Pardon me while I Bitch

How could you resist a book with the name Bitch Posse? Especially with the dozens of accolades plastered on the back and inside flap.

The premise is good – three women, best friends in high school, who experience a tragedy that tears them apart.  They lead separate lives, but must eventually get back together before they can be happy.  Who doesn’t have one friend from when they were young that they still miss?  Most of the women I know – and many of the men – realize how much emptier their lives would be without a best friend in their life.  Humans have a penchant for the What If? game, and many of us know how ugly those other lives might have been without our best friend to help us make the right choices.

Well, I’m sad to say that this is not the book it could have been.  What we have are three adult women who are incredibly self-destructive, much like they were as young adults. Yes, they all had crappy parents and terrible childhoods, but none of them seems to have a clue how to be honest with themselves or anyone else.  We spend about 165 pages each on the teen years and their adult tragedy, and maybe five pages on them reconnecting and starting to put their lives back together.  Ridiculous.

And the worst thing – in my opinion – is that fact that there are dozens of sex scenes in the book, and NOT A SINGLE ONE is healthy or emotionally satisfying for the women involved. Not one.  How pathetic is that?  Hot, crazy sex – well-written, to be sure! – but it is either statutory rape, drug-enabled, sexual harassment or some other kind of emotionally destructive interaction.  It’s disgusting.  There is plenty of that kind of sex out there – in real life and in fiction of all kinds – but in a book that pretends to be about the redeeming qualities of friendship, at least some of the sex should be empowering and life-affirming.  The one semi-healthy relationship in the book only give us one incidence of that couple having sex – and it is the first time they meet, in the college library without a word exchanged.  That is the best this book has to offer.

My bitch posse is a much happier, healthier group to hang with, and anyone who thinks these ladies have it good needs a shrink and a real friend.

Me and the Little Women

Let us start with a confession:  I never read Little Women.  Nor have I seen any of the screen adaptations of said book.  I’ll wait while you recover from the shock.

There’s no particular reason I never read it.  I just never did.  And I’m betting neither of my sisters read it, either – because I read almost every book that came through that house.  I have no good explanation – somehow I missed it.  So, I decided my education was seriously lacking and picked it up at the library.

I didn’t expect to like any of the girls in LW except Jo. Not sure why. I also expected the girls to feel more stereotypical than they did. But I really liked Meg, and liked Beth and Amy, though not as much. And I didn’t identify with Jo as much as I might have if I’d read it when I was younger.

Of course, I am more like Jo than any of them. But Jo has virtually no capacity for introspection – she didn’t seem to know herself at all. Amy did a better job of that and at a much younger age. And I never really wanted to be a boy – I just did the ‘boy’ things. But gender roles have eased considerably since Alcott’s time – lucky for me!

I liked how Jo & Laurie were best friends but at least one of them knew they would make a terrible couple. And Alcott writes in the awkward scenes that are necessary when people who care about each other have to deal with how the nature of their relationship has changed. Those who cannot navigate that space end up leaving their friends behind because they can’t talk to each other about the things that are really important. Jo & Laurie had to reconnect with who they were to each other so they could be friends without causing harm to his marriage or Jo & Amy’s relationship.  It makes me crazy when people think that – because we don’t talk about it, that means it can’t hurt anyone. That is the stuff that causes the most damage.  I also liked how Marmee let the girls learn from their own mistakes – always available to advise but never preachy.

I’m sure the reason that all the TV shows & movies & whatnot focus on Jo is because she was a writer – and it is the writers that are making those representations. Those that identified strongly with Meg are not writing books, they are doing other things with their lives.  Same with Amy.  And of course, those that identified closely with Beth didn’t live long enough to create any such thing.

I really liked the theme that a woman should have substance and follow her own heart and moral code instead of social pressure (and I would add – what her man/husband thinks).  And I was pleasantly surprised when Marmee told Meg she should invite her husband into the nursery because he had a place there. And that she should make a point of getting out of the house w/out children regularly to be refreshed.  And it wasn’t all phrased as ‘what she should do to make her husband happy’ but how to make a marriage work and be happy herself.  If you left out the presumption that the wife would stay home while the husband worked, it was valid advice for any new mom today that was struggling with that transition.

So, now that I’ve read and enjoyed Little Women, can I get back in the clubhouse?

Dots, not feathers

I picked up A Passage to India for two reasons. 1) Zadie Smith is a big fan of E. M. Forster and 2) it was $3 at Borders.  I am a fan of contemporary Indian literature (Bharati Mukherjee and Arundhati Roy being favorites) and so I am drawn to other works that focus on the area.  I was curious to see what kind of perspective this Englishman – writing in the early 1900s – would have regarding the British Empire and its presence on the sub-continent.

It was interesting how the author portrays some of the social dynamics in the British Raj. Anyone who is new to the country is expected to still care about things like fairness to all people and treating the ‘natives’ as human beings.  But the veterans are quick to tell those newcomers how inappropriate that behavior is.  Anyone who’s been there awhile is unable to resist the social pressures applied to ‘stay true to one’s own people’ and never give the locals a favor they could exploit.  And of course, women cannot socialize with Indian men without an English escort. It ends up sounding like peer pressure in high school.  The new kid has to conform to the clique or else be ostracized.  Boys only want one thing, and a girl could ruin her reputation just by being seen with the wrong guy.  And in the end, everyone who stays – even the man who stood up for Dr. Aziz against every Englishman in the area – behaves like the rest of their English compatriots.

