The Miracle at Speedy Motors, Alexander McCall Smith

Tebogo Mogapi, The Gaborone Raid, June 14, 1985

(June 19) More along the lines of the last three -- interesting puzzles, eccentric people, plenty of ethics-wrangling. Nice and open-ended so there can be more.

McCall Smith has a lot of fun with chapter titles and a flamboyant bed purchased by Mma Makutsi.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, Lisa See

An Ho, Wang Xifeng

(June 14) I really enjoyed this “autobiography” of a girl growing up in the hinterlands of 19th-century China. Like Memoirs of a Geisha, The Far Pavilions, I, Claudius, even Gone with the Wind, it seems to create a vivid, you-are-there experience of life in an exotic culture and a remote time. It’s the combination of (1) the sense that the author has done exhaustive research into the time and culture and (2) the intimacy of the first-person narration.

Lisa See is particularly good at providing “the insider view” -- the narrator does not seem to be explaining her culture to foreigners, she’s assuming the customs and motivations are already familiar; she’s unconscious to her culture, as we all are. As a BookCel member says, “the protagonist does not appear to be a 21st-century feminist playing period dress-up.”

And the details about foot-binding, family structures, nu shu, laotong relationships, marriage customs, economics and more are fascinating. It’s all women culture, but the way it’s presented, so vividly and devotedly, undermines any knee-jerk-feminist disapproval one might harbour about apparently misogynistic customs. You may have found it unbelievable that women put up with the mutilation of their feet, and See is not an apologist, but Snow Flower and the Secret Fan makes you appreciate how the pressures of culture are irresistible, and sometimes even yield rewards.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards

Heather Spears, Drawing of a Child with Down Syndrome

(June 10) This was one of those completely-don’t-get-it books for me. It was a #1 New York Times Bestseller and there are many on-line reviews in which readers rave about the book and list it as one of the three best books of the year or one of their Top 10 of all time... and I can’t see the enthusiasm at all. There are books I don’t like well but can still see why others would like them a lot, but this is not one of those. This is a book that you might grudgingly finish reading because it opens so well and you hope that the writer will rise to the occasion again... but she never does, so you finish the book with the writer greatly in your debt. You can forgive her and just lick your wounds, but you can’t rave about that book and rank it high.

The first chapter would have made a cool short story. The author did a really virtuoso job of weaving in a lot of camera science and technology as metaphors. These things made me give her the benefit of the doubt. But it was kind of a timid novel, never getting out of two dimensions, and I looked at my watch the whole time I read it.

Purple Hibiscus, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Uche Edochie, Perfect Illusions

(May 23) Loved this as much as Half of a Yellow Sun, for the same reasons -- the vivid and appealing characters, the cultural illumination, the humanity of the vision. It’s quite a different story, though -- it’s a girl’s coming-of-age in a dysfunctional family, as the daughter of a man whose public persona is heroic and generous, but who’s actually a religious fanatic and a sadistic tyrant. In some ways it’s more tense and scary than a war saga.

Basically, when within half an hour of starting it, a book has got me burning to hatchet-murder a fictional character, I know I’ve got a powerful book on my hands.

Half of a Yellow Sun, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Uche Okeke, Refugee Family

(May 14) Loved. Loved so much I could not turn to any other writer right away despite trying hard, and finally went out and got Adichie’s first novel, Purple Hibiscus, just to have some more of her.

The characters are interesting and endearing, and their struggles with the Biafran war of secession against Nigeria are spell-binding. I really enjoyed the cultural immersion -- Adichie has a skillful way of presenting customs, things, foods, words, etc., that would be exclusively Nigerian so that they seem natural but are also accessible to foreign readers.

I was most amazed by my own ignorance about what was going on in Biafra, which was all the news when I was in high school. I can’t believe I was so unaware. I thought it was famine alone.

So it was good story, anthropology lesson, and history / poli sci lesson all in one, and very well done.

Also, it’s heart-breaking.

