Thoughts On Other People's Thoughts On Fiction

The Women's Colony is abuzz today with the literature vs. popular fiction debate. Go read it there. I refuse to paraphrase the gifted writers over there. I read early, I'm sure the comments have gotten better, but a few early ones caught me:

The writer of that letter clearly doesn't know what she's talking about. If she did, she wouldn't have failed to include the REAL hack...er...I mean, writer, Stephanie Meyer.

Here's my letter to you in response:

Dear Professor Mary,

Fail that student.

Love,
~aaryn

Let's ignore the dropping for a sec. I really respect Aaryn's writing. She makes me laugh, she makes me mad, she makes me think, and her daughter is just beautiful! And I agree with her as regards sub-par writing being touted as themostamazingbookseverohmygodyouguyssparklyvampires! Here's the thing, I've read the Twilight books. I didn't pick a team, but I was entertained. I have critiques in abundance, but that's not my point today.

This commenter made an excellent point.

I just checked back to see if the course was Contemporary Literature as this would give you reason to fire Aaryn's email straight back at your student but as it was Contemporary Fiction .... well, there may be some validity in what your student says. Populist doesn't necessarily mean poor writing. Although I still shudder at Donna Tartt's 'Secret Garden' and think Zadie Smith's 'White Teeth' may be a case of the Emperor's New Clothes..

The course description didn't say Popular Fiction. It said Contemporary Fiction. This commenter summed it up nicely.

Oh, good grief. Isn't the point of education to broaden yourself? Omission from a college syllabus of contemporary writers isn't a slam on King, Rowling, et al. I personally would be pissed if I were paying for a lit course that turned out to cover books II could buy on the paperback rack at the supermarket.

So on to my stance. I read. A lot. I read magazines, blogs, a broad range of novels, even the occasional dip into nonfiction. Here's what I like. I like stories, good ones, even if I've seen the basic structure before. I like characters. If I like the characters, and the writing style isn't dumbed down (which can be a problem in a lot of "popular fiction"), I'll read it.

So, here's me, lifelong reader, self professed lover of character and story, sitting on a pricey, elitist college education, and I decided to turn my hand to writing a story of my own. Guess what? It's very likely going to be a single title contemporary romance. Hopefully, a smart one with likable characters and a literate writing style, but a paperback beach read nonetheless.

Will it ever be published? Hope so. Will it ever be on a college syllabus? Probably not. And that's okay. Let's expand our horizons and grow with Contemporary Fiction, but let's not discount Popular Fiction indiscriminately.

BBJ Returns From China, Felix Loses A Shoe

Big Brother J is back from an epic, two and a half week trip to China with his grandparents. It sounds like an amazing trip, and I can't wait to look at the pictures once the slideshow is ready!

Felix lost a green Croc on Cambridge Street.

The books I have been waiting for for a week are not coming. They are out of stock. (Why it took a week for the vendor to let me know this is a mystery.) I have been refunded. I will be going to the bookstore tonight, since I finished The Amber Spyglass this afternoon, and now have nothing to read.

Our nap schedule is shifting, and Felix is not loving it.

That's all I've got for today, but in the interest of getting back into the habit of frequent posting, I'm putting it out there anyway.

Interests Other Than Blogging?

It’s been more than a month since I’ve posted, and I promise, it has nothing to do with lack of inspiration. I’ve started and abandoned more than two dozen posts in the last months, but here’s the truth. I was lazy.

And I was reading. Books. With paper pages.

I read the first part of a family drama called Wild Swan. Then, I got sucked back into Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta novels, and decided to reread the whole series. That's 16 books from Postmortem to Scarpetta, and it took me all of April and some of my vacation (yes, vacation, and I'll post on that later) to read them. I am now caught up, and awaiting the publication of the next one.

I read Twilight, since so many of my friends and contemporaries were reading it, and against my more intellectual instincts, I was drawn in to the story, and am waiting to acquire the rest of the series.

While I'm waiting, I decided to stick with the young adult theme, and am just finishing up the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. I haven't read like this since before Felix was born. It's been exhilarating, and it's entirely zapped my motivation to blog.

Look for upcoming vacation debriefing, and photos of the beginnings of the new front entryway. And hopefully some light gardening.

Happy Spring, and welcome back!

Tea Leaves on Page 56

Apparently, feeding the munchkins sparked some conversation. Nice!

And now, some filler until I can think normally again.

* Grab the book nearest you. Right now.
* Turn to page 56.
* Find the fifth sentence.

I've done this one before. I find it entertaining. Kind of like reading tea leaves.

"Brrr's recall of what had happened before seemed limited to apparent causes of what had happened next."

from A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire

Reading. Be Back Soon.

I had a post all set, save for the photos, but it's been backburnered. I got my hands on my mother's copy of Katherine Neville's The Fire last night, the long awaited sequel to my favorite book of all time, The Eight. I'll be back tomorrow, likely after I've finished it.

Book Club 2008: Third Month

This month's selection was Eat Pray Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert

Let me begin by saying that I'm often turned off by literary hype. If everyone is reading a book because Oprah said to, then I'm going to avoid it until the buzz dies down. It's not because I assume I'll dislike it. It's more to avoid being lured into the trap of only reading things that the media tell me are good. That's why I was so psyched about this "club." With so many diverse women choosing the reading list, how could I be led astray? Needless to say, when Eat Pray Love turned up on the list, I thought, "Well, duh. I know I should read that. Tell me about a book I didn't see on a bestseller list."

Also, the reader before me told me she didn't particularly care for it, and I thought, "Ha! Not everyone loves this book!" It's almost like I was setting myself up to dislike the book to prove some point about myself. I am not part of the New-York-Times-Bestseller-List-Reading Mob(Was all this introspection brought on by reading this book, I wonder?)

