A Distant View of Everything, Alexander McCall Smith

Stephen Conroy, Untitled (Self Portrait), 2005(?)

(November 23) Wow, this is the first time in years I’ve sat down and read a book in two and a half days! And looked forward to getting back to it in between readings, and was eager to read the next in the series (like I was following a Joss Whedon TV show). I had totally forgotten what that was like. (And for me Isabel is particularly addictive.)

There are at least six books recently listed on this blog that I have not yet even read at this point in time; I can’t seem to work up the dedication to finish them (despite they’re all being very short, since I was trying to be realistic about catching up). 

Then along comes wonderful Isabel Dalhousie and wonderful Alexander McCall Smith and I am reading like a fiend, ignoring the internet.

This one had the usual adorable jumping-to-conclusion-iness of Isabel Dalhousie novels, and realistically so in this case (I seem to remember complaining previously about the trope getting a little hack-y). 

Isabel and Jamie had another son!

Sometimes the reason behind an Isabel Dalhousie “mystery” is light and comic; sometimes it’s a bit dark and/or verging on criminal. This one was not terribly dark -- a lonely man tries to spark widespread dislike for someone he’s jealous of -- but it is a bit more sad than usual (and maybe not something to be left to clear up on its own??).

For the art above, I was looking for Scottish paintings of men crying, since Isabel notes at one point that she’d witnessed three separate men crying within the space of 12 hours -- Jamie, Eddie and Rob McLaren -- and five males altogether within the same time frame if her two baby sons were counted.

But then I saw these paintings of men by Stephen Conroy ... and he was born in Helensburgh, which one of the characters in the novel is also from (or has a summer home in or something)... and so it is the perfect choice. This portrait does evoke Rob McLaren’s embarrassment for me.

Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life, Héctor García and Francesc Miralles

Henri Matisse, Icarus, 1947

(March 6, 2019)  I canʼt remember where I heard of this book or what made me want to read it... I obviously went for it because it is a very short text and I have been desperate these last two years to read at least one book a month.

And I donʼt know why this took me so long, a full five months, to read... itʼs only 186 tiny pages, and itʼs the gentlest little guidebook ever.

It was a bit surprising actually -- for the plupart, it seems to be about this “ikigai” concept, being aware of your special gifts and predilections. It describes life in philosophical terms not unlike an Oprah book. It seems to be very spiritually oriented. 

But two-thirds or so of the way in, it becomes a real practical advice / guidebook, with references to all kinds of studies of longevity and what has been learned medically and scientifically about long life. Suddenly I felt like I was reading the 5:2 Diet books or Frank Lipman, etc.

The authors infantilized the seniors in Ogimi a little bit. 

Here are the Okinawa superfoods: tofu, miso, tuna, carrots, goya, kombu, cabbage, nori, onion, soy sprouts, hechima, sweet potato, peppers, sanpin-cha (jasmine tea).

I want to start drinking the jasmine green tea, and to find radio taiso exercises, and to do a sun salutation every day. But the ikigai part? ...uh, okkkkkk

10 Reasons You Feel Old and Get Fat, Frank Lipman

Lucian Freud, Sleeping by the Lion Carpet, 1995-6

(July 12, 2020) I wanted to read something by Frank Lipman because he is/was the vitamin guy for Goop and got me thinking carefully about omega-3s… and eventually about collagen. I remember liking his opinion that all you really need as supplements are omega-3s, collagen and Vitamin D.

But as I get into this book, I find itʼs about basically the same things as Sara Gottfriedʼs book Younger, which I read just four or five months ago -- eat right, sleep long, do some yoga, take this one vitamin (lol). I should have topic fatigue here. And why is Goop lining up so many duplicates among their experts? 

Anyway -- although the books recommend almost the same health protocols, and offer you two-week or however-many-week programs guaranteed to revitalize you or reset your biological age -- Sara is very much into how your actual cells will change under the microscope and how you will have different chemical results when tested for various conditions, while Frank is very much into making you feeeeeeel good. It's all about you feeling young again (and slim). He also encourages people to customize his various recommendations to suit their own bodies, believing each individual is their own best doctor, which is appealing.

I guess there is a slightly different focus -- she is a genetic researcher, and he is a naturopath, lol.

But, again, in terms of living according to a protocol, just as I'm never going to try to go to bed early for Sara, I wonʼt be trying to go to bed early for Frank. My circadian rhythms will never be top-notch.

I do admire the careful thinking that went into these protocols, though. And you canʼt help picking up a few good habits each time you read one of these guides. Maybe.

The Merry Spinster: Tales of Everyday Horror, Mallory Ortberg

John Lawson, Little Miss Muffet, 1860s

(June 9, 2020) I loved The Toast so much that I bought this book to support the author (now Daniel M. Lavery), the Toastʼs co-founder with Nicole Cliffe. The Toast was restoringly feminist but I loved it most of all for Laveryʼs art history pieces, like “Orpheus Rescuing Eurydice From the Underworld, in Order of Rescuing” and “Western Art History: 500 Years of Women Ignoring Men” -- always so clever and cheerfully satirical, always so profoundly insightful about human psychology.

I expected The Merry Spinster would be clever because, yes, it is odd that we like to entertain children with the grisliest stories, like about being eaten by wolves, poisoned by witches, kidnapped by beast/men, etc. I assumed Lavery would do much the same thing with these archetypes that he did with classic paintings, and with literature in Texts From Jane Eyre -- highlight the weirdness of human behaviour by anachronizing everything.

And he did do that a little bit, but this collection was not really about taking the piss out of old standards -- it was more about showing exactly what the horrors of everyday life are, and how the victims just endure them.

Like, there are people turning into swans for extended periods, or being made to eat, sleep and sit with a frog 24/7, or falling in love with nonhumans, but the real horrors are the ways in which people are manipulating one another, failing one another, refusing to face reality, taking advantage of othersʼ kindness, etc., etc.... all just really normal everyday nasty things that go on all the time in real life.

So itʼs like reading a bunch of short stories that have slightly surreal settings but which are more about the mundane betrayals, prejudices and bad faith we have all seen or suffered from, and therefore are a bit depressing.

I found it a bit of a chore to read the first few (longer) stories, actually.

But Lavery really has a talent for mimicking the style / the vibe / the tone of any given genre...really recreates the fairy-tale feeling here... and then that is undercut to humorous effect by the anachronisms, just as in the art-history pieces and Texts from Jane Eyre.

[lovesick son]: “She came back to ask me to return her comb, which I had under my pillow, and which I could not give her. For if she does not marry me, I will die, and I wish to be buried with it. Then she asked, if I would not return the comb, if I would not change my mind and live with her under the sea, and I told her I could not, but begged her to visit my grave when I perished from the wanting of her."
[grim, witchy mother]: “You two are never at a loss for conversation, at least."

lol

Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, Elizabeth Simcoe

Elizabeth Simcoe, Niagara Falls, Ontario, July 30, 1792 

(December 20, 2019) I started reading this because it was short, and it felt like “a good thing to do,ˮ to read up on the early organization of Upper Canada, kind of a duty read, but hopefully quick and dirty.