The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield

James Abbott McNeill Whistler, Speke Hall

(April 30) I really enjoyed this and would highly recommend it, particularly to fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Woman in White. The author actually blends all the signature elements of those stories into one of her own, adding in a few extra twists, and I think it’s really well done.

For example, there are two narrators, a take on the nested narrators in Wuthering Heights, but, here in The Thirteenth Tale, because of what they’re going through, the narrators blend and merge in a dreamy way and become indistinguishable at times, causing reader double-takes in a very cool fashion.

Most of the characters in The Thirteenth Tale themselves, in fact, are fans of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Woman in White and refer to the books quite often (especially Jane Eyre), so there’s some meta going on as well, to modernize things. In fact, I was a little skeptical about the book for the first 40 or 50 pages -- it’s clearly a book-lover’s book for book-lovers, a concept done to death these days, I think. But The Thirteenth Tale definitely became enchanting and, I’d say, stakes a claim for a life of its own.

The basic mystery itself is absorbing -- Setterfield is good at red herrings, bizarre clues and limited points of view -- and thrillingly creepy at times. Friends who recommended The Thirteenth Tale to me reported staying up till the wee hours to find out how the mystery is resolved and I can see why (although I personally did not pull an all-nighter to finish it).

The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls

Charles Blackman, Children Playing

(April 24) Riveting account of what it’s like to be raised by two free-spirited, 1960s-style full-blooded hippies, who aren’t going to follow society’s rules, work for the man, poison their bodies, compete with fellow human beings, etc. -- they were going to use their genius to make their fortune and live self-sufficiently and high-mindedly ever after.

Andrea recommended it -- but she was horrified by the story because she is a mother with young kids, and she can’t imagine exposing children to the danger, deprivation and instability that the Walls kids experienced.

I on the other hand was kind of swept up in the romanticism of their life -- the kids got to do a lot of amazing things and developed some really amazing skills -- and they weren’t really in a lot of danger a lot of the time. LOL. They certainly all turned out well.

It’s clear that Jeannette Walls herself is bitter about the way she grew up -- in telling the story, she belabors certain hardships, quotes her parents as ironically as possible and is proud to have ultimately led the charge to escape from the parents. In fact, it’s kind of a case study of how kids turn out exactly opposite to their parents.

Later on, though, the parents seem less creative and more self-serving. The mother lost me when she hid a chocolate bar from her starving kids and the father when he stole the kids’ hard-earned escape money.

Also, I feel bad for ever suspecting in school that kids who took food from the garbage cans were gross and / or pigs. How can we ever have thought of them that way? They were starving children, for god’s sake.

In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, Blue Shoes and Happiness, The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, Alexander McCall Smith

Susana Van Bezooijen, African Woman

(April 10, April 12, April 21) These are the sixth, seventh and eighth in the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. I read the first five all in a row a few years ago, and really liked them. Liked them so much I bought the books, and tried to get other people to read them.

So this is coming back to an old favourite after a long hiatus. Of course it's going to be different. There is so much activity in the newer ones, sigh. One of the charms of the early ones was that very little happened -- the small cast sat around and thought a lot -- and yet profound answers to minor mysteries would suddenly erupt and you would be charmed and surprised by the solutions.

Now there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and they are often getting into quite dramatic scrapes that leave less time for sitting and thinking.

I'm also now seeing them through the lens of the Isabel Dalhousie series, and realizing that the two series are not opposite ends of a spectrum like I first thought. There are a lot of ethical issues in Precious Ramotswe's life -- she’s just not as Zen about them as Isabel. Both series have lots of domestic detail, lots of eating and drinking and looking at countryside. Same big issues and same small scales, just different countries.

I was kind of stunned recently by someone's off-hand remark to the effect that "McCall Smith's Botswana books are patronizing." This never occurred to me when I read the first five, but -- duh -- I can see now that even just the fact of a white Brit writing light-heartedly about black people in a former colony would arouse the suspicions of the politically sensitive. And then the language is very plain and simple, and the people address each other as Mr. So-and-So and Mma Such-and-Such in a kind of Dr. Seuss-y way -- it would be very easy on a superficial level to assume the Batswana are being infantilized.