That said, I loved it. I ate up every word. I thought about what Ms. Gilbert had to say about prayer and faith and belief. Some of it resonated very deeply with me. I want to go to Bali. I want to go back to Italy. I think I can live without going to India, but I won't turn down an opportunity, if one presents itself down the road. I want to recommend this book.

Next Month: Rise and Shine, by Anna Quindlen

Book Club 2008: 2nd Month

I forgot to post a review of my second book in the book circle. This was the first selection from another reader, so I was excited to get into it. It was originally going to be What Is Mine by Anne Holt, but it got switched at the last minute to The Third Secret by Steve Berry.

The Third Secret, by Steve Berry

Let me start by saying that I've read his work before. I thoroughly enjoyed both The Templar Legacy and The Romanov Prophecy. This novel centers around the pope (it was written before Pope Benedict, and tells the story of the Pope after John Paul II) and past accounts of Marian visions around Europe, particular the visions at Fatima. I love Vactican intrigue stories, so this was an easy read for me. Add to it a novel which questions Catholic dogma and reaches slightly different conclusions than you might expect, a good love story, murder and mayhem, and you've got this book. I'd recommend it, especially if you like your yummy fiction with a little thought on top.

Next month: Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. (and yes, I know I'm the last person on the planet to read this book...)

Book Borrowing

One of the things I love about our library is that it's part of a huge inter library loan network with online catalogs, renewals, and requests. It's perfect for the lazy time crunched mother. So, last night I went and picked up my most recent stash.

Knitting books much?

Book Club 2008: The Innaugural Review

Mrs. Boss invited me to be part of her book "club," this year. It's nothing so formal as a regular book club. The premise is this, everyone in the circle chooses a book up front and reads it in the first month. Then, on the first of the new month, everyone sends their book to the next reader on the list. At the end of the circle, you get your book back, and you've gotten to read however many books there are in the circle.

I'm psyched!

My book:
The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

It looked like a tasty novel; a mystery, a family secret, a reclusive fictional author... It turned out to be a twisty, sly, gothic thriller of a story. It was an unabashed love song to the Brontes and all their contemporaries. It dug inside a family's secrets, peered behind the social niceties to the human ugliness, and occasionally its beauty. It celebrated the reader, the lover of stories, the book-obsessed. I loved reading it. I stayed up late reading it. Was it an "important" novel? Probably not, but oh, did I enjoy myself. The language and atmosphere conjured "Jane Eyre," which isn't an accident, and the characters were very real, despite their fantastical natures.

Next up:
What Is Mine, by Anne Holt

We're Going On Vacation!

My parents own a number of annual points in the Disney Vacation Club, and for a combination of my upcoming 30th Birthday and our 2nd anniversary (holy crap! we've been married two years!), they've offered us a long weekend away!

We're going to try out the property at Hilton Head for two nights, then we're staying in Savannah, GA for a night! And with hotels and airfare covered, we can actually afford to enjoy ourselves a little! Hooray! I'm excited about Savannah, especially, since I'm a huge fan of Paula Deen, and her restaurant, The Lady and Sons, is right in Savannah!

I can also see The Mercer House, made infamous by Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil (great book, if you haven't already read it...).

So, we're booked on a Friday morning flight on April 27th, and we return the 30th, four days of southern cooking and quiet, dog sitting included! I can hardly wait!

I Am So Pathetic...

I have a Borders Rewards card, and this makes me part of a cult of eleventy million (to borrow from Aunt Purl). Today's Borders email was this:


There was, of course, no announced publishing date. There was, however, a sign-up sheet for the opportunity to pre-order... and I'm chomping at the bit.

So sad...

And yet, I can't wait to get my hands on it!

Wide, Wide Heaven

I've just finished reading The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold, at the recommendation of a friend. It's one of those books that's been buzzing in my ear since it was published, but I just never got myself out to pick it up, and it turned up on the shelf here at work, so I started it...

The friend who recommended it to me was asking me how I was in reference to Glenn's suicide in June. As she didn't know him, and wasn't even really around me during the period surrounding his death, I was a little startled, and very touched by her concern. Strangely, that made me apprehensive about reading it... Even though I knew the plotlines to be different in the novel versus my life, was the tender spot I have on my heart about to be ripped open for examination again?

Having finished the novel, I owe my friend a debt of gratitude. What she understood from our conversation was my hope that in whatever passes for an afterlife, Glenn knows how beloved he was, especially given the isolation he must have felt at the end of his life. Having that very idea explored so graciously in a work of fiction allowed me to think on it without pressing the bruise I have from his death.

I think about things like when I should erase his contact information from my cell phone. I know I'll never call that number again. My stomach twists when I see his name in the prompts for certain email distribution lists. Should I remove that byte from my hard drive? Is it an affront to his memory to do that? Rationally, I know it's not, but still, I can't bring myself to do it, and yet I think of him almost weekly, when I hear something, see something, even remember something I would like to share with him and can't. I attended a board meeting at my former prep school last week, and one of the speakers bore a heart-rending resemblance to him from a distance, and I stopped breathing for a moment, suffused with joy. When it deflated, I thought about leaving the room to gather myself up again. I didn't, but I said a little prayer to him.

I like the idea that from his heaven he can see us, to perhaps understand what we're doing and how we're all handling the loss of him, and maybe he can even see that we all love him and cherish him still -

Maybe he'll find a measure of the peace he was lacking during his time with us, and be able to go free into the wide wide heaven without us...

And if it took a work of fiction to make that notion seem less foolish and more heartening to me, I'm going to be glad. I'm going to believe it when I feel his humor brush up against me at odd moments. I'm going to tell his stories when they come up, and hope he smiles hearing the telling.