And then I took forever to get into it .... mostly because I knew I would always be able to renew it at the library... as with The History of Gardens, nobody was going to be putting such a run on Mrs. Simcoeʼs Diary that I would have trouble keeping it (but people did request it once or twice over the past year and a half... no one ever requested The History of Gardens for the two and a half years I had it).

But then I finally did read a long stretch of it... and I realized that Simcoe was journeying down the same path that I have driven every six months for the past almost 40 years... it struck me first that I had a lot in common with her experience when she was in Quebec City in midwinter and was gobsmacked by how warm people kept their houses and ballrooms... she was always commenting on being too warm indoors in the middle of sub-zero weather... and I thought, guess what, 225 years later Quebeckers are still keeping their homes superhot in the winter, way hotter than we ever did in Ontario (and my parents were very fond of being warm).

But then the Simcoes proceeded down the St. Lawrence and it was like a tick-off of all the geographical points I have come to feel like old friends after going by them 160 times... the ile of Montreal... Mrs. Simcoe rode out to “La Chineˮ one day to see the rapids but her only comment was “the roads were very badˮ... then the Simcoes travelled down the St. Lawrence... they passed Gananoque, Cornwall, Kingston, all the usual suspects one by one, stayed in York (Toronto) for a while, then made it down to Niagara, my old stomping grounds, where Mrs. S. refers to many landmarks I recognize... and they lived in Navy Hall, which I remember well... and they would go up to visit Queenston, Fort Erie and Chippewa, just like we do 200 years later... and at the end there is also a lot of description of the area I live in now, which to them was “the head of the lake,ˮ and where Cootes Paradise was already named and didnʼt seem to Mrs. S. to be as swampy as usual marshes.

Anyway, it was so interesting to get Mrs. S.ʼs impressions of all these places so long ago... and to think of how they were travelling and living in the wilderness here... and to think George Washington was alive and causing trouble in the States, and Marie Antoinette was executed while they were here... It was all a bit disorienting... when I learned Canadian history it was presented in total isolation... it felt like Canada was separate and very young, and the rest of the world was very old... and that is partially true but Canada obviously has some history too.

Even more striking than the foreshadowing of my own life and geography was Mrs. S.ʼs fortitude... she came over here in a wooden boat in the fucking 1790s to begin with, then when they got here, the Simcoes lived in tents and huts basically... often sitting around outside under “a bowerˮ in the middle of winter. They had tons of servants and a battalion at their service, but it was still a very primitive way of living and they just bore it. Very few complaints of hardship.

They brought with them only two of their children, the two youngest, and then Mrs. S. had another one while she was here! That daughter survived only a year and a half or so, but the shortness of her life doesnʼt appear to have been related to primitive conditions.

I really have to admire Mrs. S.... what she went through, and the talents she had... amazing.... 225 years ago!

And so many things so completely unfamiliar in the way people lived back then.

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose, Eckhart Tolle

Lawren Harris, Morning Lake Superior, 1921

(November 11) I really liked this book… it inspired me… in ways different from the Abraham-Hicks philosophy, although it seems to mesh with A-H stuff quite nicely. In fact, it made me think that A-H is offering the paint-by-numbers model of attaining joy in the present, in order to attract and convert the greatest numbers. Eckhart Tolle shows you what that fucking ego is doing and so it is a more intellectual but probably more thorough approach, but it is so hard to maintain. My ego is huge and mighty, and it is my ego that is saying this now.

Anyway, I liked this book so much I bought it… I feel I need to reread it many times.

Younger: A Breakthrough Program to Reset Your Genes, Reverse Aging, and Turn Back the Clock 10 Years, Sara Gottfried

W.T. Benda, Cover of Life Magazine September 1923

(September 23, 2019) Iʼm pretty sure I heard of this book or this author through Goop -- I didnʼt make a note of it, but when I look up Sara Gottfried these 15 months later, a lot of the results direct you back to a Goop podcast or article about her -- particularly about her first claim to fame, the hormone-balancing protocol. Sheʼs been interviewed and cited many times over there.

Anyway -- itʼs a great book, in that it delivers an interesting premise and a galvanizing promise. ‟Dr. Sara,” as she likes to style herself, is convinced that most people can stave off the worst aspects of aging by following her health protocol, and the protocol is fairly easy and straightforward to follow... itʼs almost exactly what we were taught in Health in elementary school -- eat good foods, sleep a lot, play outside, brush your teeth, and so on... even the moral equivalents of ‟do your homework” and ‟go to church”: now they are ‟keep your mind engaged,” ‟honour your spiritual life.”

Dr. Sara presents all the supporting science to show that you can shorten or lengthen or ‟whatever” your telomeres, and affect all kinds of chemical processes in your body that accelerate aging or lead to ill health, all in terms that are understandable to the layperson. It is so cheering to learn that so much of what we dread about getting old is avoidable, and even reversible!

Her most encouraging refrain is that we are not at the sum total of our genes -- we inherit some unalterable stuff through our genes, but we are not at the mercy of our genetic heritage: most things are affected by environment / nurture.

So when I was first reading this, 15 months ago, the protocol felt easy to do and so rewarding, so I thought I would try to follow it closely, but now, coming back to it and getting into the detailed daily requirements, I find many inconveniences and realize itʼs unlikely that I will be able to follow it to the T. I do some of the basics of it already -- food, sleep, exercise, mental activity...

But Dr. Sara would like you to be in bed by 10 or 11 every night and up at 7 every day, and this is not going to happen for me; this is not what I retired for. Iʼm also going to be bad at the requirement to three times a day brush your teeth with an electric toothbrush and floss. Nor am I going to make bone broth every week, or avoid gluten, or get a sauna every few days, or take all the supplements she recommends, etc.

So I suppose that if I donʼt follow the protocol to the T, I wonʼt get the optimum results... but I donʼt mind: that is an already healthy thing about me: I never stress about meeting goals, lol.

The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights From Super Soul Conversations, Oprah Winfrey

Vix Harris, Oprah Queen, 2016

(April 20) Thank you, Oprah, for creating a Coles Notes compendium of all the spiritual thinkers you have brought to prominence. 

 This lady really knows what the people want. 

 Smallest of complaints: the design of the book, while tasteful, makes it difficult to read sometimes, with all the coloured papers and with text overlaid on art. Sometimes there was not enough contrast between the typeface and the background, and there was too much italic (which makes good contrast even more vital). 

I was interested to pursue more about Jill Bolte Taylor, who lost her ego through a stroke. 

