the first place... and that the Cerberus Society removed her larynx as a revenge on Paul.  The innocent, how they suffer.

I could talk about a lot of things.  I could talk about the horrors of Lexy's prom night, about the snake hair tattoo, about all of the death masks and Jennifer's in particular reflecting Lexy's own persona; I could discuss Lady Arabelle and Lexy's tendency to overreact, Dog J, Tam Lin, or the fact that there is a continuity issue in the doorbell of their house.  But I won't write any more just now.  I want to hear what YOU have to say.  What did you like?  What did you dislike?  Did you try breaking down your name in the little way Paul breaks down names and words?

Loralee Violet
real, olive, tell, oral, eel, evil, oil, leer, rat, vile, tool, tile, troll, teal...  Umm, I sure don't sound very nice broken down!

Please be patient :)

Friends, please bear with me while I recuperate.  In the last month, I have had one sinus infection, followed by a week's vacation in snowy Ohio with my love and my best friends, followed immediately by what I believe to be another sinus infection if the bloody mucus coming up is any indication (my apologies if you were eating as you read that).

That being said, I have also been somewhat of a slacker because my mom sent me Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son and I absolutely had to drop everything and read it.  I found my Pap's signature in the back of the book, which I had never seen before, or at least never registered if I did see it because I was so young when he died.  It made me feel connected to him to read a book I know that he liked.

I will be doing the post for The Dogs of Babel soon, but I need some time to settle back in and to feel better, too. 

The good news is that a lot  (A LOT) of people have told me that they have not been able to follow along the blog because I go too fast (sorry!) but now you have lots of time to catch up if there's a book you wanted to read but didn't think you had time!  Yay!

I'm working on reading Lord of the Flies now.  I'm trying not to take as many notes.  That's been my struggle from day one and most of the reason that I have not completed the post on TDOB... I did begin it, but having notes on every single page is a little unsettling when you have to write a post about it. 

Love you all.  Hope you are all reading happily!

Coming up soon...

Hi all,

I'm trying to slow down the book posts because so many people have said they wanted to follow along but I am going too fast!  Sorry friends.  I read a lot during the day and at bedtime. 

Anyway, the post on The Dogs of Babel is forthcoming, but I finished reading the book last week.  I have a ton of notes.  I really tried to read it as if for the first time, but of course I couldn't undo the knowledge I had of what was to come.  I hope you all have enjoyed it or are still enjoying it! 

I was asked today what our next read will be and I think I've decided on Lord of the Flies by William Golding.  I know that this is one of those books that lots of people had to read in high school, but we didn't read it in mine and I've always wanted to read it.  A friend and blog follower said the same when we discussed it today...  Bonus!  I just bought a copy for 50 cents at the latest book sale and whoever owned it before me took lots of notes in it!  To see what else I picked up at the book sale, please click here 
:)

What do you guys think?  If you've read it, is it worth rereading?  If you haven't read it, do you want to? 

Friends of Greenville Library Book Sale!

I love book sales. If I drove more, I'd want this little gem:

As it is, I'll just settle for hitting every single book sale I hear about with my mother-in-law and scouring garage sales for these pieces of paper magic.  Because books aren't just reading to me.  The best description I can find about how I read is found in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling in the chapter entitled "The Very Secret Diary."  It goes like this:

The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June.  Mouth hanging open, Harry saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a miniscule television screen.  His hands trembling slightly, he raised the book to press his eye against the little window, and before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forward; the window was widening, he felt his body leave his bed, and he was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.

Alright, it doesn't really happen that way, but it might as well.  That is exactly how it feels to me to read a good book.  I feel like I am a part of it as it becomes a part of me.  And so, I am absolutely thrilled when a good book sale comes my way!

Today Beth and I had the privilege of attending the semiannual Friends of the Greenville County Library System book sale half-price day.  I walked away, not with Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card, as I had hoped, but with 18 books, three movies, and the first season of House nonetheless, all for a whopping $14.something.  I think that's a sufficiently good bargain, don't you?  And now, for the sheer relish of it, as I'm sure you're not quite as excited as I am, I shall list my finds.

The Hitchhiker's Quartet by Douglas Adams
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling (I own all of the books already, but in various cover versions and I'd like to have a complete hardback set)
Mrs. Queen Takes the Train by William Kuhn
The Dive From Clausen's Pier by Ann Packer
Outside the Ordinary World by Dori Ostermiller
The Ginger Tree by Oswald Wynd
The Hundred Secret Senses by Amy Tan
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
Pippi in the South Seas by Astrid Lindgren
Pippi Goes on Board by Astrid Lindgren
Brave New World Revisted by Aldous Huxley
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
Animal Farm by George Orwell
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Green Mile by Stephen King (I don't have a copy a of the book, but I love it.  I do have the movie).
Carrie by Stephen King (Please let me know if this too scary for me.  I recently read an article about how King's wife rescued this story from the trash when he threw it out and asked him to finish the story, and how this one book changed his life and transformed him into one of the best known authors of our time).

The three movies I bought are Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Bruce Almighty, and Slumdog Millionaire, the last of which I've never seen. 

I've only just realized that I've only read two of the books: Harry Potter and The Green Mile.  Several of these are required reading in many high schools, but we never covered them in mine.  Now's the time!

 I'd write more, but I'm too excited to brand and find homes for my new books amongst my shelves!  Have I ever mentioned that my mama got me this amazing personalized library embosser for my birthday?  Being named Loralee, I never had those pencils or a keychain with my name on them come back-to-school time, but this totally makes up for it!  I mean, that and the fact that I love my name and didn't have to be known by my first and  last names all through school.

Yayayay!

Perfection is Misleading

I read The Stepford Wives in about one and a half sittings.  It's short.  I didn't mean to do it; it just kind of happened.

I am ashamed to say that I took no notes.  I was too absorbed from the get-go to grab my post-its and pen.  And really, it seemed that what you see (or don't see), that what you sense, is what you get in this case.

I watched the 2004 film several years ago, surprisingly.  I am not one to read or watch anything remotely creepy because I tend to have fearsomely vivid nightmares.  However, I'd hate to label this story as horror.  How would you classify it?  Anyway, I saw the 2004 film starring Nicole Kidman as Joanna and Bette Midler as Bobbie.  And you know what?  I don't remember it.  Sure, I remembered the premise of the story, with the new town and the creepily idyllic housewives and the men running the show.  But did I remember that from the film or from the fact that "Stepford" and "Stepford Wife" have become pop culture terms for towns of conformational, picturesque beauty and uncommonly beautiful wives who whole-heartedly submit to their husbands and spend their time scrubbing the floors wearing high heels and bland smiles?  I can't say for sure.  But after reading a book, I sometimes enjoy watching the movie(s) and verbally tearing them to shreds or nodding along to some of the director's better in-tuned decisions.  This time I remembered that I didn't wish to watch anything scary, especially when my husband was away, and so I Googled it first.

It sounds absolutely off the wall and hardly anything like the book.  Characters were added, characters were subtracted or changed, and I do not know who, but someone is played by Faith Hill.  Probably not worth a second watch.  Rotten Tomatoes says: "In exchanging the chilling satire of the original into mindless camp, this remake has itself become Stepford-ized."  It received a score of 26% on the Tomatometer.