But I read the books in the usual way (lol) and never saw any demeaning or belittling going on -- the books are warm and fuzzy, and even cute, sometimes, but they also have the thrill of the exotic and the wisdom of ancient fables. The humour is never at the expense of the main characters or their values. And I never took the style as a sign of a superior attitude. It reminded me from the beginning of reading the English version of a García Márquez novel... like McCall Smith was trying to create a "translated voice," which I find interesting.

To me, it was always simply that McCall Smith had created a new style of detective novel ...and a weird and wonderful one, too.

The Careful Use of Compliments, Alexander McCall Smith

William Crozier, Edinburgh (from Salisbury Crags)

(February 14) We learn even more about modern Scottish painters in this Isabel Dalhousie and also travel out into the rural parts of Scotland and the isles a great deal (in contrast to my image choice above). This time the nominal "mystery" is a potential art forgery, and once again McCall Smith provides an interesting and unexpected solution. However, he didn’t surprise me with the final twist in the Isabel-Jamie-Cat love triangle.

Or is he just leading me on?

Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, Alexander McCall Smith

William Allan, The Murder of David Rizzio

(February 9) This one has the most shamelessly chick-lit title in what is definitely a series for women readers, and there is some very feminine swooning over chocolate and men in it, so it is a bit soap-opera-y. But Friends, Lovers, Chocolate does redeem itself by once again featuring this highly original definition of mystery McCall Smith has played with in the series, and it does so by way of some really interesting questions, namely, can a heart recipient see the donor's murderer (if indeed the donor was murdered) and what is the importance of being able to give thanks for an important gift?

As in The Right Attitude to Rain and The Sunday Philosophy Club, we learn a great deal about the City of Edinburgh (particularly in June) and about 20th-century Scottish artists, and in this one we go into a bit of Scottish history as well. The famous story of Mary Queen of Scots being unable to prevent the death of Rizzio right in front of her eyes is a counterpart both to the fate of the heart donor and to Isabel's indecision about taking on a Latin lover. Quirky.

The Sunday Philosophy Club, Alexander McCall Smith

William Crosbie, Dum Vivimus Vivamus

(February 4) So, just as rain is a topic mentioned only once, very casually, in The Right Attitude to Rain, a Sunday philosophy club is just a throwaway reference in The Sunday Philosophy Club. I’m starting to get the charm of these books.

There is at least a mysterious death in this installment, which explains how the series must have won its berth in the "mystery" category. However, Isabel doesn't "solve" the puzzle for the usual reasons sleuths solve mysteries -- and she doesn't do anything with the solution once she has it --; it's a very anti-mystery mystery. Her response to the death is an ethical question for Isabel, first and foremost, and for the bulk of the book she dithers away over other small, domestic, ethical issues, just as in The Right Attitude to Rain.

There is so little action! People are met, beverages are drunk, food is eaten, routines are gone through. Still, there's something really pleasant about the tone and pace of these books. Also, both Sunday Philosophy Club and Right Attitude to Rain have ended with a completely surprising twist, for which McCall Smith deserves a lot of credit.

The Right Attitude to Rain, Alexander McCall Smith

David Gauld, Music

(February 2) Aunt Lois gave me this since she had an extra copy and we’d been talking about Alexander McCall Smith on Christmas Day. I was glad to get it because I loved the first five books of the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, and I’d heard various people (including Aunt Lois) say they liked the Isabel Dalhousie series as much, if not more, than they liked the Botswana books.