Sister Joan Chittister’s parakeet story made me cry. 

Overall, the book made me want to listen more.

The Seat of the Soul, Gary Zukav

Georges de La Tour, Magdalen with the Smoking Flame, ca. 1640

(July 21) I tend to measure these psychological / woo-woo books against Abraham-Hicks thinking, because theirs is the most consistent explanation of the meaning of life I've come across. 

So I was worried when Zukav showed signs of being Christian-centric: Jesus is always one of his first examples of an enlightened point of view, and, though he mixes in Buddha, Gandhi and a few other spiritual leaders very conscientiously, you can sense that Christianity is a strong force for him. 

But in the end I would say that Zukav’s point of view is perfectly at one with anything the A-H people try to say; he’s just a little more moralistic about it all…he's like the OCD version of A-H, very specific and regimental, very detail-oriented. But I feel like he comes out to the same thing…. let your inner guide guide you, do the right thing because the karma from it is so rewarding, enjoy life the way you were designed to, be kind.

The Miracle Carb Diet: Make Calories and Fat Disappear -- With Fiber!, Tanya Zuckerbrot

Mondongo, Cotton thread on wood panel, 2006

(March 7) I heard of this “way of eating” through Brooklyn Blonde, started following the Tanya Zuckerbrot and F-Factor accounts on Instagram, and got hooked by the concept… I had had some success with the 5:2 diet but this seemed to be healthier and more sustainable…  This title is the only book by TZ available at the library, so I got it, but The F-Factor Diet, the book she mentions the most on her Instagram, is actually the older of her two publications (the Miracle Carb one is more up to date, apparently).

It was good, worth the read (done in an afternoon… I did not read all the recipes word for word, and that’s a big section of the book)… and even though I have been following the Instagram accounts for a while, I learned a lot of details I would not have picked up otherwise. The book is very repetitive, as are the Instagrams, but to me that’s a good sign… it means they don’t fool around with speculation or correction.

I would buy the book if I could get it for under $10… the recipes looked good and the four “stages” TZ recommends for a would-be dieter are distinct.

For now, I am just going to try to add 30 grams of fibre to my daily diet.

Courage Is Contagious: And Other Reasons to Be Grateful for Michelle Obama, ed. Nicholas Haramis

Michelle Obama illustration by Rob Biddulph based on portrait by Ethan Miller (2009?)

(February 7) I picked this up because I was seeing it bruited about on social media and, more importantly, noticing that it was very short… useful when I am trying to get the blog back on schedule.

And of course I liked this because it is a series of tributes to Michelle Obama, whom I already hero-worship. It was nice to have all her talents laid out formally, though, by celebrities.

I don’t recall whether the book takes any pains to explain why this title in particular was chosen, but it wasn’t because there were a lot of stories about other people's spines being stiffened, as per the Billy Graham quote (which, unfortunately, is about the influence of a brave man), but maybe that quote is just a byword in the States for brave people, and Michelle Obama is certainly one of those.

Each of the contributors praises MO profusely and all of them mention her big endeavors (that damn garden especially -- reading about it repeatedly made me wonder more intensely about the actual impact, which is never documented here) as well as her private style.

What was interesting was how each essay addressed the task… how some writers started out with a story about themselves while others started out with an image of MO, or of some improvement she made.

Overall, it seemed to be on the small side as tributes go… and what was really noticeable was the constant reference to Donald Trump and Trumpian things. He is the background to everything now, after a scant year in power… that is way too much influence to have, especially when he’s so regrettable.

When you feel like the book came out more as another rant against Donald Trump than as a sincere tribute to an amazing First Lady, something’s wrong.

Braving the Wilderness: The Quest for True Belonging and the Courage to Stand Alone, Brené Brown

George Agnew Reid, Call to Dinner, 1886-87

(Jan. 7) I can’t say Daring Greatly made me want to read any more of Brené Brown, but I guess I saw this one come out and be mentioned by all the usual suspects so I put it in my holds queue… and then I got it, and saw that it was a nice short book,… so I went for it. 

Braving the Wilderness made me realize what it was that was so unsettling about Daring Greatly: Brené Brown’s thirst to be seen as a scientist. Perhaps what she’s doing in this book is a little more desperate… this book feels like it got rushed out to address the hopelessness being caused by the Trump presidency… almost every best-selling self-help author is getting something out right now to shore up the faithful. 

I did notice particularly in this one that the cures to the ills Brené Brown finds are often expressions of her own values -- church-going, Christian family values (although “research” is given the credit).

She does blow you away with the intimacy of her personal stories. And I do think her message is solid gold -- she is basically saying we can have a more humane future if we can allow ourselves to be vulnerable, to show vulnerability. I think she's absolutely right. 

But no more of this science for me.

Swimming Home, Deborah Levy

David Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972

(December 1)  I really liked this book (long short story, really? novella?). It was so nice to be reading fiction again… I feel like I haven’t in a long time… and it was also a story I looked forward to going back to and thought about in between reading.

This was a bit of an expedient reading choice since it’s short and I am so far behind. Erica Davies and/or Alex Stedman (bloggers and Instagrammers I follow) recommended this title (or the author). It was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize in 2012.

Early on you sense there could be death or a near-death because of the way the tensions are ramped up… then as the story goes along you wonder if there might be more than one death, or if the character you didn’t think of at first would turn out to be the casualty or the near-casualty, and then you wonder further how anything can possibly be reconciled without a death…

Short but powerful. Vivid in terms of capturing depression and mental illness. Ends with a shock.

Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant

(October 29) ‟I am always thinking about how this book was put together. There is so much careful attributing of each scrap of an idea to the proper name, to one of the two joint authors of this 176-page ‛book.’ It’s funny they want so much copyrighting. And it’s very light stuff anyway. But the binding together is somehow too noticeable, distracts from the message.”

Those were my notes while reading this little book, but for a long time I couldn’t find them... and thought I would have to write something up for this blog based on my memory of the book... and the only memory of the book I had two years later was of how shocking and traumatic Sheryl Sandberg’s husband’s death was, and how awful it was for her to have to tell all the people to whom it mattered -- their kids, his parents, his siblings, her parents, her siblings, all their friends. I could really relate to the agony of the latter activity. But this whole section was very vivid.

I don’t now remember the advice or ‟the message” at all... and now, having found my notes, it’s funny to see that there must have been a message of some kind. It was completely nonabsorbent.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck, Mark Manson

"Fuck You" (Hatsukoi-Yokochou manga)

(September 25) This is the fastest I’ve read a book in a long time, not because it was hard to put down or anything, just because it’s very short, and chattily written, blog style, so not that great a reading challenge. ::shrug:: 

I anticipated hating this guy because all the hype about the book emphasizes the “refreshing slap in the face” style self-help -- so I was dubious -- thought it would be just pointless and negatively oriented, probably sensationalistic… but by p. 4 he says trying to act positive just focuses on the lack of positivity, which is reassuringly Abraham-Hicks. His main topic is not trying, like Edward Slingerland’s Trying Not to Try: The Art and Science of Spontaneity, only now the point of view is that of a young male blogger who uses a lot of foul language rather than that of an erudite scholar.

