Nom de Plume

Thomas Hoving is the former director of the glorious Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I heard him on a podcast of Studio 360 a few weeks ago. He was actually talking about a new book he’s just written (detailing how to play a memorization-type game with famous paintings), but he mentioned this one, and I was riveted.

So. He talks about great art scams. Actually, his main point is that there are a lot more fakes out there than the average museum-goer ever realizes, and when it comes right down to it, the fakes themselves are antiques. Take the Romans, for instance. We all know that they weren’t creative enough to come up with their own gods. After all, Eros by any other name is still Eros. (Okay, okay, really bad pun, but only if you inflect it properly. If you don’t, it’s just incomprehensible. Look, it’s been a long day.) Fact is, they were good at building viaducts and expanding their Empire and stuff, but the creme de la creme of Roman society didn’t have viaducts and bloody heads in their living rooms. Nope. They had Greek art. And once real Greek art ran out, they had fake Greek art. Ditto everyone who came before them and after them — not Greek obviously, but whatever was old at the time. It’s kind of funny to think about, and it made me want to embrace popular art from Tar-jay and Ikea out of principle. Then I came to my senses.

Hoving isn’t that great a writer — and he certainly has a high opinion of himself — but this was a ravishing romp through the ages of art and the greatest scams of the past couple of centuries. Have a bit of fun; crack it open.

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Should I take the plunge and upgrade to WordPress 2.0? Or 2 point whatever it is, rather? The thought of having to restore a mySQL database frightens me, even though I managed to back it up.

This morning discovered that Blogger (my account is still active) republished over my WordPress files and screwed everything up. It’s okay because at least I had everything backed up and I just restored the files. But I’m puzzled about what happened.

I can’t remember where I read a recommendation of this kiddie lit, but got it from the library and read it in a couple of hours. The Penderwicks — a family of four sisters, their father, and faithful dog — rent a summer cottage in the Berkshires. The owner of the property is a dragon, but her son and gardener are a delight. I was rather expecting this to be a magical novel a la Harry Potter for some reason (the description on the front says it’s “A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting boy”). It’s not. But then again, it doesn’t need to be. This was one of those old-fashioned kids books in which the ordinary seems magical. Birdsall remembers what it was like to be a child — and she knows how to write about it.

Eloise Kelly is a graduate student who goes to England to research the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian, two dashing spies during the Napoleonic Wars. Imagine her surprise when she is given full access to the papers of an old English family and discovers a third spy forgotten by history. Her excitement knows no bounds at the prospect of learning more about the Pink Carnation — and so does her irritation with the gorgeous nephew in the family. Love in two time periods! A Regency-esque romance! Compelling plot! What’s not to love? Finished the book and realized that it was the first of the series — and thank heavens the second book is already written and I am only number nine in line at the library. Light reading at its best. Very fun and highly recommend.

First, a little detour through the travesty that is becoming our school system and public policy (and making me think about moving either to Canada or Holland).

A Texas school superintendent removed Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale from a curriculum after a parent complained about its sexually explicit content. The Handmaid’s Tale is a feminist retelling of Orwell’s 1984 in which the oppressor is a fundamentalist Christian regime. The few fertile women left are pressed into bondage as surrogate mothers for infertile couples. If you haven’t read it, you should — it’s one of Atwood’s most chilling and memorable novels (second only to Oryx and Crake).

And prescient too. It was written about twenty years ago, but according to the San-Antonio Express News:

Lyman said he found some of the descriptions in the book too sexually explicit for high school students. He said his beliefs as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints didn’t influence his decision.

(He went on to say, “The tone of the book does not support, in my opinion, the effort by our state Legislature to encourage abstinence outside the bonds of marriage.” What does THAT have to do with anything? Literature isn’t about reading about something you agree with — it’s about being exposed to ideas that make you think. Apparently, not something he feels the need to do.)

The parent who complained claimed to feel “responsibility to the country and our community to speak up for the values that will strengthen our society.”

We, of course, don ‘t need to bother pointing out the irony. Atwood is a feminist. Lyman is a Mormon. So too, I’m sure, is the complaining mother. And the two are diametrically opposed.