But, at first blush, this book baffled me. I expected it to be different from the Botswana books, but I wasn’t prepared for it being different in the way it was. The narrative voice is all brisk and conventional, instead of tender and cheeky as it is in the Botswana books; the main character, Isabel, is not presented with the same kind of cozy familiarity as Precious is; and, moreover, Isabel is, basically, borderline neurotic, constantly and exhaustively analyzing everything that happens and every little choice she has to make in terms of their ethical ramifications. It’s the very definition of Zen mindfulness. In fact, an hour reading this book is more like an hour spent doing mindful meditation than anything else.

On top of this, nothing really happens, and Isabel is not really a sleuth; she’s a bit curious about people and their motivations, but that’s it. There’s very little discussion of rain, even. It seemed flat and formal, like the David Gauld painting above, at first, and I didn’t think I’d end up pursuing the series.

But by the end of the book, the pleasant tone and pace had won me over a bit. I was wondering if I had been wrong to read the third of a four-book series first, and willing to give another title in the series a go.

Well, four books later, I can say that it was definitely a mistake to read The Right Attitude to Rain first. Now I know that A GREAT DEAL happens in The Right Attitude to Rain and that I spoiled my potentially much greater enjoyment of it by reading it out of order. Also, I now appreciate Isabel’s philosophical conundrums as “the mysteries” she solves, and have to concede that her thorough working out of her ethical duties is a quite acceptable kind of sleuthiness.

The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman

William Blake, The Ancient of Days

(January 29) I loved Book I, was able to coast happily through Book II on that love, but found Book III a bit of a chore to get through. In trying to resolve all the giant questions and epic struggles set up in the first two books, The Amber Spyglass wanders all over the place and, I think, becomes completely incoherent at times.

Also, it goes all 17th and 18th Century on our ass. I saw the Blake allusions even before Pullman came right out and called the God figure “the ancient of days,” and it’s impossible to ignore the homage to Milton at this point (I didn’t see it in the earlier books but “His Dark Materials” left little doubt it was coming).

I’m not a Milton fan, so the grandioseness, artificiality and über-Catholicism of Book III killed my buzz; but there are plain old mechanical problems as well. It’s almost as though Pullman ran out of time and/or space -- he set up such a leisurely pace in Book I that it seems he’s cramming too much half-worked-out material into Books II and III.

I was so disappointed with what happened to Mrs. Coulter. I was also not sure how Lyra, Will and Mary represented Eve, Adam and the Garden of Eden’s serpent, as advertised (and not interested enough to reread and work that out).

On the other hand, I still enjoyed Pullman's imagination and inventions for their own sake. The faux anthropological studies of the mulefa and the Gallivespians, for example, are enchanting.

The Subtle Knife, Philip Pullman

(December 28) This is a respectable continuation of The Golden Compass story -- not a disappointing continuation, because Pullman's amazing imagination is so enjoyable, but not a dream-fulfilling continuation either, because now the story is getting a little overcomplicated, and Lyra and her world are no longer prominent (in fact, we are in our world, ho hum).

This book introduces a new character -- a 12-year-old boy, Will -- and I found myself really not wanting to be interested in him since it would be disloyal to Lyra, lol. But Pullman managed to overcome my bias and is successful with Will, I think -- his courage is just as thrilling as Lyra's, and he's his own person, not just a male Lyra. I really liked him, and was entirely captivated with the function and role of the knife.

I began to see here in Book II why Lyra is so appealing in Book I: she has a lot of balls, like a boy, but is still girlish and girly (e.g., in her affection for Pan and her bedazzlement by Mrs. Coulter). Will, in contrast, is tender and conscientious, very touchingly so, I thought, like a girl, and yet there was no doubt he is a boy. There are many satisfying little parallels in the two characters and in the ways the mystery looming around them draws them in, which make The Subtle Knife fun to read.

However, that über-story also starts to take itself very seriously, and wants to be an epic allegory now, rather than the localized little struggle it was in Book I. I find this less compelling. Also, it's hard to watch Lyra fade into a co-star role, sigh.
Michelangelo, David

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

John Everett Millais, Portrait of a Girl (Sophie Gray)

(December 19) I was taken by surprise by this little fantasy and then was completely taken with it.