Manson is pretty young to be making a lot of the pronouncements he makes about human behaviour and he has the classic arrogance of the inexperienced -- ‟if it happens like this for me it must be the same for all,” and ‟if it never happens that way for me it’s not true.” He’s also very fond of a broad generalization.

In a lot of ways, though, his advice for living supports Abe-Hicks.... it’s just the teen-diary version.

When You Find Out the World Is Against You and Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments, Kelly Oxford

Wayne Thiebaud, Supine Woman, 1963

(September 4) This was recommended by Busy Philipps, whose Instagram I enjoy following; when I looked it up on the library system there was an impressive waiting list for it, which surprised me, since I’d never heard of her till then, and meanwhile this was her second book, her first was a best-seller, apparently she’s been a well-known funny woman for some time. And she’s Canadian! *head-scratch-emoji*

The book is a pleasant read… it’s a collection of short stories, memoir-fashion… it was not laugh-out-loud funny to me, and only occasionally did I heh-heh, but there was a lot of “inner smiling” and wry grins and enjoyment of the point of view. I looked forward to reading it in between bouts, but I didn’t steal time from other activities to read it. A classic 3 stars!

I debated that, though, because of the wonky ending. Following a series of mildly entertaining stories about her early and current life, Oxford suddenly launches into a diatribe against Donald Trump’s sexism… purely understandable in terms of the window of time in which she wrote it (well before he got elected)... but kind of lacking in impact once her book comes out and he’s already been elected. Everyone’s written the same diatribe. It made for an out-of-tune book ending.

This work also may be suffering a bit from second-book syndrome, the collecting of all the left-over bits that never made it into the debut best-seller, thrown quickly together to fulfill a contract. If this was Oxford’s B material, though, her A material, Everything’s Perfect When You’re a Liar, must be pretty good.

The artwork above was suggested by Oxford’s own Instagram -- she has a print of this in her house. It seemed like the right illustration, even though her fashion vibe is totally different.

You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life, Jen Sincero

Olga Shvartsur, Unicorn Rainbow Watercolor, 2016

(August 21) Sydney Poulton on Instagram recommended this on her Stories; when I looked up the title at the library in March, there was a huge queue for it -- so I jumped on that bandwagon.

I quite liked it ...looked forward to reading it whenever I wasn’t, which I don’t usually experience with non-fiction. It’s a life-coaching book, intended to help you find your power in your uniqueness & etc.

There’s an interview with Jen Sincero on the Daily Mail online in which she says:

“To be honest, I don’t think I’m saying anything all that brand new. I think I’m just saying it in a new way. You know, one of the motivations for me writing this book. I’ve read like 10,000 self-help books. There was nothing that was kind of funny and curse-y and irreverent, and I was like, man, that’s what this industry needs.

 “You can read the same thing a hundred times but somebody can say it in a certain way and suddenly everything changes. That’s sort of what I wanted to do with this book, was to not only make it entertaining but to give somebody who wasn’t quite getting it the opportunity to get it from a different voice….”

She is absolutely right in assessing her own work in this way… and that’s why I like her: she is honest and she is right, and although the concepts were familiar, this book opened up some new reading interests for me.

The unicorn drawing above is not there to make fun of the book or Sincero -- she herself jokes about unicorniness several times throughout the book and she would laugh her ass off at this illustration for a review (and the rainbow is oddly inaccurate anyway).

Life's Work : From the Trenches, A Moral Argument for Choice, Dr. Willie Parker

Graffiti from El Salvador

(August 24) I read this because of Gloria Steinem’s Instagram: ‟His book, Life’s Work, will change you.ˮ

I have always supported the right to abortion and never had any moral qualms about it, but Parker lays out all the reasons why abortion must be legal in a humane society and all of the reasons why anti-abortion activists do not have any claim to higher moral ground, so logically and serenely, so incontrovertibly, that I felt actively proud to be pro-abortion.

He points out what’s really going on with anti-abortion activists… they are not just blind but actually evil (not his word but the ultimate goals of anti-abortionism are pretty harrowing).

And you think -- wow, if a guy as righteous and spiritual as this can take this position and moreover argue it so persuasively… how can any of us have the slightest qualm?

So it was a very interesting and empowering read.

The Girl With the Lower Back Tattoo, Amy Schumer

Tom Labaff, Amy Schumer: Sadlarious, 2016

(June 14) Overall, I really liked it… I laughed out loud or at least guffawed out loud quite a few times. But when I look at my notes, they’re all complaints… and this is often what I do with a book I do like… I start going, “it was great but …” and enumerating all my issues with flaws.

But in truth, although I liked this book and laughed along with Schumer in the same way I did with Kathy Griffin or Miranda July, there was just something a little… (the word for when you’re gross and insulting and ignorant in order to make people laugh but you are trying to be meta about it so that everyone knows that what you really value are tastefulness, kindness and sensitivity… you’re not really that gross girl, you just know what makes people laugh and deep down you are the angel girl).

So that was very palpable… she is very careful to show how much she cares about the girls who were killed at a showing of her movie, for example, and to emphasize that while she can do a cheap joke she supports all the right causes and understands political correctness…

What it amounts to, though, is an undercutting of her humour… she isn’t that proud of herself.

She makes all the right noises -- she claims to be body-positive and not to care that people might think she’s overweight… but she mentions this so often that it becomes “the lady doth protest too much”...

And she gets very serious and repetitive about all the right causes -- the need to make women equal, the need to reduce domestic violence, the need to keep children safe, etc., etc. -- they’re all good causes but it’s like she invented them… it’s like she really really really needs to make us see she is a fine upstanding woman.

I mean, I like that she is using her platform to support good causes… I just don’t need the constant reminders that she is someone who supports good causes. “I’m a good girl.”

Anyway -- I just want to quote “Uptown Funk” to her: “If you freaky then own it.”

Also -- she gets gross and she can get really gross… sometimes it’s too much for me… and in one particular case (actually more than one -- two similar stories) I wonder at her taste AND ethics… this is related to the artist’s rendering above… he thought Amy’s stories of her dad shitting in public were “sad and hilarious” at the same time… I didn’t see the humour, and I think it really should be her dad’s prerogative to get laughs from talking about shitting his pants… they’re not her stories.

Also, she “cancels” her mother -- probably for very good reasons -- but with all of these elements it’s like you can feel this river of molten lava flowing aggressively under the charming surface landscape and it’s a little distracting..

But I’m focusing unfairly on weaknesses -- I loved reading the book overall.