I haven't seen the 1975 film.  It sounds like it follows the story better.

SPOILER: SPOILER: SPOILER::::: DO NOT CONTINUE READING IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK AND PLAN TO!

As I've stated, I didn't take notes as I went.  But I also knew (at least vaguely) what was going to happen as far as the wives in the town not being human.  The shock of the book wasn't a shock to me.  I kind of hope that it was for you because Bobbie's suspicion of some kind of chemical or something being the source of the changes in the women was a good little red herring consideration. 

I appreciated Levin's way of normalizing Joanna.  I mean, she was normal from the beginning, explaining her family's jobs, likes, and dislikes to the welcome wagon lady.  She had normal woman problems, like her relative (was it her mother or her husband's mother) who made the comment that she could take a leaf out of one of Stepford's wives' book and get all fancied up and clean.  She did normal things, like care for her sick kids or write Christmas cards.  It was quite an artful contrast to the single minded ladies else ware in the town. 

And really, the four month timetable worked very well when Joanna finally got it.  Between her family's move to Stepford September 4th and her catching on to the four months it took for women to change, she had a very short window of time to get out of Stepford.  What a nightmare.  Here's how I picture the wives of Stepford (just in the first part of the clip, but I couldn't find a shortened version with just the commercializing):

Bunch of fakes.  But they can't really help it.  Why?

Isn't it chilling to think about a society in which men would betray, murder, and completely redo their wives for their own pleasures?  Design a woman with bigger boobs, a perkier butt, no cellulite, thick, soft hair, and feet that don't feel the pain of the leg toning stiletto heel.  She probably smells like cookies and sunshine. Design a woman with nothing to think about, nothing to distract her from her household duties of cleaning, childcare, and sex.  Design your dream woman and kill off your wife to be with her.  And, yeah.  She's a robot.  Who cares?

That's pretty freaky.  Author Ira Levin painted men to be pretty villainous, right?  Brilliantly wicked.  They even talked Joanna down when they found her attempting to escape.  "You must think we're a town full of geniuses... Believe me, we're not," they said.  And one of the biggest slaps of all to her intelligence was that once they led her to assume that she was nuts, they decided to "prove" to her that the women of the town were real flesh and blood women by taking her to see her best friend Bobbie and asking her to cut herself so Joanna could see the blood, only to have robo-Bobbie finish her off with her enormous knife.  FREAKY!

All right, maybe it is horror, but it's the kind of horror that is more, "Who can I trust?" than anything else.  It did not give me nightmares or leave me tense and sweating under my blankets begging for some rest.  Maybe it would have been different if I had not already at least kind of known what was coming.  Truthfully, the most intense part for me was not the realization, as she dug through the old newspaper articles for clarity, of the conspiracy.  It was the desperate flee she made in the snow.  It was thinking about the safety of her children (though it does not seem that the men harm the children, at least not in any way except to murder their mommies and replace them with over-the-top-perfect machine clones).  It was rooting for the hero who didn't make it. 

She didn't make it.  And that is creepy enough.  That means that this cycle of terror continues and continues and that the men's association's secret stays safe.  They get away with everything.  They're swine.  They're disgusting.

Tell me your thoughts on this book.  I have read lots of other reviews in which the writer said that she was sufficiently freaked out.  Had you seen the movies or known the big surprise before going in?  Did it make you look at your spouse (or yourself) in a new way? 

I'll tell you which dilemma it set for me.  I needed to do some household deep cleaning that day.  After my read-through of this little book, I felt torn between dressing up, putting on my frilly apron my mama made me two Christmases ago, and dusting, mopping, and folding endless laundry or locking myself in my room in flannel pajamas, eating mounds of chocolate, and avoiding housework like the plague.  I'd let you all guess which one I did, but you'd probably guess wrong!  :)

Did you know that Facebook lets you rate books you've read now?  They only give you 5 stars, though.  I like to do 10 because I may like the writing very well but not enjoy the story and then it seems kind of unfair to give the book a 2 or 3, you know?  So, I'll say that this book is about a 7 1/2 or 8 (just like my shoe size) in that I was instantly absorbed, I read until it stopped, and the writing was simple, but well done.  However, it is not a book that I picture myself reading over and over again.  What kind of rating would you do?

I had every intention of posting a picture of a friend of mine dressed as a Stepford Wife for Halloween several years ago, but I can't seem to find the picture I wanted.  And I don't know if she'd like me posting old photos on my blog anyway.  But hey!  Halloween is coming up and a Stepford Wife is a GREAT costume idea!

(Maybe wear a bit more clothing, though!) ;)

Don't forget that our upcoming read is going to be The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst.  I'm pretty sure I don't have any followers in the UK just yet, but just in case I do unbeknownst to me, it was published as Lorelei's Secret across the pond.  And no, we're not reading it just because a character (who is a dog) has a name similar to mine, but isn't that a nice touch? 

Small Acts of Liberation

Alright, folks.  I did it.  I finally finished The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg.  Now, in case I have yet to pound it into your heads enough that short stories just aren't my cup of tea, I'll say it again.  I'm more of a novel girl.  This just didn't really do it for me.  That being said, my notes are pretty brief!  Yay!  I have about one note per story, sometimes a bit more if I paused over something that struck my fancy.  So, shall we?

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted:  Eating whatever I want is luxurious as it is disappointing.  I'd have chosen my food very differently and not cooked an ounce of it myself.  Aren't you among the many who believe that it always tastes better when someone else makes it?  I am.  I have never tried Weight Watchers, but I've been thinking about it lately.  I have always been a skinnyish person but my metabolism is starting to slack off in my late twenties. 

Returns and Exchanges:  Many of us have (will always have) that someone we still wonder about and yes, it would probably be just as disappointing as Agnes's meet-up with her old flame.  But really, Agnes is not that common of a name.  Even if Jon did not recognize her physically right away, don't you think the name Agnes would trigger the ol' memory box and give him a new lens to see the woman before him?  I hate when literature acts like I'm the idiot.

The Party:  I have no notes.  It must not have sparked anything in my mind.  If it did for you, please feel free to share.

Over the Hill and into the Woods:  Motherhood is more thankless than it is regarded with gratitude.  I need to thank my mother, mother-in-law, grandma, grandma-in-law, etc. more in ways that they can feel appreciated and loved.  I also found Berg's picture of family interesting in that we can be linked by blood but so different from one another.  And in this way, we desperately need our space from one another.  (I also desperately need closeness).

Full Count:  Poor Janey.  I don't think we ever fully recover from that first shock when we realize that we aren't particularly gifted, special, beautiful, smart, or funny, but that it is only our loved ones' gentler perceptions of us that lead us to believe we are so.  Learning that we are not the favorite grandchild or student, but, "simply loved.  It is good, but she had thought it was more." was probably the deepest striking chord for me in this whole book.  Ah, yes, I know that I am loved, but I remember that very moment in my life when I realized I am more special to some people than to others and not special at all to some. 

