Housekeeping

I switched websites for reasons. Go read me there from now on. Thanks!

Scoop

Why I read it: I'm pretty sure it was on several lists of "books that will make you laugh out loud," including this book I found at Goodwill for $1 that I've met many books through. I'll admit to a few chuckles, but it wasn't nonstop hilarity.

What it reminded me of: A very British version of A Confederacy of Dunces. I hesitate to compare the two, because Confederacy is one of my very favorites, and I wasn't that into Scoop, but my limited experience with comic writing shortens my scope. It has the same sort of silly caricatures of characters - my favorite was Mrs. Algernon Stitch, who manically drives around in this tiny black car that she gets stuck everywhere.

A brief plot summary: It's 1930s England, and the newspaper The Beast needs a war correspondent to cover a conflict in (fictional) Ishmaelia. They send their nature columnist, William Boot, instead of the John Boot who was recommended. A satire of journalism in that time, enriched by the fact that Evelyn Waugh was such a journalist.

Would I read it again?: Almost definitely not. It's one of the classics, and I'm glad to have experienced it, but it just didn't tickle me the way I was hoping.

Not Under My Roof: Parents, Teens, and the Culture of Sex

A first for me - writing about a book that I chose not to finish. David & I had such high hopes for this book. I insisted we finish The Golden Compass before starting it, and David would ask "How many pages left NOW?!", wheedling and needling me to start this one. I kind of wish we had started it when it first arrived about a month ago: our anticipation and excitement increased with each delay, and now my heart is a little broken at the loss of the book I wanted to read.

Look at how exciting this blurb is: "Probing our child-rearing (I shudder at that word every time, so old-fashioned) for what it tells us about our culture, Amy Schalet's Not Under My Roof offers an unprecedented, intimate account of the different ways that girls and boys in [the United States and the Netherlands] negotiate sex, love, and growing up." Sounds great, let's get reading, right?! There aren't many (any?) topics that I am more interested in than parents, teens, and the culture of sex. I have very different ideas about teenagers and sex than my parents and David's parents do - I hoped this book could inform me how other Americans feel and maybe enlighten me as to whether the difference in opinion is based mostly on religion, politics, generation, or a combination.

Now I'll never know because this book is written so. academically. It is incredibly arduous to read. The sentences are long and complex, with lots of theses and not much substance. It's especially unfortunate that I attempted to read it aloud while I have a kid pressing down on my diaphragm - I often found myself gasping for breath two, even three times in the same sentence. Don't believe me? Try it for yourself:

"In the process of illuminating those frames, we gain insight into the workings of normalization as an active cultural process - which involves conceptualizing, controlling, and constituting both teenagers and parents: we will see that the three cultural frames construct adolescent sexuality as a nonproblematic, non-emotionally disruptive, and decidedly relationship-based phenomenon."

I mean, come on. Cut a pregnant lady some slack, Amy.

Ok, so we read the introduction and hated it. We thought, maybe the first chapter will have more case studies and those will propel the book forward and make it readable. Not so. Yes, it's interesting in theory to read why Dutch and American parents will or won't let their teenagers have sexy sleepovers. But even the excerpts from real parents were banal. After the third time we read a quote and thought "Why was that deemed important enough to include?", it was time to put this book back on the shelf. We just couldn't convince ourselves that it would get better.

As I write this, I'm still so sad that I'm not reading this book that I might renege and soldier on sans David. I really do think it will be a better book that way, though still not even close to the book I wanted to read. Reading it to myself will allow time for mining the especially academic passages for meaning and will give my poor lungs a well-deserved break. If it's still just so terrible as to not warrant my time, I'll skip to the conclusion and see if I can ferret out anything meaningful in there. And if even that fails, I already saw her references in the back - surely some of those books will be good.

Are you the kind of reader who abandons ship sometimes, or do you finish every book you start? When do you decide a book isn't worth your time?

What the Dog Saw

Note to Moxie: If you keep doing this to my books, I will stop loving you. I thought Malcolm would be safe on our floor because David and I were both home & she usually destroys things only when we leave her here alone (& usually only my things, so I was somewhat maliciously gleeful that David is finally a victim - this is his book). She is getting sneakier, gutsier, and less forgiven with each new book crime. Stupid beast.