A Short History of Gardens, Gordon Campbell

Lodewijk Toeput, Pleasure Garden with a Maze, 1579-84

(September 13, 2019 ¬_¬ ) Gah, I can't believe how long it took me to struggle through this book! I chose it initially because of its shortness (184 pages, pages the size of a mini iPad) and thatʼs why I didnʼt just give it up -- I kept thinking SHOORLY I could get through it.

But it was awful reading, both physically -- the type is small and tightly spaced, there is maybe one paragraph indent per page, the pages are dense grey -- and literally -- the prose is dry and academic, and the organization is nothing more than grocery-listing.... and you could tell that space was at a premium by the content as well as by the printing, because Campbell is at pains to fit a lot in. It covers all the gardens in the world, from the beginning of time, in 184 pages! Put together for us by an old-school scholar who merely marshals the facts and dully regurgitates them.

Also, for a book on gardens, which are after all a visual art, there is almost no illustration -- there are a few tiny colour plates tucked in the middle of the book, and a few black-and-white photos throughout the text, but really it is all a bit of an insult to the topic.

I just kept renewing and renewing this library book, putting it aside till the next renewal in favour of more interesting books, knowing that I would never not have access to it. No one else would ever want to borrow it.

But this past spring (2019) I was introduced to a few of the Monty Don garden series on the BBC (French Gardens, Italian Gardens, Around the World in 80 Gardens, The Secret History of British Gardens, Big Dreams, Small Spaces, etc.) and was fully blown away by the beauty and interestingness of the topic -- it was like enjoying my old fine arts courses.

So then I came back to the Gordon Campbell book, thinking surely he will at some point mention Monty Don, since Don was so obviously an expert on the history of gardens and on the importance of certain gardens, and all of his books and series predated Campbellʼs book.

But he never mentions him once, nor includes any of his books or films in the reference section. He only comments at one point that the British people are very fond of gardening and armchair gardening to the tune of an important number of GNP pounds per year, alluding to shows like Monty Donʼs (and thereby echoing Monty himself who several times mentions in various series how big an industry gardening is in the U.K. GNP-wise and how beloved).

So I realized what was going on here -- Gordon Campbell saw how scholarly and art-historical the topic could be thanks to Monty Don and his ilk, and decided to stake a claim to it as the bona fide academic (professor at Oxford) and therefore more credible expert. Heʼs “discoveringˮ the topic as far as serious academics are concerned.

Then, he couldnʼt get a lot of money together to support a big book with lots of colour illustration (and maybe, as an academic, would not have wanted to produce anything too showy anyway), so he put out what he could -- a tiny, crammed pocket dictionary of a book.

I say “Yuckˮ to you, sir.

Why do I give it even 2 stars then? Because it's acceptable academics and, though dull, the prose is error-free and understandable. And, obviously, he recognized a good topic.

The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben (translated by Jane Billingshurst)

Patricia Kozowyk, Winter Woods, 1993

(April 14) I really loved this book -- the things trees are doing and going through are amazing... It gets to be a cliché in the book, but it’s like finding out that animals have emotions or that foreign people “are just like us.”

I have always liked and anthropomorphized trees and I like to project compliments and mental support at them when travelling but now I am in absolute awe of them, and feeling very maternal about them.

The fact that they communicate with each other, and with other plants, and look after each other, and raise their children -- it’s all quite stunning and beautiful.

And Wohlleben has such a lovely way of writing about them -- he is so gentle and loving in his descriptions of them, you can’t help but feel he’s talking about another kind of human being -- for example, he calls tree seedlings “tiny conquistadors” when describing their efforts to conquer new worlds.

Wohlleben may also have referenced Suzanne Simard’s TED talk since she was the one who discovered that trees and fungi use each other to share information and nutrients, but I seem to have heard about both the book and the talk around the same time separately.

Really makes you want to be an eco-warrior.

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead, Brené Brown

Melysa G., Cowardly Lion, 2011

(March 9) My note on the book in the library system says: “recommended by Jillian Michaels on Instagram,” which kind of surprises me now because I thought I got the urge to read it from the Glennon Doyle Melton book, as well as Facebook or Instagram posts by Elizabeth Gilbert… they are all interwoven, these women… they reference each other in their books, they regram each other’s Instagrams, they support each other’s causes… and they like to quote Leonard Cohen lyrics and some specific poems that I didn’t enumerate as carefully... It’s interesting there’s this cabal... there’s probably an official name for them, but I call them the “self-improvement memoirists”… Brené Brown is not so much a memoirist, but she frequently tells stories about herself to illustrate a point, and you can tell it’s because she knows that self-revelation helps people buy a concept (and, initially, identify with and like an author).

Pages 36-37 caused a lot of anguish for for me… tears streamed down my cheeks as I read these stories of people’s shame and humiliation… not because the stories were so terribly horrific (and anyway they are about events that everyone experiences in one form or another)… but just because in that moment it hurt so much to think of people going through all this sorrow and pain all the time, all over the world…

However, although there were passages that were very strong for me and I agree with every insight Brown offers and every recommendation she makes, I couldn’t rate the book above 2.5. Brown tries to rally respect and scientific cred for her conclusions about human behaviour by constantly using academic terms -- she uses the word “research” a lot, and loves buzzwords like “evidence-based” and “research-based.” She reminds us repeatedly that she has master’s and doctoral degrees and that she consults with a lot of people who have degrees as well...

From my point of view though as a lapsed academic, she stretches the meaning of “research” quite a bit. What her work has really been is talking to people (“research subjects”) to find a comment that proves a psychological barrier or condition exists, then interpreting the cause and cure for the problem using the big-picture wisdom of a leading expert in psych stuff (consulting them is more “research” as well).

I think what she’s saying is so great, so insightful and so useful, that it doesn’t need this propping up... but, so, because she props so hard I have to feel suspicious about it.

She is even worse with this in Braving the Wilderness.

Love Warrior, Glennon Doyle Melton

Medici Venus (wax anatomical model), 18th century

(December 26, 2016) Recommended by Elizabeth Gilbert on her Instagram; I brought it along to read in Lachine over the holidays since it’s relatively short (250ish pages) and (I thought) an easy read: spiritual / personal development stuff and all that… easy, right?

I was then totally surprised and amazed at how powerful this book is. This woman is some writer. At first it was compelling just because Doyle Melton was so open and so vulnerable, and you felt like you were meeting a real woman and making a good friend

But then she begins to talk about every fear and dislike and worry, etc., I’ve ever had, and removes all the shame and disgust from them, and that was so welcome and such a relief.

And she is so relatable -- discovering the wonder of yoga, bonding with the seaside, fussing about her weight / looks, and so on and so on. So then I stalked her all over the place on-line, liking her and identifying with her more and more, unable to believe I had never heard of her before now.