Rain:  Possibly the best story in the lot of them; at least the one I think I remember the most.  It may be because the character most talked about is a man and this is a very female book.  Michael is refreshingly down to earth; just slightly over the brim of believable.  I loved his lifestyle out in the cabin he built and the simple pleasures of blueberry pies left by friendly neighbors and contra dancing (I absolutely adore contra dancing.  It is the only dancing that I thoroughly enjoy in spite of my two left feet and no rhythm to my name).  This story, too, talks about the person who might have been (the female narrator), had she chosen a different path and gone with her friend years ago.  I think about such things.  I think of how differently my life would have turned out if I had: stayed in high school rather than the career center; gone to Florida for an internship I was offered after college; stayed in Chorale my senior year; gone to a different college altogether; stayed in the mission field in England long term; stopped going to church when the church hurt me personally; etc.  So many choices (these were all big choices I made, like the narrator's choice not to go), so many different possibilities I have forsaken.  And yet, I am very happy in the life I have now.  I think accepting where we are is the best approach, don't you?  Woah, that was all just free thought.  I didn't even get to my notes.  So, a fantastically, painfully true line in this story was, "But our visits fell off: the distance, the necessity of living our own lives, the way one becomes used to anything, even a good friend dying."  Ouch.  It hurts to acknowledge that we can move on.  It digs to remember to grieve, but we eventually get to the point where we look back and see we've gotten used to it.  And then it tends to hurt again.  My other note states:  "Could-Have-Been - That person is very real to me.  One (one!) different decision and my life could have turned out completely different."  "Favorite story so far."  "Opposite sex friendship."  Ah, that's very special.  You don't get a lot of purely platonic opposite sex friendships anymore.  Really, not even in this story, though I sort of think their more-than-friends feelings were only occasional.  I have had a few platonic friendships with men in my college days, some of which still exist.  And an enormous blessing and view into the male psyche they are, along with just every good thing true friendship provides: laughter, good conversation, support, etc.  The narrator (did anyone catch her name, or is it given at any point?) holds closely to what she has while still having the imagination capacity to dream of what could have been.  I admire it.

The Day I Ate Nothing I Even Remotely Wanted:  Well, that was depressing in a new and different way, wasn't it?  Kyle and I sometimes decide to do a "super cheap" grocery list.  When we do, he recommends that we have cereal for dinner one night.  I always shoot this suggestion down.  I may have a food problem, but knowing that I will have a (usually) hot and (hopefully) delicious meal for dinner when I get home sometimes is all that gets me through the day at work.  Even when it isn't, I get pretty excited for lunch and for dinner.  This is especially true when there is something simmering in wait in the crockpot (like this delicious potato corn chowder, to which I have altered the recipe only slightly).  And this is why I am having such a slump when it comes to my lowering metabolism.  I've sort of grown up going against the dieters' thinking of food as fuel "rather than, oh, a reason to get up in the morning." 

Mrs. Ethel Menafee and Mrs. Birdie Stoltz:  I'd like to first point out that I become aggravated with "hospital" stories.  I'm afraid that most people are woefully ignorant about hospitals.  More goes on there than nurses doing things that frustrate you, long waits for doctors, and codes over the loudspeaker meaning someone has died.  It drove me nuts when the woman thought she might be sharing the elevator with a dead body and imagined the morgue full of people covered in body bags.  I do not claim to know everything about hospitals, but in my years working in Medical Records and ER Registration (what!?  I worked in the hospital and wasn't a nurse?!), I sometimes (much less often than you'd imagine) had to release bodies from the morgue.  They were not in body bags.  They were covered up in white sheets.  So Ethel's hope to be "wrapped up in a sheet with a decent thread count" did not have the gently dark humor to it that I'm sure the author intended.  And Code Orange did not mean "another soul going to heaven" in the hospital where I worked.  It meant a hazardous spill.  Not every thing in the hospital is life and death.  You would not even believe the number of non-emergencies I saw in the emergency room.  Toothaches, stubbed toes, minor bloody noses, colds, people who started throwing up an hour ago and have only thrown up once since... Really.  It's obnoxious.  So please stop writing morbid and depressing things about hospitals always being life and death.  Please. 

On another note, I did like the idea the two old birds had about moving in together to die.  Yes, it's morbid.  But in a way, I think it is lovely.  Your best friend might be your husband or your sister or your mother or just that, your best friend.  Don't you want to be with them and put a little pleasantness into your last days?  It is also in my notes that I finished reading this particular story the day before my boss's best friend died suddenly of a heart attack.  She was there with him when it happened.  I know it is very hard for her, but I'm sure that he was happy in his last moments before it began and ended. 

Double Diet:  I was getting tired of all the dieting by this point, weren't you?  I did enjoy the couple finally talking openly with each other about their weight issues and their attraction and caring.  Caring is far deeper, but of course we still have the desire to be attracted to our loves.  And I loved the part about children bringing sorrows and joy, "but, oh, the joy."  I am so excited to become an aunt in May 2014!

The Only One of Millions Just Like Him:  This one was a struggle for me.  I wanted to like it because grieving over losing a pet is so overlooked, but Monica was not "believable as a human being" as was once stated on Friends.  No one gets all gussied up to sit around with her dying dog.  Sit around with her dying dog, I get.  Wearing a yellow blouse and bangle bracelets and fancy sunglasses and lipstick to do it, nuh-uh.  That said, I am somewhere in between when it comes to love for my pets.  I madly love my animals.  I miss and worry about them while I'm at work.  It gives me unspeakable joy to have my fluffy grey cat Polly come running into my room first thing each morning with sweet meows and ankle wraparounds just for me.  I daresay I love my animals more than Ralph loved Dogling.  I would be absolutely devastated if something happened to them and I know that from experience.  When Fiona was in the accident rendering her a one-eyed kitty (after two emergency trips to the vet, both of which were for days at a time), I was in complete, shaking hysterics.  When my old yellow lab Max was diagnosed with glaucoma and we were told he was completely blind in one eye and likely to lose his vision altogether, I was distraught.  Even so, I felt Monica was taking it a bit far.

Truth Or Dare:  I now think that I remember this story the best as it was the first one I picked up when I resolved to finish the book.  It's another one full of the what-ifs and could-have-beens.  Really, I guess that they all are stories about what could have been in their own ways.  But this one struck me in a way with which I decided that I wanted to know what happened to some people who used to be part of my life.  And maybe not even know.  Maybe just tell them I'm sorry, in the instance of the brand-new Physical Science teacher I had in 9th grade and tormented with the rest of my class, though she was nothing but nice to me.  I want to extend my apology for making her first year (ever?  just at my school?) much harder than it needed to be.  Then again, I want to write the nastiest of letters to my junior high History and Language Arts teacher, who was the meanest, sliest, loathsome old hag who ever darkened a school's doorway.  I want ask her what her problem was with me and I want to make her cry.  I won't.  But I want to.  I want to thank the student teacher from 7th or 8th grade who helped me through my Literature class.  I'd always loved reading but I was struggling to care about school with all of the changes happening and my hormones out of whack.  I want to tell her that she was wonderfully gentle in her encouragement and gave me hope in a time when I was feeling pretty hopeless (some of it being teacher #2's fault, I might add). 