A young girl, Lyra Belacqua, in a world not quite ours, decides to investigate a mysterious new scientific discovery. She must trick and undermine a lot of evil-doers, and learns a great deal about her own abilities along the way.

I guess I expected something like Harry Potter, but it’s not like that at all -- it's not cheerful and wouldn't-it-be-fun-if -- it's so much darker and more adult in every way (even though the protagonist is 12 years old). In fact, it's shockingly dark sometimes -- Lyra's parents are frightening and the world she's in is cold and ruthless.

The whole book is imaginative and original, but the main character, Lyra, is a huge factor in its charm. What a creation! She makes all my other favourite girl heroes -- Alice, Anne Shirley, Jo March, Scout Finch -- seem like ninnies. Yet she's still completely credible, as a girl and as a point of view.

I loved how it slowly emerges that Lyra is in a parallel world. There is no doubt from the beginning, with the daemons, that this is fantasy, but you aren’t sure whether this is our world in the future, having "gone wrong," or some kind of shadow world, or what. Pullman lets it dawn upon you in layers, letting you "solve" little mysteries about what people are doing and saying on your own, rather than explaining everything in detail ahead of the action, as even Lord of the Rings does, which makes everything more cartoon-y (I think).

The Golden Compass is subtle and disarming, plus very suspenseful -- I could not wait to find out what Dust was, and what would happen to Asriel and Coulter, and so on. Fun stuff.

The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace D. Wattles

(December 9) This little book (if indeed it counts as a book -- it takes only an hour or two to read) is the Victorian businessman’s version of The Secret and The Success Principles.

Like its successors, The Science of Getting Rich says that to be successful you must: “believe” you are acquiring wealth and possessions; live as if you have wealth already; cultivate a grateful attitude; ignore all other issues in life except getting and enjoying wealth and accomplishments.

I like this Victorian version because it is Victorian -- the energetic tone and passion for productivity that are the hallmarks of a late 19th century sensibility are perfect for this subject. Wattles isn’t trying to be mystical or proprietary about this bizarre theory; he’s just trying to simplify it for ease of use (as Victorians liked to do).

He lays out the principles -- a Way of Being, he calls it -- straightforwardly and objectively, not passing any judgements on it nor offering any wild speculations on why it exists. He’s simply convinced this system works and believes it’s everyone’s moral and civic duty to try it.

Alphonse Mucha, Moët et Chandon Crémant Impérial

The Secret, Rhonda Byrne

Martin Sharp, Explosion

(November 15) Reviewing this book takes care of reviewing The Success Principles, because it’s the same book, just clothed differently. The premise in both is that we all have complete power over the events that occur in our lives and can acquire all the wealth and property we desire by locating that part of ourselves that is infinite and one with the universe and using it to attract goods and experiences. (And also by cultivating an attitude of gratitude, and by running mental tapes of the things and accomplishments you want in your head constantly (i.e., meditating).)

It’s certainly true that identifying this principle and writing a book about it will bring you success -- there are dozens of versions of them out there, all best-sellers, and I believe The Secret was an Oprah book. Jack Canfield’s The Success Principles is the professional businessman’s version of it; Barbara Sher’s Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want is the professional businesswoman and homemaker’s version; Sonia Choquette’s Your Heart's Desire is for the psychic New Age hippie crowd; Deepak Chopra’s The Seven Spiritual Laws Of Success is the mystical, ancient-wisdom, more-overtly-about-meditating version; James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy is for the adventure-fiction lover; etc.

Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret must be the busy young woman’s version, since it’s short, cuts to the chase, and provides quick, message-board-style testimonials to back up the “insights.” I believe she acknowledges William Walker Atkinson, but she saves you the trouble of wading through his 19th-century style.

It’s fun to read the forums about The Secret -- people are either passionately supportive or passionately contemptuous of it, and the vast majority are the latter. I think there is something repellent about the theory in this book and in all those others, something mercenary that makes people reject it without even wanting to try it. It’s counter-intuitive to the Protestant Work Ethic mentality of the western world, for sure.