Will I read her first book, Carry On, Warrior? Not right away probably -- her wisdom is somewhat exhausting and I need a wee rest from this. But I was basically blown away by this book. (Also, everything she says and reveals for you is in line with Abraham-Hicks.)

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, Marie Kondō

A Bijin-ga by Shimura Tatsumi (1907-80)

(December 2) I really liked this -- it definitely speaks to a need I have, and makes it seem like tidying up in the Marie Kondō way would solve all the problems in life -- the income tax, the house insurance, the how-much-more of that to buy or get… and the method is fascinating… and Kondō treats it spiritually, which is so interesting but so much in line with Abraham-Hicks that it’s scary.

The book (the philosophy) gives you a lot of hope.

Marie Kondō’s voice is so sweet and pure, a joy to read even if you didn’t like her tidying-up philosophy one bit (but, as she says, you wouldn’t be reading the book if you were messy and didn’t care).

I want to follow the plan properly -- I`m pretty sure it will bring the magic she talks about. I will probably buy this one. (ETA: I did buy this book, but I have not followed the plan in the two and a half years since I read it, because I haven’t found the time to do it “properly.” Kondō warns that if you don’t execute the sorting properly and completely the first time, you will never achieve the magic part.)

I can’t find a note about why I wanted to read this or where I heard about it -- I am pretty sure it was recommended by someone I follow… I can’t remember who… but I’m glad I was directed to it…

I identified closely and tenderly with Marie Kondō’s interpretation of the psychology of her interest in tidying -- she feels like she never trusted people, but could always trust things. To her, things never deserve anything but tenderness and gentleness. I totally get that.

The only negative vibe for me in all of this was: where is all this stuff going? Kondō often boasts that clients she works with will have 30 - 45 trash bags full of items they are discarding after just the first day, and they will have dozens more over the course of the subsequent stages. She’s had thousands of clients. Is it all just being moved around Japan?

Playing Dead: A Journey Through the World of Death Fraud, Elizabeth Greenwood

Noémi Schipfer and Takami Nakamoto, Hide and Seek, 2012

(November 25) I forget how I heard about this book, but the topic is of course interesting.

The book begins with Elizabeth Greenwood talking to a lot of people who investigate death fraud and it was mildly interesting to learn all the telltale signs of not being dead and how people can track you down thereby… and about how the age of the internet works against you because of digital footprints but also can work for you if you know how to fake up a lot of websites and false digital trails.

But Greenwood starts off her non-fiction book with the premise that her research journey was all intensely personal -- she had $60,000 in student debt and wanted to be free of it, so that’s why she looked into faking one’s death. Also, she likes the romance of death-faking.

This would have been OK as a starter and with one or two additional mentions throughout the book… it’s standard practice in books of this kind… the having of a personal reason for launching an investigation of a topic.

But this girl never lets it go! And it becomes tedious af, especially when shored up with little anecdotes about other aspects of her life, particularly “humorous” stories about how clumsy she is or what a loser she is.

Argh, it feels like so much padding…. A feeling that gets starker when you consider the length of the book (244 pages) and the size of the pages (very small).

Why do people do that, or why do people’s editors allow them to do that? The topic is super interesting on its own and she has so many good interviews with would-be death fakers that you think she surely could have expanded those stories and done without the “I-too-want-to-escape-my-(small)-debt” posture.

And then you realize her editors probably encouraged the personal business….. WHY?????

That put me off quite a bit.

But then Greenwood went for a little while into the death-hoax conspiracy believers, the groups that think Elvis, Paul McCartney, Michael Jackson, Princess Di, and many others (all beloved celebrities) faked their deaths and are either coming back soon or are currently being portrayed by a look-alike. This blew me away.

So: kind of an interesting little book, significantly spoiled by an identity crisis, when it decided it wanted to be a humorous memoir as much as an investigative research piece.

The Woman I Wanted to Be, Diane von Furstenberg

Eric Pattee, Sketch Loosely Based on Diane von Furstenberg, c 2015

(February 10, 2017 -- i.e., 3½ months later) I saw this recommended on several fashion Instagrams I follow, and noted that it was short, and committed to it.

However, I don’t understand how those Instagrammers liked it enough to recommend it… I mean, it’s not a horrible memoir… but it feels a little sanitized ...or a little too polished… or something. DVF doesn’t whitewash unflattering or unhappy moments in her life, but they all “help her learn something” or they open a door to something else that turns out well… she is not someone to dwell on miseries (or she realizes misery doesn’t make a good memoir)... (and of course being someone who doesn’t dwell on unhappy events is a good thing to be, so why am I kvetching???).

The material that sounds true and honest, unpolished, uncurated is when DVF describes a great passion -- like admiring her mother, loving her father, wanting to prove herself over and over.

The rest of the time the stories are pretty managed and everything is glossy-magazine level -- her daughter is “beautiful,” her granddaughters are “beautiful,” everyone she loves is “beautiful” or “handsome,” etc.

It’s almost as if her flaws and disappointments are included calculatingly to offset the glossiness.

She drops a lot of names but doesn't give us insight into anybody, or even much description of anybody other than to say she loved them and, WAY MORE IMPORTANTLY, they saw her talent and gave her career boosts.

You get a little bit of a sense of how a designer sets up a business, and a bit of an understanding of how a business fails even when it looks publicly like a raging success, so that was interesting.

Interesting in a totally minor way was the organization… DVF went through a number of different themes of her life from beginning to end, and along the way would re-showcase all of her relationships and homes in terms of where they were at that time. It’s like: she didn’t just tell the story of her and Egon beginning to end, done and dusted, then move on chronologically. She would tell new stories about Egon or Barry Diller or one of her many lovahs when she got to the appropriate moment in the history of the first wrap dress, or each of her companies, or each of her major home locations..

It was a strangely good way to flesh stuff out.

I never found out what exactly DVF meant by “the woman I wanted to be”.... It changed constantly throughout her life, like it does for us all. I thought by the title that she maybe had a childhood vision that she made into reality in a dramatic, inspiring way, but she…. didn’t.

The Queen of the Night, Alexander Chee

François Flameng, Equestrienne Au Cirque Fernando, 1890

(November 13, 2017) It took me over a year to finish this, but I don't know why, because I liked it a lot, right from the start. It is long, but mostly it lingered because it is a story easy to put down and pick up, being picaresque, and my other library books at the time had more relentless deadlines.

As I look at reviews I see the exact words I would use to describe it -- lush, sweeping, rags-to-riches, picaresque, "all the glorious elements of great operas of the era: love at first sight, disguise, intrigue, grief, betrayal, secrets, scheming aristocrats, a besotted tenor, dramatic escapes, grand settings, fabulous costumes, murder, fallen women, sacrifice -- the follies of humans at the mercy of Fate."

The plupart of the appeal for me is that it is a collection of interesting stories about interesting women.