How to Make an Apple Pie:  This is not a very usable recipe, unless you are willing to read it and write down only the steps, saving room for bits and pieces Flo puts in late in the game. However, it's a nice little letter and a vivid history.  I'm sure that if Ruthie were real, this would indeed be her favorite birthday gift.  In giving of ourselves, like Flo does in this letter, we often receive.  I also loved Flo's description of why books are better than movies: ""I remember how you and your sister would lie on your stomachs or your beds or on a blanket in the back yard in the summer and read and read and read and I could just about see the heat of your imaginations rising up off you like steam.  You can say what you want about movies, but to my mind they leave too little to the imagination, it is always better to read the book.  Make up your own pictures, they are always realer because they come from inside out, not the other way around."  Lovely.  

Sin City: Here's a lame ending to my blog... I liked this story but my only notes I took on it are that of mentioning that I absolutely love my charm bracelet and charm necklace for the very reason Rita likes the one she buys, already done up: it is a whole life represented in little bits.  In my case, it is my life.  Mine.  And that means something.  The sum of all of the stories come together on the last page in this line: "But time does not hold still, and Rita thinks now that it's a blessing, she thinks that what it means is that your life is free to make or unmake every day." 

And there you have it, my friends.  Another day, another story.  Or in this case, me dragging my feet for many days, and many little stories pieced together in one binding.

One Sitting.

Good morning, afternoon, evening, night to you readers out there, depending on the time of day when you read this post!

I've been feeling down and discouraged as of late.  Why?  Fall.  It seems like this time of year is most everyone's favorite, but it is just not mine.  I dislike the shortening of days: waking up when the sun has not even had the chance to get up, night being in such a blessed hurry to fall and disorient me.  I'm in South Carolina, but there is a bit of a chill in the air in the mornings this week and that chill doesn't cheer me but brace me for the cool, cooler, cold days to come.  I am not the biggest fan of pumpkin flavored things.  I dislike the color orange (though I have loosened up on that issue over the years).  Needless to say, I just don't like fall.  It actually depresses me quite a bit.

Yep.  That about covers it.  

I've been trying to think up some good things about fall so I don't feel so pissy: bonfires with s'mores (forget the fact that I have no friends here, as I believe I've mentioned), scarves, hot cocoa and hot apple cider, people are actually in the mood for soup (I am always in the mood for soup.  Call me crazy), it's Kyle's favorite season and things that make him smile are okay in my book.  And the best reason is our anniversary, which is coming up in just a few days. 

Ahh, October 16, 2010... you were among the best of days.

Anyway, mix my personal foreboding dislike of short stories with my contempt for fall (apart from those things listed above... and feel free to add your own encouraging good fall things to help me feel better, but so help me if you say football) and you get a highly unmotivated Loralee who wants to read anything but that short story book (in this case, I'm still talking about The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg) and not want to do any housework or crafts or anything but loaf on the couch.  I don't like that Loralee much at all.  Nor do her work pants, which continue to tighten.  So, yes, I PROMISE I will finish the book, but I needed something with meat to read in the meantime, and since I asked Missy (one among you who kept tragically getting outvoted) to vote here and she asked for The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin, that is what I read today.  So this present post is just fair warning that the Stepford post may come before the Whatever I Wanted post as I finished it in just one sitting.  Not only that, but I'd like to move to the next read after the short story book.  Since I've demonstrated my dislike for this season and my lack of motivation to do things, I think we'll go with something I've already read and, therefore, know that I like: The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst.

And no, I don't just like it because the dog's name is Lorelei.  Lorelei is certainly not a minor character, but the fact that her name is close to mine is minor in my head compared to the rest of the reasons I enjoy this book.  You know that I don't recommend books I haven't read yet but if I may recommend a good book to you, this is it.  Please keep in mind... it has some very weird parts.  But it is also beautiful.  Yes.  Recommended.  We'll get to it soon, friends.  After The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted and The Stepford Wives. 

Oh, and as a side note, The Dogs of Babel was also published as Lorelei's Secret, though I believe that was exclusively in the UK.  It's also supposed to be made into a movie one of these days so you'll want to read it before that happens!  I'm pretty sure no one can live up to the expectations in my head. 

Ehh

Ok folks.  You picked The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted so I'm reading it.  I hope that you are, too, if you are all caught up.  I know that there was some concern about finding this particular book in libraries, though if they participate in interlibrary loan, it will probably not be an issue.  My positively tiny library back in Ohio was able to get me books that I requested from other libraries if they did not happen to have the ones my heart desired.  I will be a complete hypocrite here and tell you to ask.  And I'm being a hypocrite because I am generally far too intimidated to ask questions in a public place.  I fear the judgment and shunning that might ensue if I asked how to use the equipment at the gym, for instance.

On that note, does anyone want to be my out-of-shape-gym-mate?  Oh, I forgot again!  No one lives here!

Anyway, friends, I am once again learning the hard way that I am not a fan  of short stories.  There is nothing really wrong with Elizabeth Berg's stories in the current book.  I just... ehh...  I just can't get attached to characters in stories that are only 10 pages long.  Some are more.  Probably most.  But since I typically read one story per sitting, I start afresh each time I sit down to read and that does not motivate me to read.  I would rather keep plowing through, getting to know my characters and surroundings and loving or hating them.  *Sigh.  I hope you understand.

Sooo... I will finish the book, okay?  I will.  But in the meantime, I need something to sink my teeth into.  I have let you choose the last two books, and one of you has been outvoted twice, so we are going to read something she would like to read next (after The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted, but I need a novel to supplement, so there you are).  So, here are your choices.  Missy wanted to read The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd during the first vote and The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin on the second vote.

Which would you rather read next? 

A Brand New Perspective

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is one part mystery, three parts perspective study.  Christopher John Francis Boone is a narrator unlike any other I have ever met (and when I say met, you know I mean lived life through his/her perspective in his/her book or story).  It's not every day that the protagonist is autistic.

Christopher is a mathematical genius, socially inept 15 year old boy who takes in everything he sees and hears and calls the rest of us lazy for not doing so.  One of my favorite descriptions of what it is like inside of his head was the piece beginning on page 141 in my copy about how regular people may see a countryside: some cows, flowers in the field, a few clouds in a sunny sky, a village in the distance, a fence at the edge... and they may not notice much else because they are thinking things like, "It's beautiful here," or "Did I leave the gas on?" (Which, of course, reminded me of this bit in one of my favorite comedian's stand up routines.  Excuse the language)

But Christopher sees much more.  He sees exactly what is there:  19 cows in the field: 15 black and white, 4 brown and white, mostly facing uphill.  The village in the distance has 31 visible houses and the church has a square tower.  There is a plastic shopping bag, a long piece of orange string, and a squashed Coca-Cola can with a snail on it.  Three different types of grass and two different types of flowers.  Etc., etc., etc.  It is overwhelming enough to imagine taking all of that in, but he also remembers everything he sees and hears.  At several points in this novel, he names a date and time and says exactly what his mother or his (teacher? counselor? therapist?) Siobhan were saying to him, wearing, doing.  It's amazing.  But for all of his remembering, he cannot process verbal cues, meanings behind facial expressions, body language, or slang.