Which leads me right into what this post is supposed to be about: Atwood’s The Penelopiad, a feminist retelling of the Iliad and Odyssey told from Penelope’s perspective. I have to say, I was terribly disappointed by this. Oh sure, it was beautifully-written and imaginative, with flashes of humor. It even made use of a Greek chorus — the 12 maidens Odysseus slayed on his return and who form the basis of Atwood’s story. I like the idea. I like the execution, even. But somehow it fell flat. It was a slim little book that really didn’t say that much.

Actually, what it really felt like was a copout, like she had this deadline and left it to the nth degree (not that I would know anything about that) because she was focused on that ridiculous book signing device.

And perhaps I’m displaying nothing so much as my own ignorance. Perhaps this is a brilliant rendition that takes on certain forms of the homeric tradition and turns them on their heads. So be it. Here’s my opinion: Don’t bother.

But I seem to be alone in this. Call me Cassandra.

Think the visual’s great? Try the story.

And he’ s dispensing advice…

My betrothed, a most wicked man, betrayed me near as bad as Tereus did Procne. His woman of choice commited, though, that villainy which women do best, and tempted him away. Presently it is not legal, where I live, to have either of them killed for this treachery — what shall I do to avenge the wrong they both have done to me, and to my virtue? Their joy at my grief does pain me so.

Cor Fracta Est

Ma Cher Coeur Brisee

Thoughe y love a goode revenge tragedie as much as the nexte guye, y muste counsel yow to a bettre path. Yow sholde maken pece and kepe faithe, not wyth thyne betrothede nor wyth this womanlie Diomede, but rathir with yowrselfe. For vengence aperteneth and longeth al oonly to juges. Remembre yow that pacience is a greet vertu of perfeccioun, and remembre that ther are tymes ordained unto al thynges by the first moevere — of the ookes, and of the hard stones, and of man and womman seen we also, in youthe as well as age, alle shal be dumped , a kyng as shall a page - som dumped on dates, som dumped by telephone, some dumped in compaignie, som dumped allone - ther helpeth noght, al goth that ilke weye.

And thus, take two pintes of hagen dasz dulce de leche, a ful seson of buffie the vampyre slayre, and calle me in the morninge.

Le Vostre G

link via Boing Boing

This is something, by the way, that I tell her on a regular basis and she says, “Well, at least you inherited it legitimately.”

So. My mother is going to Iraq. I’m still not precisely sure what she’s doing, but it has something to do with leading a team out in the field to help put democracy in place.

Personally, I think she just likes the idea of flying in there wearing a flak jacket. Wayne, on the other hand, is beside himself. The last I heard from him was an e-mail in which he mentioned her appearing on an al-Jazeera feed not once, or even twice, but three times. Okay, it was a pretty long e-mail.

It’s not that I’m not worried. When she called to tell me my father had died — I remember this vividly — I was in the grocery store, and I knew what she was going to tell me, so I sat down at the blood pressure machine. People were walking by with their shopping carts, prosaic lists in hand. I said, “Well, it’s just us now.” And it was — still is. She’s an only child; I’m an only child. Sure, I have Steve and she has Wayne, but in terms of blood relatives, there are distant cousins … really, she and I are it. Which is a long-winded way of saying that I would be devastated should something happen.

But as she likes to point out, danger is a relative term. We take our lives in our hands every single day just by getting into a car. Getting on her horses to ride can be dangerous, especially with a replaced hip. Flying somewhere is dangerous. (She also felt the need to point out that me running around in USA 57, the LandRover I drove in Freetown, after curfew with stoned 16-year old soldiers with AK47s manning the roadblocks was dangerous. I prefer not to remind myself of how stupid I was at 18.)

And here’s the thing: she’s so happy about going and doing some good that it’s hard not to be happy for her. We have made plans to meet in Jordan for her next R&R and she has just bought an iPod for the extremely spartan living conditions.

It was actually pretty cute; she called me to ask how to turn up the volume.