But I also loved the details about Victorian life and particularly Victorian life for people in opera (or music in general) in the second French empire... Chee takes up so many fascinating tangents just to enjoy late 19th-century things, and his joy is contagious.

The ending was surprising, and great.

I learned of this book through The Toast, when the author, Alexander Chee, was interviewed for his advice to young writers.

The Faithful Executioner: Life and Death, Honor and Shame in the Turbulent Sixteenth Century, Joel F. Harrington

Lukas Mayer, Execution of Peter Stumpp, 1589

(October 13) I got interested in this book because of Daniel Mallory Ortberg's review on The Toast, which is a great piece because ...yeah… that’s not how I pictured “being broken on the wheel.”

So I read the book for that but enjoyed it for much more than the small issue of the wheel… it’s a lot of good research, which is always a pleasure to read, and it is quite eye-opening on a number of the conditions of living in the 16th century…I felt quite grateful to be living in modern times early on and more so as the book developed.

But the book is pretty gruesome… Harrington doesn’t belabor the grisliness but you can’t help describing a lot of punishments and torture mechanisms when writing a biography of an executioner ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Nonetheless, I was really taken aback by the descriptions of life in a big city in the 16th century and, maybe because of our current times, sensitive to how racist and classist people were. The caste system I would have only ever expected to see in India was completely intact in 16th-century Nuremberg and so presumably throughout Europe. Life was brutal and difficult just on the most practical level but on top of that people really tried to take advantage of other people (or at least it seems so through the executioner’s eyes).

So the century seems so foreign and far away, and yet -- this was the most striking thing -- people were doing exactly the same things to be cheeky, to play jokes, to have fun as people do today… and they used the same swear words and “dirty” words and phrased them the same way.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose… only I should be quoting this in German.

To sum up: fascinating and eye-opening

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, Elizabeth Gilbert

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self-Portrait, 1790

(September 22) I’ll never forget how much I liked Eat, Love, Pray, mostly because I went into it thinking I would be sneering and catcalling the whole way. But it was great, and I loved EG’s writing style.

Nevertheless, I forgot all about her for about six years, till a week or two ago when there stories about her interesting relationship with Rayya Elias.

Two recent Gilbert titles mentioned in these stories, The Signature of All Things and Big Magic, came to me from the library almost immediately; I started reading Big Magic first, and just inhaled it, finishing it off in two and half days.

I liked this book a lot because it is about the writing process, and EG likes thinking about the writing process as much as I do.

She has a really interesting theory about creativity and inspiration that I’m not sure I buy into totally, but what’s enchanting about it is that it’s compatible with Abraham-Hicks doctrine and even kind of supports A-H stuff in little micro ways that give me shivers when I see them from this perspective.

She is giving advice to would-be writers, and you can see the genesis of the book -- “Hey, Liz, you’re a big mega-successful writer now -- how about a how-to guide for the jillions of people who think they could have a career like yours???”

And she probably said -- YASSSSSS! ...because it’s obvious she likes this topic and she probably felt she had a lot of new stuff to add to it, because she really does.

The artwork above is meant to illustrate a talented Elizsabeth demonstrating what she does in the form she uses to do it.

The Hero's Walk, Anita Rau Badami

Lalu Prasad Shaw, Babu Resting, 2012/13

(August 15) I heard about this on the CBC one night driving back from the hospital after visiting Mom. It was one of the books in the Canada Reads “competition,” during which the proponents of different books as the year’s “best book” advocate for their choice in a debate format.

As I was listening for that hour one night (rainy and cold) it was down to The Hero’s Walk and The Illegal by Lawrence Hill. I had read neither nor even heard of either, but the advocates for the two books (low-level celebrities of various kinds) made me want The Hero’s Walk to “win.”

It didn’t -- in the end the audience voted The Illegal the winner by a narrow margin. I wonder now (not yet having read The Illegal) if that was possibly because The Hero’s Walk was only glancingly about Canada (I don’t know if the books that make it to the competition have to be set in Canada or only just be written by a Canadian or only just be published by a Canadian publisher or what). The Hero’s Walk takes place mostly in India; the role played by Vancouver could have been played by any North American city, the point being to contrast the two cultures clashing for wee Nandana. Maybe the The Illegal seemed to the audience more “Canadian” although none of the celebrities said that in their comments?

I can’t remember now if the Hamilton Library had The Hero’s Walk or not, but it was easily obtainable from Mills. The Illegal, on the other hand, was not available through Mills and there was a long waiting list for it at HPL.

I liked The Hero’s Walk from the start -- it had all the elements of the Indian novels I have read and loved in the past, like by V.S. Naipaul, Vikram Seth, Rohinton Mistry, Kipling: the endearing charming Indians, the crazy crowded spectacle of Indian life, the heart-breaking contrasts between tragedy and comedy.

For a long time while reading it I was wondering why it was called The Hero’s Walk… there were mentions of Hindu tales and myths referencing the Indian hero, and of course Indian movies, but it was all very subtle for the longest time. Eventually it’s clear that the title highlights Nirmala’s dancing school above all the other traditional stuff, and that Nirmala is really the hero the men wish to be -- steady, loving, positive. So that is a nice feature, because when we are introduced to her through Sripathi’s point of view at the beginning, when he is still mean and pinched and haughty, she comes off as silly and cowlike, another mistake he made in his youth.

But eventually you realize that that was just a bad point of view.

Sripathi transforms -- and at a late stage of life, too!! Yay for the late 50s! -- and does become a hero, or more of one.

Anyway, it’s a nice little book, with, as I say, that affectionate capture of Indian psychology whereby everything is ironically or sarcastically loving.

Thank heavens not so searing as Mistry’s A Fine Balance, which made me decide never to read another Indian novel since they were too harrowing. But here there is a lot of loss and sorrow and floating in shit water, too, as always.

The Happiness Makeover: How to Teach Yourself to Be Happy and Enjoy Every Day, M.J. Ryan

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Seated Clown (Mademoiselle Cha-U-Kao), 1896

(July 6) This was recommended by the Utne Reader... the excerpt suggested that it might be like Law of Attraction stuff… and that’s why I read it… I am always testing LoA against other theories… it’s never been completely contradicted by any other point of view I’ve read, but different people piece it together blindly, not seeing the freedom and agency of LoA, just the “truth” that being positive results in positivity… here in a similar vein the recommendations for happiness are consistent with LoA, but lack understanding of it… and I’m so happy to “get" LoA, because, otherwise, I would have to conclude that this is a book for really sad people, and it’s sad to think there are people who are this sad and who are glad for the morsels of comfort offered by this vague an approximation of LoA…

I’m giving it 2.5 stars because it’s a bit formulaic in construction… 1, 2, 3, a, b, c, anecdote from real life; analysis; solution… all these books are like this but you shouldn’t feel it happening with each chapter… in this book there were quite a few “anecdotes from life” that really didn’t suit the problem they were meant to illustrate, so those passages made you conscious of the formula grinding along, and then once or twice Ryan used her own situation of having to work on her books while others are lounging as an example of a happiness problem ...and so you think -- ugh, sorry you had to do this unhappy work for us

So that was odd

I think Ryan’s advice for gaining happiness is very good… I just feel it would help everyone more if she had the whole picture... there’s a reason gloom brings more gloom

[Added a year later (August 11, 2017): I was reading the Utne newsletter today and saw this title… and wondered, “Have I read this? It seems like the kind of thing I would enjoy.” So I didn’t remember I had read it at all and I had to come here to check. I see why I didn’t remember it.]