In this way, I noticed that all, or almost all dialogue is in a she said/he manner.  If someone declares, whispers, utters, lisps, whines, exclaims, or scoffs, the emotion is lost on Christopher.  Reading expressions and feelings are out of his capacity of knowing.  This is why he likes everything to be very precise.  It bothers him, for instance, that his name means carrying Christ from St. Christopher and that his mother thought it was a nice name with a story behind it about being kind and helpful.  Christopher, however, just wants his name to mean him.  Now, I know that my name is not common, but I genuinely feel that it means me and I mean it.  What do you think about your name?  Do you feel like Christopher or like me on this issue? 

As an honest-to-a-fault person, I found Christopher's inability to tell lies quite compelling.  He sees lies as inventing something that happened that did not actually happen and the possibilities are endless.  If someone asked me what I did last night, for instance, I would tell them that I attended an essential oils webinar and that would be the truth.  I could also lie by saying that I had tea with Steve Martin in a rowboat filled with penguins on the moon.  Or that I sat in my car and counted to 56,987.  Or that I bought a pair of pants with alligators on them.  Endless possibilities.  It's not that I'm not creative, (which Christopher is not) it is just that I find honesty to be the best policy. 

SPOILER ALERT:  I thought it was pretty obvious from the get-go that Christopher's father killed Wellington.  His need for Christopher to drop the topic and his remorseful tears when he is found late at night crying were red flags for me.  And, yes, I have read this book before, but it was 5 1/2 years ago, in one sitting.. and I didn't remember much about it apart from the interesting narration.  Did anyone else see it coming?  I think it's pretty safe to say that we all knew it before Christopher did. 

I also found it interesting that some of the things that make me super uncomfortable are the things he really enjoyed.  When he was told that his mother was in the hospital, he wanted to visit because he liked uniforms and machines.  I hate visiting hospitals.  It's always awkward and uncomfortable and upsetting. 

But one thing that I thought was spot-on in his thinking was how we let things out of our control dictate what kind of day we will have.  As I read about his system of counting car colors as they appeared in a sequence (4 red in a row, 4 yellow in a row, etc.), I thought it was a silly way to decide if he'd be in a good mood or to not speak to anyone.  Extreme, right?  But then he explained that some people (like me) work in an office building where it does not actually matter if it is raining or sunny... but they feel happy when it is sunny and sad when it is rainy.  And you know what?  Sometimes that is what determines my mood.  How silly of me!

To an extent, I also understand that having things in order can make one feel safe or at least feel better.  I feel completely out of sorts when my house is a mess.  I may not love cleaning, but I feel better when everything is clean and tidy. 

I did not enjoy this book the second time through as much as I enjoyed it the first time.  Christopher actually got on my nerves quite a bit this time.  I know that in his condition, he was pretty much helpless unless all conditions around him were just so, but I did feel for his parents frustrations and thought about how difficult it would be to work with this type of relationship on a daily basis. 

Here are a few of my short observations:

1.  When Christopher gets to know someone, he actually just gets to know about them.  He asks things like what kind of car they drive and what is their favorite color and what they know about the Apollo space missions.  This has nothing to do with knowing someone.  I can know those things about my favorite actor, but it doesn't mean I know him.
2.  People who like dogs can't be all bad in his mind.  I like this.  It reminds me of Captain James Hook in our previous read Peter Pan, who loved flowers and music.  No one is all bad.
3.  To Christopher, there are certain reasons that things happen and anything outside of those reasons is baffling and cannot be.  This shows when he talks about not knowing why Mr. and Mrs. Shears divorced.  The reasons he lists for divorce are: "because one of you has done sex with somebody else or because you are having arguments and you hate each other and you don't want to live in the same house anymore and have children."  There are no other explanations in his mind.
4. Page 69 talks about how alien spaceships probably would not look like the flying saucers we imagine.  It's weird because I had been thinking something similar the day before I read this page.  Why do we assume aliens would have human-like forms rather than that of pigs or snails or fish or ferns or cupcakes?  Maybe squids are the real aliens.
5.  It makes sense to me that Christopher does not believe in God the most when he SPOILER ALERT learns about his mother's affair and is not upset by it.  It is in the past, so it no longer exists to his mind.  God cannot be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or felt, so he does not believe in him.  It's sad to me, but I guess I get it.
6.  I specifically thought of you, Jenni Button, when he found a letter from his mother saying she had a new job and mentioned the shopping center in Birmingham--The Bullring!  I miss England adventures with you!

7.  SPOILER ALERT Even though I had previously read this novel, I completely forgot that Christopher's mother hadn't died and his dad lied about that.  That sucks.  I got really mad at both parents at that part.  Father should never have said that she died.  Mother should not have left her son with special needs with no explanation.  It just all around sucks.  I think this family needs serious counseling.
8.  It also sucks that, while Father did some pretty terrible things (SPOILER ALERT: saying Mother was dead, killing Wellington), he really does love his son so much and loses his trust when he comes clean.  In Christopher's mind, if Father can kill Wellington and tell lies, he may very well kill him, too.
9.  Lastly, I'm sad that Christopher's "good dream" consists of pretty much everyone in the world dying and him being free to do as he pleases and not have to see anyone.  I have days when I just want to be by myself, but I also get lonely and crave human interaction.  Kyle and I are kind of homebodies who don't really get out very much.  Some of that is because we know so few people here in SC (still), but I cherish times when we do get out and socialize once in a while.

All in all, I think I'd give this book five out of ten stars.  It's interesting, but I don't find it to be super entertaining.  It's worth the read, but not something I want to read over and over again.  How would you rate it?   What were your thoughts?

The winner of the third book vote is...

I asked for your votes and I got them!  Some were via Facebook and it has been pointed out to me that not everyone can post a comment on this blog.  I've got to fix that issue, so if anyone has any ideas on how, let me know! 

Anyway, the third book we'll be discussing will be The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg.  This should be interesting!  It's a book of short stories, so I may break it down into a few posts so it is easier to follow and discuss.  I'm warning you, readers, I'm not usually a short-stories kind of girl, but perhaps your support will spur me on! 

The post for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time should go up soon... this weekend?  Perhaps.  And so you can feel free to discuss that unique novel.

If you have not posted any discussion on Peter Pan and you wish to be heard, please feel free to post!  I really enjoy reading what you say and, if I haven't mentioned, it is one of my very, very, very favorites!  When I learned of several of you actually reading it for the first time, my heart just sang and swelled with pride.  It's a story familiar to just about everyone, but boy is the book worth the read, you know?

Thanks for reading, thanks for sharing.  You guys are freaking great.  :)

I read fast...