David decided we needed to read this book together because it starts with an essay about ketchup and we were talking about ketchup. It stressed me out at first (we already have 3 other books we should finish first!), but I'm glad he introduced me and What the Dog Saw. It is just the sort of thing we enjoy reading together: essays about topics ranging from Cesar Millan's dog training to the FBI's techniques for serial killer profiling. There were more essays about Enron than I preferred, but otherwise, this was a lovely book.

I can't decide if I prefer this to the other Gladwell book I've read, Outliers. I really enjoy Gladwell's writing style in general - his enthusiasm is contagious (um, except in the second and third essays that mentioned Enron, at least in my case). Suffice it to say they are both great reads. In her own weird way, even Moxie approves.

The Lacuna

I started reading The Lacuna thinking there was no way it would contest The Poisonwood Bible as my favorite book of Kingsolver's. The Poisonwood Bible is something that I would read the back cover of and instantly put in my cart because it features female narrators and criticism of religious missionaries. Even if the novel itself didn't end up being that great, I'd still like it because its foundation had elements I was already sold on. Like how I eat caramel desserts - the caramel could either be covering really delicious ice cream or a piece of dodgy fruit, but I like the caramel itself enough to put up with whatever its paired with. Luckily, The Poisonwood Bible is really delicious ice cream, and it made me think of Barbara Kingsolver herself as caramel. But, after reading the back cover of The Lacuna, I thought it might be a really mushy, old apple. Male protagonist who hangs out with Diego Rivera? Who's that? J. Edgar Hoover? No thank you. "Portrait of art itself"? Art is just not my medium, so I was reluctant to see how a novel about art would be enjoyable. 

Thankfully, I was wrong. The Lacuna features Harrison Shepherd, the son of an American father and Mexican mother who spends his life traveling between Mexico and America both physically and patriotically. Shepherd interacts with real people and events: Communist artists Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo as well as Leon Trotsky in Mexico in the 1930s, then on to America in the 1940s-50s as it gets swept up in anti-Communism.

Though on the lengthier side, The Lacuna reads like a dream. I never thought to myself "Wow, this sure is taking a long time...I wonder how many pages are left before I can finally move onto something else?" The thing I love best about Kingsolver's books is that I find myself thinking about more than just what she's saying. Does that make sense? With a less good novel, I read, I comprehend what the novel is about on the surface level, and that's it. If I hadn't liked this book, I would say, "Oh, it's about this American-Mexican dude who lives in Mexico for a while and then goes to America, where he becomes an author." But that's not what The Lacuna is about. It challenges this idea that America is perfect, and to say anything less than that makes you unAmerican. It's about loyalty and friendship and using art to speak for yourself and the people of your country. And, on top of all that, it's got great, realistic, dynamic characters, which is especially impressive considering that some of them were based on real people. I especially loved the interactions between Frida and Harrison (or Solí, short for Insólito, as she affectionately calls him). 

So, for what little my opinion is worth, I loved this book. It ranks among my favorites I've read this year (The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, and Stiff by Mary Roach, in case you were wondering, which you probably weren't). Please read it and tell me what you think. I'm talking to you, Zach Norwood and Kaitlyn Arterburn. I even got you your own copy so you've no excuse.

Myers Briggs Type Indicator

Sometimes I forget that I was a psychology major. Partially this is because I switched majors so many times in college (whoops) and partially because, in my heart, I am an English lit major. My lit classes were those I enjoyed most. Even the most mundane busy work wasn't so bad because I got to read and write, which I love to do. Psychology suits other aspects of my personality, I guess. One thing that reminds me of my affinity for psychology is the MBTI, or Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

For those who might not know what it is, the MBTI is a personality test that assigns you one of 16 different types based on four major categories: Introverted or Extroverted, Sensing or Intuitive, Thinking or Feeling, and Perceiving or Judging.  I first took this test during mandated therapy sessions at Harding (another story for another time). It was hilariously Harding -  instead of discussing suitable careers  or explaining my past behavior based on my MBTI type, the counselor explained what mates I would be most attracted to! David & I had just begun dating then, and I shared the paperwork with him so we could write silly notes and drawings all over it. In 2008, Harding therapy told me my ideal mating type was the Intuitive Feeler (empathist). David is an INTJ. So close, babe. So close. 