I enjoyed the book, though I wouldn’t put it on any top-ten list.  I liked how the author spent time on the two most popular religions practiced in India at the time – Islam and Hindu.  We experience some of the action through the Muslim doctor, Aziz, and Professor Godbole, a Hindu friend of Dr. Aziz.  But the bulk of the book is described through English eyes – mostly those who were extremely uncomfortable with the negative interaction between Brits and Indians.  It is clear that Forster did not believe that the British Empire was treating India fairly.  If I was giving out stars, I’d give it three out of five.

Who doesn’t like getting naked?

David Sedaris is one crazy man, and I mean that in the best way. I collect crazy people. I only wish that I could add him to my stable of friends instead of just my bookshelf. The David Sedaris I know from his memoir, naked, is the kind of friend you want to hang out with (though probably not live with or depend on in any significant way).  He is not afraid to reveal the most embarrassing details of his life – past and present – and possibly even invent more so as to be even more entertaining.  His self-deprecating manner belies his ego and together make the David we read about a hilarious character in a mundane world.  No subject is off-limits.  Incest, poor job skills, immigrant grandparents, facial tics, cancer – none of these topics fails to get a laugh in his capable hands.

For those who have issues with that big, fat line between the Truth and everything else, this may not be your kind of memoir.  I don’t mean to say that Sedaris is a liar (see: James Frey making up whole sections of his supposed true story of addiction and recovery), but that he relates his past in the way that he experienced it  – full of imagined realities and the recurring wish that his life was other than it was.

The line between truth and fiction is porous and often impossible to find — and really unimportant here. Sedaris seems to write memoirs in order to reveal a truth so universal that we all know it while we spend our lives trying to escape it.  Namely – we are all crazy and misunderstood, but somehow loved all the same.  Families are dysfunctional and damaging but still the thing that made us into the incredibly unique and hum-drum individuals we are today and will become tomorrow.

I took a Creative Non-fiction writing course last summer, and Sedaris was one of the authors we read examples from.  I liked what I read, so his name was added to the ‘maybe’ list.  I saw his Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim at the library and loved it.  I got naked at Borders, along with bonk.  So you all know what was on my mind that day….

Sedaris is often lumped in with Augusten Burroughs, both funny, gay male memoirists.  And while I enjoyed Running with Scissors by Burroughs, Sedaris is more to my tastes.  I think the quality of observation in Sedaris’s writing is thorough and expressive, whereas Burroughs is closer to internal monologue than analytic exposition.  Which is a lot of big words to say that Sedaris has more to say about his life (or imagined life), while Burroughs seems to just describe it –though he does that in an entertaining and skillful manner.  Anyone unaware of my penchant for analysis has not been paying attention.

So next time you have an evening with no friends to entertain you, curl up with with my buddy, Dave, and exercise your mind and your abs at the same time.  Cocktails optional.

Master James

I discovered The Master by Colm Toibin in a Powell’s newsletter.  It won several awards and was short-listed for the Man Booker prize (likely because of it is just the kind of book us lit-geeks love – books about literary figures that are written by powerfully articulate authors) and it was on sale when I saw it on the shelf.  The Master is a fictional account of Henry James’ life from his own perspective.  Henry James, of course, is a huge figure in Modern fiction, a prolific author of novels as well as literary criticism.  His most popluar works are probably The Portrait of a Lady and The Wings of a Dove (both of which I have seen film adaptations of, neither of which I enjoyed very much).

If you had asked me – before I read this book – where Henry James was from, I would have said he was from England.  And if you’d asked me if he was gay, I would told you that I’d heard nothing to the contrary (but I would never rule it out, of course).  Oscar Wilde – everyone (read: English geeks) knows he was gay; Henry James, never heard a whisper.  Well, James was American – and gay.  However, I often confuse Henry James and James Joyce in my head – so I’m hardly a good person to ask these questions of.

James is portrayed as a character on the edge of, but rarely involved in, many experiences and events.  He had two brothers who fought in the American Civil War. He was born and raised in America but spent time in Europe as a child and young adult and eventually made his home there.  He never married but had close women friends and was closest to his sister of all his siblings.  He was welcomed in high society in Britain and Europe as an artist but was not truly included in that strata. He was attracted to men but was not able to truly pursue that as a lifestyle.  He was a lauded author but not actually well-read by the general public.

The Master is engaging and well-written, but doesn’t paint Henry James as a very likable character, at least in my eyes.  Well, not truly unlikeable, but probably not someone you’d want as a close friend or lover.  He seems to have a difficult time actually experiencing any moment that he’s in.  Rather, he removes himself as much as possible from what is happening around him and only later allows himself to feel one way or the other about it.  We probably all know people like this, but few count them as close friends.  Some might think it horrible that he used his personal experiences as fodder for fiction, but that doesn’t really bother me. What bothers me is that he only seems to really be able to connect with people through fiction, either his actual work or the stories he tells only to himself.  So any happiness he might give or receive is difficult, if not impossible.  Instead, he hurts the people he cares most about and doesn’t seem to realize it until after they’ve died and it’s too late to do anything about it.  Such a sad way to live.

Strange coincidence – I read this book right after Sandra Day O’Connor’s book, and Henry James was a friend of Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (as young men and throughout their lives).  It even implies – and again, this is a work of fiction based on facts, not a biography of established facts – that James and Holmes had a one-time sexual encounter during their friendship.

Toibin is clearly a skilled writer (a master, one might say) who can create authentic atmosphere and character for people, places and eras.  He made the character of James interesting and sympathetic without ignoring his negative traits.  I will surely be looking for other books by Toibin.  If you are looking for an enjoyable way to learn more about Henry James, artists in the early modern period, American ex-patriots, gay men in the Modern period, the English relationship with Ireland, American views on the Civil War, or the thought processes of conflicted people – all of these and more can be found here.