It's not so much that I read fast.  It's that I (usually) read three times a day.  So I only have 20 pages in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time left to read, and I don't want to post about it yet, and I will finish it tonight.  By the way, be forewarned!  Peter Pan is a children's book, so I didn't have to worry about offensive language in that (aside from that weird part when Barrie mentioned a fairy orgy in passing... well, that was a bit awkward), but The Curious Incident..., and probably just about everything else we'll read, is going to have some language or graphic images or violence or.. I don't know.  I mean, I am not going to put 50 Shades of Grey or anything on the reading list because... well for a lot of reasons, but one is that I think some people would be offended by the content and another is that I hear the actual writing is terrible.  No, I haven't read it myself, so if you feel the need to shout at me to give it a chance before knocking it, that is fine and you can rant yourself into a maniacal little spiel, but I'm still not going to read it. 

That said, I have about a billion books that I haven't read that are waiting on my bookshelf.  I'm an avid re-reader because I like knowing that I will like the book I'm reading.  However, this book blog is supposed to be something new and different and so I think it's time to read something new and different.  Please let me know which of these four books interests you the most.  I am in random selection mode and I've never read any of them, so there is no order of ranking or anything.  It's entirely up to you (as long as you vote within the next two days... otherwise I am choosing because I can't wait that long). 

Saving the World by Julia Alvarez (click here for description)

The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin (click here for description)

 

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson (click here for description)

Or

The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted by Elizabeth Berg (click here for description)

I think that's a pretty good mix and should cover a lot of bases as we have some historical type fiction, a thriller, a love story, and a book of short stories.  And these are just my observations from reviews.  No sci-fi this time, but I do have a few sci-fi books waiting to be read if anyone is interested in those! 

Remember, folks... I am not recommending books based on what I know.  I am just looking for what to read next.  I reserve the right to put it down and never pick it back up if I dislike it, but, in most cases, I'll try to pull through for you. 

Cast your votes!

Would you like an adventure now or would you like to have your tea first?

I have been putting off the Peter Pan post for a few days for a slew of reasons, the first being that this is one of my very favorite books and I have read it several times.  I realized that not every would read this as quickly as I did... and I wouldn't want them to read it so fast the first time through anyway.  This story is magical and I think it's best to read it when you can take it all in.  I took lots of notes this time through, as you can see here:

In fact, scarcely a page went by without a new post-it note hitting the page and me scribbling on it frantically so that my thoughts didn't escape me. But now, as I start out on my first hurrah, I don't quite know where to begin.  I suppose I'll begin with why I love this book.  Here is a picture of some of my Peter Pan memorabilia.  I have more, but did not include it because it is scattered about:

And here's me and my friend Mallory the other day in our Disney tank tops:

And me in my homemade Peter Pan costume for Halloween a few years ago:

Peter Pan has long been one of my favorite stories.  When I was little, my sister, brother, and I frequently played Peter Pan.  Julianna and Jimmy would pass around the roles of Peter and Hook amongst themselves, but I was always Smee.  Smee!  And it's not like they told me to be Smee because I was the youngest or anything like that.  I chose to be Smee.  I feel like normal little girls would want to play Wendy or Tinker Bell, but I was a little weirdo.  Our knowledge of Peter Pan came from repeated viewing of the Mary Martin stage production.  If you are feeling nostalgic or if you have never seen this particular version, please view one of my favorite songs here.  My grandma also owned a bunch of Disney VHS tapes--you know the kind, in their big, puffy plastic cases.  Peter Pan was amongst them and so we were familiar with it as well.  And of course Hook was a huge hit when we were children.  Robin Williams makes a wonderful grown-up version of Peter Pan and Dustin Hoffman is arguably one of the very best Captain Jas. Hooks ever to grace the stage or screen.  And then, of course, came the absolutely unbelievable 2003 live action version with Jeremy Sumpter as Pan and Jason Isaacs as Mr. Darling and Captain Hook in the tradition of the original play.  Not only is it traditional for Mr. Darling and Captain Hook to be played by the same actor, but it also reflects the tyrannical order in both reality and in the make believe world of the children, though this comparison is never outwardly made in the written word.  It was not until after seeing this version of Peter Pan in the theater (it is possible that I went to see it four times on the big screen, but who is keeping track?) that I decided to read the novel, and I have a former acquaintance to thank for that.  As we were being seated in the theater, a boy named Caleb told me, when we both said we had already been to see it, that this movie probably best reflected the original story's thematic emotions, darkness, and narration.  So of course I had to read it after that.

Here I am babbling about movies and things when we're here to discuss the book!  Forgive me.  Let's jump right in.  My first notes are from the very first page and concern Mrs. Darling's kiss, which no one can seem to get.  I think that her kiss is representative of her youth and innocence and the joy of her heart, which is why it is the only bit of her that you can see when she dances and romps.  Peter Pan is also described as being very like Mrs. Darling's kiss and he is the purest essence of childhood's joy.  Mrs. Darling may be a grown woman who has put most childish things behind her, but the kiss remains and we shall talk more about my opinions on it later.  Please feel free to discuss Mrs. Darling's kiss or the subtheme of kisses throughout Peter Pan.

One of my favorite passages about Mrs. Darling is that when she is tidying her children's minds as they sleep and how every good mother does this.  This is how she discovers Peter Pan (though it seems hinted that she herself may have known him once, or at least known about him) and the Neverland, which is always similar but different for every child.  The magic of this book is that it makes it seem like we, too, have been there in our own make-believes.

I also find it interesting that twice in the first chapter and on the very same page in my book, Wendy knows something about Peter but doesn't know how she knows: that he is just her size and that he sometimes came to her room and played his pipes for her while she was asleep.  Wendy has a great deal of woman's intuition as well as childlike faith.

We're also early introduced to Mr. Darling, who demands to be respected and admired as if these are the highest honors to be received.  (This is the same reason that Hook hates Pan.  Pan is cocky and has no respect for the very fearsome pirate).  His pride is very hurt when he cannot seem to gain the reverent admiration of his family, though he is a weak sort of man when he pours his medicine into Nana's bowl... and nearly has a fit over his tie... and totals up how much each child will cost him, though of course he loves them dearly.

Now, on to Peter Pan himself.  I love how, in his adventure into the real world to bring the Darling children to his own world, even the stars are on his side.   Though a bit of a know-it-all in his cockiness, Peter is immature and ignorant of real world things.  He knows not how to read or write and doesn't understand motherly things like sewing and he cannot tell the difference between real and pretend.  When I read Kyle the passage about the Lost Boys having to pretend they have had their dinners, Kyle felt very sorry for them.  But to Peter, real and pretend are one in the same.  I feel that this is absolutely perfectly demonstrated in Hook during the food fight scene, when the grown-up Peter Pan finally learns the power of pretend.  The best clip I could find is of Insults at imaginary dinner, but the realization that his mind makes it real comes at the end.  Even when the island "comes true" Peter knows nothing but make believe, so it is real to him.  He actually believes Slightly wearing John's hat to be a doctor, for instance.   Wendy demonstrates her maturity over Peter from the very start and SPOILER ALERT this will lead her to return home from Neverland later on.