But, true story: The moment I finished The Secret, I used the principle to try to get a parking spot at the library since I had to get the book back there within the next 15 minutes. One of the testimonial-providers in The Secret said he used it all the time to get parking spaces close to where he wanted to be, and nine times out of 10 got them. So I drove to the library visualizing a parking spot directly in front of the doors, and I believed I would get it. When I turned onto the library’s block, I laughed to myself, because every single spot on both sides of the street was taken up (which was completely bizarre at 8:50 p.m. on a Wednesday night, too). I rolled up slowly in front of the library with the intention of turning into a driveway and looping back around. At the exact moment I arrived in front, a car pulled out just ahead of me, leaving the most plum parking spot anyone could desire wide open.

Run, Ann Patchett

Faith Ringgold, The American People Series #20: Die

(November 1) I looked hopefully to Run to deliver some of that Bel Canto magic since it's the first book Patchett's written since Bel Canto, but, alas, that was not quite to be. It's really likable, though. It starts out very promisingly indeed with a family story about a statue that goes back several generations and into "the old country" in a very charming magic-realism way... but then it turns into a story of family ties in a strangely interracial family that involves adoptions and a person who doesn't know who her real parents are: in other words, a blend of Taft and The Patron Saint of Liars. Again, as in Taft, the interracialism seems to be merely decorative and, again, as in The Patron Saint of Liars, the girl doesn’t seem to be affected either way by not knowing the identity of her real mother/father. Still, Patchett creates some really interesting patterns within the pieced-together family in this book. Odd touch: Run is sprinkled with passages from famous U.S. political speeches, justified as a “game” developed by the current generation of brothers. It undermines the willing suspension of disbelief every time it crops up.

Truth and Beauty: A Friendship, Ann Patchett

Norman Rockwell, Doctor and Doll

(October 21) Not what I expected at all. When I first heard about Truth and Beauty, it sounded controversial and exciting. There were boards full of angry readers ranting about Lucy Grealy's life (was she immoral or clinically ill?) and Patchett's entitlement to the story (was she a vulture, an enabler or a true friend?). Then, Clemson University alumni and parents objected to the assignment of this book as required first-year reading, because it was pornographic and encouraged a sordid lifestyle. Patchett said this perception had blindsided her: "if anything, the criticisms of the book had erred on the side of, 'It's too sweet, too gentle.'" Elsewhere, talking about Lucy, Patchett makes it sound as if their friendship was a long litany of difficult, drama-queen moments: "Lucy was hard, she was a challenge. And she pushed us all to our limits... sometimes to our most horrible."

So then I read Truth and Beauty, anticipating a roller-coaster ride of moral challenges, harrowing escapades, deep feeling and intimate glimpses of a fascinating person. It had none of these things. Grealy's life doesn't come across as particularly edgy or lurid, certainly not enough to provoke the passionate denouncements and defenses on the discussion boards. She just sort of slips into heroin use in the last two years of her life, but Patchett is so distant and disapproving at this stage that we don't see any of the actual destructiveness of the addiction. It's a symbolic Bad Thing.

Nor is the book pornographic in any way, and Patchett definitely does not encourage imitation of any of Lucy's racier activities, which are anyway only mildly racy. It's a complete mystery to me what the Clemson U protesters could have found offensive.

It's not sweet, either. It has what should be touching moments here and there, but Patchett never communicates any of what it was she loved about Grealy, even though she states many times that she did love her. I expected Patchett to rise to the challenge of explaining why limit-pushing Lucy was so beloved by so many people, but at best she makes Lucy sound like a quirky pet or doll and at worst she dwells on the behaviours that would make Lucy unappealing. (These amount to nothing more than irresponsibility with money and a habit of jumping unexpectedly into your arms or lap.)