When we first moved into this house, I posted pictures of what it looked like (complete with the belongings on the previous tenants). I thought it would be kind of fun to juxtapose what it looked like then and what it looks like today — though I am shamelessly NOT putting up pictures of the kitchen and bathroom.

Lee manages to garner a scholarship to the prestigious Ault School in New England. From South Bend, Indiana, she is completely out of her element when she gets to the school — a feeling that never dissipates over the four years she is there. She is alienated from her wealthy classmates, eclipsed by their popularity, and, at the same time, thoroughly indoctrinated into another world that serves to separate her from her own family. Like most teenagers, Lee is thoroughly self-obsessed But she’s also a very compelling character with a strong voice, and Sittenfeld writes about the awkward teenage years with understanding and grace. Bittersweet and powerful, this is a touching novel that reminded me of my own hated high school years. Highly recommend.

Gopalakrishnan has retired to his native village after 40 years in the civil service. He is not happy about being back in Paavalampaati, but his father has died and his mother needs someone to take care of her. His wife Parvati is not unhappy about being back in the village — theirs was an arranged marriage, and she was never comfortable in Delhi — but she has deep reservations about leaving their son Suresh behind.

Gopu, as he is known to friends and family, is a rigid man. He walks every morning rain or shine for his health, taking the same route every day. (Indeed, it is on his morning walk that we first meet him.) He likes his coffee and tea just so. He devotes a certain amount of time each day to reading. In his highly-structured existence, he is like both his father and grandfather, but he also possesses a certain haplessness they did not; in some ways, he is deeply and self-consciously ineffectual. Life seems to have borne him along.

But when Suresh appears unexpectedly for Diwali, Gopalakrishnan is forced to take action; Suresh is in deep trouble and nothing he can do is enough.

Shankar’s tone is marvellous. His prose is compact and matter-of-fact, but he captures sights and sounds of India — and his dialogue is so perfect that I could actually picture the Indian headroll and hand gestures as his characters spoke. His characters are well-realized; they seem less like fictional characters than real people and we have been plopped down into their lives. No quibbles there.

Structure, on the other hand, is something else entirely. I spent a long time waiting for the story to start. Page 50, page 100, page 130– these all rolled by and Shankar was still roiling backwards in time to review Gopalakrishnan’s past. And while this history is absolutely necessary to understand the present, I felt like the storyline was often subsumed. It is only halfway through that the present conflict pops up; everything preceding it sets the stage. One could, of course, argue that this structure is integral to the novel itself and that the journey referenced in the title stretches both backwards and forwards. Unfortunately, it simply doesn’t work. The story founders for a while.

That said, I would still recommend.

I’m usually flummoxed by questions like “What’s your favorite book?” or “What’s your favorite CD?” Honestly, I don’t know what to say. After all, one’s taste changes, just as one reads or listens to new things. Ultimately, it seems to be that being able to give an answer to questions like these is tantamount to saying, “I am a deeply unimaginative and stagnant person.” Okay, okay, maybe I am — but please, please let me labor under my delusions.

So it is with deep suspicion that I regard all these top book lists. Top books of 2005! Top books of the 20th century! And now, there’s the What Books Should Everyone Read Before They Die List..

Talk about raising the ante.

Here it is:

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bible
The Lord of the Rings Trilogy by JRR Tolkien
1984 by George Orwell
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
All Quite [sic] on the Western Front by E M Remarque
His Dark Materials Trilogy by Phillip Pullman
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
Tess of the D’urbevilles by Thomas Hardy
Winnie the Pooh by AA Milne
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
The Time Traveller’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
The Prophet by Khalil Gibran
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
Life of Pi by Yann Martel
Middlemarch by George Eliot
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexander Solzenhitsyn

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time? The Time Traveller’s Wife?!? Come on. Not one, not two, but count ‘em THREE novels by Dickens? Yet not a single one by Edith Wharton? I would take The Last Samurai over The Lovely Bones any day. And then there’s the top of the list, To Kill a Mockingbird, which, in my opinion, is a charming novel for younger readers, but has somehow been elevated to cult status and the very pinnacle of high litrachooer.