Peter is described frequently as being cocky.  In fact, Barrie states that, "To put it with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier boy."  Of course he is cocky, living in a make-believe world where he is the essentially the boss, where he has incredible adventures that swell his head all the more and where no one tells him what to do.  Children are pretty cocky by nature.  Don't get me wrong, I love kids.  However, young children do not always realize that the world is made up of more than their worlds, their perceptions.  The difference between ordinary children and Peter Pan is independence.  Children dependent on their parents or guardians think only of themselves at times because they are sort of helpless creatures.  Peter thinks only of himself because he has no parents or anyone else to take care of him and must do everything for himself.  And, being able to take care of himself amazingly, his childhood cockiness is extremely magnified.  In many examples throughout the book, we read Peter saying things that may be true or may be complete nonsense because he says whatever comes to mind.  This shows that he is completely uninhibited by reason and his imagination is completely free.  He, too, possesses a dark streak of pride, shown in his absolute joy in the face of danger and in places like the flight to Neverland with the Darling children, when he saves the falling sleepers at the very last second to show off his cleverness.  Indeed, his head is so full of adventures and his cocky pride that he is forgetful of all else, like when he doesn't seem to know the others when he takes off on adventures between London and the Neverland and returns to find the Darlings.  SPOILER ALERT Or when he forgets to come and get Wendy for years on end for their Spring Cleaning at the end of the book.

I'd like to point out a quote from page 44 in my copy (In chapter 4 The Flight) describing how Neverland differs when you are and aren't there:
"In the old days at home the Neverlad had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime.  Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread, black shadows moved about in them, the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost certainty that you would win.  You were quite glad that the night-lights were in,  You even liked Nana to say this was just the mantelpiece over here, and that the Neverland was all Make believe.   
Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days, but it was real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker every moment, and where was Nana?"

I like this passage because this is exactly how I feel alone at night.  If Kyle happens to be on shift, I spend the night by myself and I never think that I will get agitated or frightened until it gets dark and I do.

In the chapter entitled The Island Come True (5), the island is described without Peter on it and we see that adventures are not so very adventurous without him.  I picture him to be something of a heartbeat to the island itself, and that is why the pirates and lost boys merely bite their thumbs at one another when they meet without Peter.  He is the passion and lifeblood of the Neverland.  In the 2003 movie version, the Neverland sees winter snow when Peter is away and springtime when he reappears, which helps the pirates recognize that he has returned.  I tried to find a clip of this scene but I can't.  If you haven't seen it, though, you should.  I vote this Peter Pan the one you are most likely to get a crush on.  I know he's like a 14 year old boy, but he's adorable and charming with the most cunning smile I've ever seen on a Peter Pan.  And don't think I am a total creep.  I saw the movie when I was in high school, so I was pretty young myself.  haha

When Barrie describes each of the Lost Boys in this chapter, I noticed that he narrates not only to us, the audience, but he also addresses characters in the book.  He issues a warning to poor Tootles here, which I rather enjoy.  This was when I first noticed him speaking to us and to the characters, but it is done throughout the story and sort of adds another layer.  My personal favorite Lost Boy is Slightly.  If you have footnotes and end notes like my copy does, you know that his name comes from the fact that "Slightly Soiled" was written on his pinafore the day he was lost.  He assumes this to be his name, which is pretty hilarious.  Slightly is called the most conceited of the boys, but I think he is also the most homesick for his old life.  Clinging to his silly misconstrued name as well as pretending he knows much more than he actually knows about our world tell me that he misses his old life, even if he cannot remember it entirely.  I have a soft spot for Slightly.  He's such a lovable little know-it-all.  Who was your favorite Lost Boy?

This chapter also gives us a great introduction to the beasts of the island and the Indians and pirates.  I love the bit about Smee having "pleasant names for everything" including his jagged knife, which he calls Johnny Corkscrew.  I think that Smee and I would get along famously as I like to name things, too.  I name cars and have a list in my head of great names for cats (Nibs and Slightly are on that list) and I even christened a spider who lived near our porch Josephine.  (She was not a harmful spider.  We googled her to make sure. She kept the bugs down, too).  SPOILER ALERT Captain Hook overhears the boys in their underground home by pure accident and concocts a plan to have them killed by cooking them a cake (I guess we are to assume it is poisoned as it does not actually say so, but they mean for the boys to perish upon eating it), but Wendy becomes their mother in time to prevent the boys from eating the cake and it is briefly mentioned later that the cake hardens and they use it as a missile and Captain Hook trips over it in the dark.  The point of Hook discovering their unique home with doors for each of them and deciding to kill them with cake (and what better way to go, I say!) is that he sees things the boys overlook as they don't have mothers.  However, we soon find out Peter was using his genius creativity to create a door for each boy and it is a great protection to their home underground.  Annnd here's a clip from the Mary Martin stage version to verify that just about everyone in Neverland, not just the Lost Boys, wants a mother!  Captain Hook's Tarantella

Can I ask why the part with Nibs running from the wolf pack is not in any visual version that I can remember?  At least I don't recall ever seeing the Lost Boys look through their legs (because they think that's what Peter would do) at the wolves to scare them off... Do you know of any?  Because I literally laughed aloud at this part this time through.   

Another weird thing that is never referenced is that, at the end of Chapter 6 The Little House, Peter is standing guard over Wendy's lovely house they have just built around her to give her a rest and he falls asleep and some "unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from an orgy."  Really Barrie?  An orgy?  I plan to read this book to my kids someday (it really is a children's book, after all), but I plan to just replace this word with the word party.  However, fairies do seem to be awfully peculiar creatures, mostly without morals.

In Chapter 7 The Home Underground, Wendy gives the boys examinations to see if they can remember their previous homes.  These are mostly for the benefit of herself, John, and Michael, but of course the others join in because what is frightfully commonplace to regular children is interesting and exciting to the lost boys and vice versa.  This is also seen in places such as Wendy's fascination with fairies when Peter first comes to her home in London, but here we see Peter taking on the role of father as a new adventure, even though it makes it so his adventures consist of sitting on a stool doing nothing sometimes.  This demonstrates to me that the Neverland is imagination and it makes reason forgetful, thus Wendy uses the examination papers to try to jog the memory of reason in her brothers' past lives.  Peter has no reason because he chose to live in the imagination world at such a young age that he rejects it and it rejects him.

Chapter 8 The Mermaid's Lagoon shows a sort of half strength and half weakness that I find particularly interesting in Peter.  This is that every unfairness he encounters is like his very first because he soon forgets them altogether.  This is a strength in that he does not live with the burden of life's many unfairnesses, but a weakness in that each one he meets dazes him.  This unawareness, I think, lends to him being such a gentlemanly fellow that he can SPOILER ALERT send Wendy to safety when the lagoon becomes a dangerous place and he has no means to escape.  He also has his extreme cockiness, but in addition, he holds youth's eternal hope when he thinks that "To die will be an awfully big adventure."

I do enjoy the way Wendy and Peter pretend to be scandalized, uppity, condescending parents to the boys and find themselves convinced to dance only because "it's a Saturday night," which it may or may not have been.  They are playing that which they do not entirely wish to become.  This is when Wendy asks Peter Pan his true feelings for her.  As young as they are, Wendy probably does not quite realize what she is asking of him.  It is all part of their make-believe playing house, but she is a reasonable and womanly creature who does have strong feelings, even if they are premature.  Peter cannot answer in a way that would satisfy her.