Truth and Beauty is really mostly about Patchett, and about how "slow and steady wins the race," even though the hare steals all the best scenes. It's Patchett’s apology for being dull and stodgy -- she's claiming dull-and-stodgy kept Lucy alive.

So the title “Truth and Beauty” is really kind of vengeful, after all; it's not the reference to Keatsian transcendentalism it promises to be.

Autobiography of a Face, Lucy Grealy

Pablo Picasso, Crying Head (V)

(September 27) I really liked this little book, for both the content -- for being allowed to gawk at the harrowing experiences of a young girl who spent her childhood undergoing brutal treatments for cancer and then the rest of her life horribly disfigured by it all -- and for the writing as well, which is as clear and light and easy as hearing oneself think. You wish you knew Lucy Grealy, feel bad for what she went through, are sorry she died, feel cheated of other writing she might have done.

I came to this book in a very roundabout way -- it is the companion-piece to Ann Patchett's Truth and Beauty, which was just being promoted when I was reading Bel Canto. I was certain I wanted to read only more fiction by Patchett, not a memoir -- and, in any case, Lucy Grealy sounded from the reviews like a fatiguing prima donna of a girl, pace her illness and disfigurement. I went ahead and read Patchett's three other novels, and was consequently, sadly, on the verge of losing all interest in her, when a BookCEL member pointed the group to a special series in The Atlantic on the controversy at Clemson University over Truth and Beauty. I read the interview of Patchett there, watched the video of her speech, listened to the NPR interview with Lucy Grealy, then finally bought the Atlantic fiction issue to read the essay "My Pornography" by Patchett. Lucy now was fascinating, charismatic, irresistible.

I now know from Autobiography of a Face and from the lengthy interview on NPR that she can't have been diva-like and over-the-top all the time -- Patchett must have deliberately exaggerated this; or else the stories she chooses to tell about Grealy in the Atlantic essay are focused on this unconsciously. But I am just about to read Truth and Beauty (sorry, Success Principles; it’s just not working out between us), and I suspect I’ll see that Grealy romanticized herself as an adult in Autobiography of a Face. You know she wasn’t 100 per cent drama queen nor could she have been 100 per cent Beth March in Little Women, but you can also sense the romanticizing filter in the book itself. The detailed scenes Grealy recreates from her childhood have the unexpectedness of real life, but her quick trip through her adult years offers details that mostly sound like literature -- those dull thunks of poetic justice, irony, "ain’t it true?", etc. -- the careful hand of the artisan. Even the expression toward the end gives me the feeling of the smoke-machine being wheeled out. I don’t hold it against her -- it was her own life she had to go on living, after all, once she finished writing the book (and scored the cash). But I don't feel like I'll have met her real adult self till Truth and Beauty finally wends its way to the Dundas branch of the Hamilton Public Library.

And I do have a private theory that Patchett might have caricatured / infantilized Grealy a little bit out of jealousy. I think, on the basis of one little book, that Lucy might have been the better writer. They are similar writers -- there's a whole generation using this voice, actually -- but Patchett is ever so slightly... sedate. Some would call it "polished."

By way of contrast here is a small sample of Lucy that is, to me, transporting:

The third life took place after school, and all day during the summer, when I went to my horse, Swinger, with whom I was conducting nothing less than a romantic relationship.

I knew his whole being. There was not one part of his body I could not touch, not one part of his personality I did not know at least as well as my own. When we went on long rides through the woods, I would tell him everything I knew and then explain why I loved him so much, why he was special, different from other horses, how I would take care of him for the rest of his life, never leave him or let anyone harm him. After the ride I would take him to graze in an empty field. I would lie down on his broad bare back and think I was the luckiest girl alive, his weight shifting beneath me as he moved toward the next bite of grass. Sometimes I took him to the stream and laughed as he pawed at the water, screaming in delight when he tried to lie down in it. Best of all was when I happened to find him lying down in his stall. Carefully, so as not to spook him, I’d creep in and lie down on top of his giant body, his great animal heat and breath rising up to swallow my own smaller heat and less substantial air.