The Stench of Honolulu, Jack Handey

Salvador Dali, Ship With Butterfly Sails, 1937

(April 3) Jack Handey is so surreal but so hilarious… all I want to do is quote from this book over and over till I’ve copied out the whole thing.

OK, here are five random book openings:

I’ve always wanted to be an inventor. But the “powers that be” have decided the world doesn’t need things like the cardboard canoe, for when you only feel like canoeing for an hour or so and you’re too lazy to drag your canoe out of the water.

I littered for miles. I was starting to get bored when, out of the blue, a patch of bright green appeared. I was tickled pink. It was a golf course, with a big clubhouse set in the middle. Finally, something in Hawaii that was pretty.

The red boat chugged past us upriver. My plan had worked. I turned to Leilani. I wanted to gloat, but as a man I had other desires. I wanted to tell her how I had been right and she had been wrong. Wait, I guess that’s gloating.

Don and I nodded agreement. Is it wrong to lie because you’re planning to steal something? That’s a question probably only the philosophers can answer. One thing I knew for sure: The Golden Monkey did not want to be gawked at. He wanted to be melted down into smooth little ingots and smuggled to America inside someone’s rectum.

He twisted, just in time to get another volley of sticks in the back, then twisted again to get some more in the front. He lurched back and forth. A couple of late sticks bounced off his head. He looked like a porcupine, only not a regular porcupine -- a porcupine of sticks.

Completely random, but to me all completely hilarious.

Year of Yes: How to Dance It Out, Stand in the Sun and Be Your Own Person, Shonda Rhimes

D.B. Merlin, Shonda Rhimes, 2010

(March 26) Never watched her shows (any of them) but you cannot help knowing about them if you spend any time on the internet. Why did I put my name in for this book? Was it because Lena Dunham recommended it (and likes her a lot? ...because I was all Lena all the time there for a while and maybe still am).

Anyway, girl took a long, long time to get to the point of the “year of yes” title… like, much longer than I needed in order to be persuaded. Then, having set this all up, she goes ahead and dismantles it step by step…. and you realize this “year of yes” stuff was backfitted onto an existing desire to grab glory that she felt was perhaps too arrogant in itself.

It’s like she’s saying -- “I never celebrated myself on the way up and now I want to because after all I am talented and it’s not wrong to recognize one’s own talent and we should all do that and if we all did that I wouldn’t look so arrogant! But anyway -- it’s OK to be arrogant!”

She has a lot of energy. But her writing style. Her writing style is very stylized. So stylized I don’t know if I like it. I am imitating it now. How do you like it?

Anyway -- although Shonda Rhimes clearly has talent and it was not a huge burden to read this book, I am less interested than I ever was to watch Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Scandal, or How to Get Away with Murder. I developed some retroactive sympathy for Katherine Heigl’s issue back in the day, even.

There is so much misdirection and multiplicity going on here that the bullshit alarm goes off more than one likes.

Not That Kind of Girl, Lena Dunham

Megan Pryce, Lena Dunham, 2014

(March 9) I found myself really liking this book… but it was strange… it didn’t make me heh-heh like Tina Fey would; it didn’t make me laugh like Miranda July, Nora Ephron or Mindy Kaling would… but I thought about it when I wasn’t reading it.

Sometimes I just thought, bah, this entitled girl of the new millennium -- she just has the same problems as every girl in history has ever had and the same self-fixation …. her problems are just a little more pathetic than usual… which she is somehow “fixing” or “rationalizing” or “moving on” from by being ironic???? I’m not sure; "kids today!"

I mean, I wouldn’t want people to know that men had treated me the way some men have treated Lena Dunham…. but I can’t think why it helps anything to keep such things private, either.

Though she and every new young thing in the world (cf. Holden Caulfield) like to be blasé about everything, they are shocked by the same things that shock all of us, and they like to haul them out and give everyone a good blast of trauma every once in a while. (I was going to say “old people don’t do this” but then thought of Jerry Saltz.)

Mostly, though, it’s that every once in a while Dunham, whose problems we all share and are so banal, is very profoundly insightful…. e.g., about her body and that tiny man’s body… about feminism… “it would be easy to just be a jerk like a man but what a great honour it is to have to try to behave like a woman.”

The wisdom of her mother was compelling: “you don’t gain respect by….”

Dunham made me think about a lot of things, and especially a lot about feminism… I feel like I haven’t been feminist enough now ...and I was never shy about it.

If I ever had the chance to ask her a question about the book, though, it would be about whether Pepper, the little hamster whose fused hind legs were snipped apart with manicure scissors by Nathan the pervert teacher, went on to have a normal hamster life.

A hamster is a huge part of Tiny Furniture, come to think of it.

Everything I Never Told You, Celeste Ng

Deng Ming-Dao, Being Chinese American Series 2011: What We Expect of Women

(January 20) This was recommended by Nicole Chung at The Toast last fall (September 2, 2015), and was in hot demand at the library, so off I went.

I really liked it… it was fun to read “real fiction” again for some reason… I guess I've been reading so much nonfiction lately: Kate Hepburn’s biography, how-to books, and spiritual books (and Alexander McCall Smith, who’s so stylized in some ways as not to be “normal” fiction).

This mystery reminded me of Gone Girl or John Green’s books, but so much gentler. Good suspense, though, nonetheless.

The story is so touching in a racial-tension way, anyway, to begin with... at first you feel it’s “one of those aching stories about which the reader knows so much more than any of the characters,” which is fine in itself, but which makes what you actually are going to get so unexpected... the story becomes so much more complicated than you've been led to suspect, turning an apparently plausible narrative slowly over onto its head so that it means completely the opposite of what it first appeared to… there is very clever back-and-forth-ing in time, creating new and profound layers of meaning so that each scene is all the more wince-making when you re-encounter it … it's not heavy-handed, either… it doesn't wrench the story around… each new point of view is just a subtle shift … (it’s not like Rashomon or something).

Yeah -- I liked it… but I guess I did not lurve it… it took me till the library's drop-dead return date to finish it.

“Drop dead,” heh.