Children are selfish, heartless creatures, to which a mother's love is necessary.  Page 100 Wendy's Story  SPOILER ALERT They are also spontaneous and unsentimental, as demonstrated when the Lost Boys want to go with Wendy.  Page 103

Peter believes that his mother shut the window and forgot about him, which turns him against all mothers but Wendy, who he somehow knows (maybe doesn't know how he knows) that she will always love him.  (I love when Barrie described mothers as "the toads" when he hears Peter's side).  Even if it isn't true, he believes it to be true and that makes it true to him.   Page 101

Peter is very like a fairy... sometimes all good and sometimes all naughty, vindictive, angry, or jealous, as when he decides to kill many grown-ups by breathing as quickly as possible (every time you breathe in Neverland, a grown-up dies so the saying went). Page 101

SPOILER ALERT  I think that Peter would have been grateful for an outlet for his feelings in a battle with the pirates, but they kind of outsmarted him (even though some didn't really catch on right away) in Chapter 12 The Children Are Carried Off when they beat the tom-tom to indicate an Indian victory, making Wendy and the children feel safe to leave.

In Chapter 13 Do You Believe in Fairies?  I noticed that Wendy is described as only a little girl.  This is during a time when she is in fear and fascination of Captain Hook.  In times of adventure and home life with the Lost Boys, she is considered a mother and authority, but she quickly shies back to a child in times of distress.  Perhaps since she made the decision to go home, she has realized her place and position are not right for her here.  Later on in the story, the boys are described that same way, as only boys. 

There are also fascinating passages about Peter in this chapter, such as those that show a somewhat passive aggressive nature in him when he laughs instead of cries when he realizes how Wendy would hate it and how he won't take his medicine for the same reason.  I'm sure he'd never have done those things in front of her.  And what are Peter's painful dreams about?  Does he miss his own mother?  Is it because he is aware that Wendy must grow up?  Is it some fear that he does not know when he is awake?  Whatever it may be, when he is awakened by Tink, he knows that he must rescue Wendy from the pirates without hesitation, just as he rescued her from womanhood when he took her from her home.

Tinker Bell's very famous scene in which she SPOILER ALERT drinks the poison Hook poured into Peter's medicine and must be revived by children who believe in fairies touches my heart because Peter calls upon children in our world to save her, not upon those he knows in the Neverland.  Thus, in dreaming, Neverland becomes a reality.  

Chapter 14 The Pirate Ship explores Captain Hook's origins as a former Eton College student (this is in the footnotes, in case your book does not have them) and his obsession with good form.  As we saw in the previous chapter, the villain  is humanized in his fear of going down Slightly's door.  He hates Pan but is also petrified of him.  I also liked the bit about him not being all bad in that he loved flowers and music.  His value of good form and distaste for bad form point toward his pride.  Good form = a reason to be prideful without being so, but later he shows bad form in taking out anger on the boys because "they had seen him unbend" (Chapter 15).  How realistic it seems to me to hate someone all the more when they see your shortcomings!  SPOILER ALERT We witness his heartbreak when he is shamed in Chapter 15 "Hook or Me This Time" when Pan reveals himself.  And we see the contrast between the children and the pirates in representing joy/goodness and bitterness/evil/despair/depression/sorrow respectively.  SPOILER ALERT I find it somehow comforting that Hook dies content, finding Peter to have had bad form in his last moment.  I suppose this is because he has been humanized.  But again we see Peter having a painful dream, and here I think it is because of the lost innocence of himself, the boys, and the Darling children.

Why is Wendy so obsessed with giving them all medicine anyway?  Is it because her adventure to the Neverland with Peter would never have happened if not for the episode with her father and Nana and the bowl of medicine?

SPOILER ALERT  Why do you think Peter takes on some of Captain Hook's traits once the villain is vanquished?

I find Barrie's narration on Mrs. Darling to be reflective of Peter's in Chapter 16 The Return Home.  He scoffs at her absolute love for her children and her want of them to have as much joy as possible, though it lends to her misery while she waits for their return, not knowing if they will.

SPOILER ALERT  It is nice to see Mr. Darling's representation of good form when he humbles himself to Nana's dog house as his punishment for the flight of his children. 

SPOILER ALERT  Peter's last (secret) attempt to keep Wendy is to close the nursery window so that she will believe her parents have forgotten her when she returns home and feel that the best place for her would be the Neverland with him.  Wendy is suspended between childhood and womanhood, selfishness and responsibility.  Peter hates to let her go, but eventually he does with a "frightful sneer at the laws of nature," wherein he knows that she is not like him and she must grow up because she has chosen to do so.  So when Wendy is returned and he sees the happy reunion, this is they joy from which he must be barred.  Wendy is this joy.  Mother is this joy.  Familial love is this joy.

When Wendy Grew Up, Chapter 17, is a sad one to me because the Neverland make-believes come to an end for so many.  SPOILER ALERT Though the Darlings are poor, they do decide to take in the lost boys as their own, once Mr. Darling finds they all will respect him and love him as well as Mrs. Darling.  I find his softened pride and tears of vulnerability touching here because it is not so much respect and admiration he wants now as love, even if he does not quite realize it.  When Wendy asks Peter if he's like to speak with her parents about a "very sweet subject," she is imploring him to talk to them of marrying her someday, but this would go against the "riddle of his being" and though he loves Wendy, he will not and almost cannot grow up.  Wendy is allowed to go back to Neverland for a week each year (I wish I could go!) to help Peter with spring cleaning, a very motherly thing to do, and we see that when Peter leaves, he takes Mrs. Darling's kiss with him--the kiss that no one could ever get.  I see this as that innocent joy of her heart, which is Wendy.  She has sort of released Wendy's heart to Peter rather than clinging to it herself.

I do love that the Lost Boys realize that it was a mistake to decide to grow up.

Did you see in the end notes that Slightly could not really have become a Lord by marrying a Lady of title?  He would be the one to try, wouldn't he?

SPOILER ALERT  When Peter returns for Wendy and cannot remember Tinker Bell or Captain Hook, Wendy is distraught, but I do think it makes sense.  They no longer exist because the children who believed in them and knew them are no longer part of the Neverland and most of them no longer even believe in it.  I do get pretty weepy at the part when Peter forgets Wendy while she waits for him to come for her and Michael whispers that perhaps there is no such person.  Leaving childhood innocence behind is heartbreaking for some.  Some accept it readily.  I was not amongst them, so this scene touches my heart especially.  Wendy's baby daughter was surely written in a golden splash in her heart  and became her "kiss" though Jane turns out to be as "gay and innocent and heartless" as she and her brothers once were.  Wendy's fondness for Peter is so bittersweet in the line "She let her hands play in the hair o the tragic boy.  She was not a little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it all, but they were wet smiles."  And she lets her daughter go to be his new mother... and on and on and on in the fashion of literary comedy.  Wendy is essentially reborn as Peter's mother when he finds her daughter Jane, and in turn, her daughter Margaret, and her daughter, and hers, and hers "so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."


 So that was the longest post ever and I forgive you if you didn't read it.  I hope to hear some observations, questions, or feedback from any or all of you!  I really hope that you enjoyed this book.  I know that I did!

Our next book will be The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.