See, this is a popularity contest. Which is fine. Except for the fact that a popularity contest is subjective — and these lists are so very definitive.

The defense budget, that’s where. And check out where the environment and education fall into this. Those two little slivers epitomize the Bush administration to me. It is apparently a worthless exercise to invest in the future.

The Concord Coalition via Chekhov’s Mistress

It’s shaping up to be a busy week, just like last week. Which is when Steve informed me that the plumber is coming this weekend and would I choose a tub? Yeah, yeah, I grumbled. So last night, I shot down to Home Depot, thinking that they would have something perfect there — simple, white, cast iron. The biggest issue, I thought, would be getting a tub with the right slope in the back. (This is very important, as anyone who likes to read in the tub knows.)

Wrong.

There are literally thousands of tubs to choose from. But only a few that don’t need to be special-ordered. Which takes, like, 14 days. We have, like, 4. Still, we’ll probably manage to get something done — but it’s going to be my typical last-minute scramble.

Yesterday, we went slightly east to the Cedar River, where there was a kayaking tournament Steve wanted to watch. We hiked around a bit, and then explored some of the other rivers and trails. It was a good day — and for me the highlight was seeing a large wild cat posed on a hillside above I-90. Unfortunately, Steve missed him. At first I thought it was a bobcat — the right coloring — but it seemed to me he was a lot larger than a bobcat. Anyone know what other kinds of wild cats roam the wilderness areas around 90?

We have a very haphazard approach to renovation. For instance, the kitchen floors are done (as of more than a year ago), but we have done nothing with the cabinets. Steve picked up spares from the last condo job he was on, and they’re sitting in the garage. But he has since decided not to use them because they’re odd sizes.

The bathroom is no different. We have a new sink — but the horrible blue tub and toilet are still there. At first, Steve said we would tile up to the tub, replacing the toilet and cabinet. Then we would replace the tub. I just said okay because first of all, what do I know about doing this stuff and second, it’s always just best to go along with it. Two weeks ago, he informed me that this was a backwards approach — we should start by replacing the tub and reinserting the window that was removed and covered with the awful plastic shower liner. One of his contractors gave him a freebie window … and my task today is to look for a tub.

Funny, because he’s off sailing.

So that’s what I’m doing.

Marcy Merrill is a photographer who makes cameras out of old Altoids tins and comes up with the most amazing shots. I love them.

See the rest of her Pintoid Adventures.

I leafed through the pages of this at the library — should I? shouldn’t I? Ultimately, I was hooked by the diagrams and long footnotes, thinking WOOWIE! This is going to be a great novel like Helen DeWitt’s The Last Samurai, wonderfully bizarre and from a completely unique viewpoint.

It wasn’t. Or rather, it was — but only kind of.

The Family Tree is told through two intertwining narratives, past and present. In the past, Rebecca recounts her childhood, leading up to her bipolar mother’s suicide. In the present, she is married to a humorless, controlling biologist who likes to explain away every human impulse with genetics. There are also forays into her mother’s past and the somewhat labored tale of her grandmother’s thwarted love and subsequent marriage to her cousin. Eventually, all the stories converge and we learn the real (if somewhat forced and perhaps even implausible) issue at the heart of her unhappy marriage: her husband doesn’t want to have children with her because depression is hereditary.

For me, the problem with this novel is that it simply doesn’t know what it wants to be. Most of the scenes recounting childhood are hysterically funny. Yet the descriptions of her married life feel narrow and dark — and when she talks about the grandparents, she is deeply contemplative. It leads to a jumble, made even worse by the diagrams and footnotes that hooked me in the first place. The diagrams simply illustrate scientific principles put forth by the dour scientist husband; the footnotes describe elements of pop culture, particularly TV, as a way to underscore the fact that Rebecca is doing her doctorate in sociology. At first, these were interesting, but as the novel wound to its inevitable close, they became irritating devices used for effect rather than purpose.

Don’t get me wrong: The Family Tree is far from being bad. It’s well-written and draws one in. But when I finally put it down, I had the sense that by choosing to be so many things, the novel ended up being less than it could have been.