This is a version of the MBTI that I found online and for free. According to it, I am very strongly Introverted, very weakly Sensing or Intuitive (last week I got Intuitive, this week I got Sensing, which probably means that the online assessment doesn't have high reliability - my results should be pretty much the same no matter how many times I take it), moderately Feeling, and strongly Judging. According to the internet, David and I are pretty well suited for each other, though I tend to drive him a little crazy with so much blather about my feelings and he seems too rational and detached to me because he is an automaton.

The MBTI reminds me of when David and I read Helen Fischer's Why Him? Why Her?, which comes complete with its own personality test. Fischer's test also assigns a dominant and auxiliary type and recommends which types are best suited romantically for each other. I'm having deja vu after taking the MBTI because, like with Fischer's book, I want everyone else I know to take it so I can neatly categorize them & research how I should be interacting with them. And so I can definitively prove that my relationship is better than theirs. Obviously.

The part of me that identifies as an English lit major does so because I have a lifelong passion for words and using them to understand others' experiences. The part of me that identifies as a psychology major is nosy and wants to judge everybody.

Damn. What a shame. Clearly I should've stayed a Lit major.

Oh hello!

Brief update about me: I'm 29 weeks pregnant and officially unemployed. I decided I'd appreciate my remaining childless weeks at home more than my windowless office/commute. Right now it's an internal struggle between my perfectionist self feeling guilty that I am not monetarily contributing anything and my regular self feeling relief that I am no longer working at what turned out to be kind of a weird job. And happiness that Moxchik and I are best buddies (I thought maybe she'd stop liking me so much once we hung out constantly instead of only three hours a day). This is her usual spot now:

I appreciate that you no longer abandon me all day and will show that by putting my warm snout on your frigid feet.

On a related note, David likes it incredibly cold in the house. It makes his robot lawyer brain work better or something. I have to shed approximately three layers of clothing before venturing outside.

I'll admit I'm also worried about what to do during the day from now til baby McManes gets here (we are still heavily leaning towards Zelda for a name, but not so heavily that we've 100% committed to it. Though I do call her Zelda when discussing her with David, so I don't think I'm fooling anybody). Turns out that I needn't have worried (at least, not yet). Moxie and I have a morning constitutional; I've implemented several Domestic Housewife Initiatives, such as assigning chores for specific days and resuming planning our meals; I'm writing more (hence a post on a blog I'd abandoned for a year); and, most importantly (to me), this!

Have you ever seen anything more beautiful?

No, I didn't get a pottery wheel - it's much more impressive than that. Are you ready? I, for the first time, did a project that I saw on Pinterest. Each of those little colored scraps of paper represents a book that I want to read but do not own. Now, going to the library will be like winning the book lottery! Organizing and assigning books to this lovely receptacle, a gift from my friend Jon, has been the highlight of my weekend/week. I'm pretty sure I gave myself carpal tunnel in my thumb joint from my assiduous additions to the melting pot of knowledge. (Seriously. It's weirdly swollen.)

What a beautiful idea, right? Nearly perfect. It gave me a nice project for a few days that really fed into my organizing, OCD part of my brain. I'm sure there were all kinds of pleasure neurons firing up there. However, there's one catch that lovely OCD brain of mine predicted about halfway through my project, and it's already happening.

This morning, I went to Barnes and Noble. Obviously I found a book there and bought it, I mean come on, it's inevitable. The book, Rules of Civility, is now floating around...somewhere...in my book bowl. I told myself this was bound to happen about 100 scraps of paper in, and assuaged myself at that time that it was no big deal, I would just throw away that particular scrap of paper whenever I happened to draw it. But.

I might never get to it. I've already added about 20 new books to my pot since the "completion" of my project, and that's a pattern that's likely to continue. There are just too many books that I want to read - more are being written every day! - which is so exciting, to think that there is always a new adventure waiting for me. So it's a matter of hacking my own brain and convincing it that it doesn't mind (ho ho ho, good one, me) that Rules of Civility is floating around in there. Which I can do! I hope. We'll see.

In the meantime, any good book suggestions?