Nom de Plume

My standards for chick lit are pretty low. Even so, if you’re looking for something light and frothy, do not pick up Carole Matthew’s More to Life Than This. It was beyond tedious.

Speaking of which, I’ve lost all patience with Charlie Bone and flung down Charlie Bone and the Hidden King 15 pages in. Nothing ever seems to happen. They never make any progress. They never even seem to get older. Hmmphh.

And given the amount of children’s fantasy I’ve been reading lately, I finally overcame my prejudice and perused the fantasy section for grown-ups at the library. I came home with Tad Williams’ Shadowmarch: Volume 1. In the thank you treatise in the front, right before fulsome praise for his editors, and right after being eternally grateful that he could make a living as a writer, he says, “Thanks also to our talented assistant, Dena Chavez, who keeps Deborah and I as close to sane …” Snap! went the covers. I just couldn’t do it.

Finally (at least for now, and based on what’s in front of me), there’s Diana Gabaldon’s A Breath of Snow and Ashes. I remember a woman I worked with a long time ago loved this series — and I am sure I would be entertained by it too had I been reading them in sequence. It just felt like too much work to catch up on what was going on. I found myself spending more time wondering about the time traveling bit, and what time zone (???) the kids lived in, and all that.

The kiddie lit quest continues with this delightful book. Countess Maliara and her brother swear to their dying father that they will protect their people against the rising demands of the king. This promise results in an ill-advised war, in which Meliara scampers all over kingdom come evading capture. That’s book one. In book two, the king has finally been overthrown and Meliara must overcome her wild ways and lack of education — and take her battles to court. And she realizes that a certain someone she thought was her enemy is actually her greatest fan. This was fun and entertaining, and if, for any reason at all, you need a present for a girl, this should be on your list.

Such lovely froth. In this sequel to Maileron the Magician, Kim is now established in Richard Merrill’s townhouse in Regency England and undertaking her magical studies in earnest. And of course, Stuff Happens, and she Falls In Love. Fantasy and regency — who could ask for anything more?

Ushman Khan lives in New York, far away from his native Iran and beloved wife Farak. Isolated and lonely, caught in a cultural no-man’s land, he spends his days catering to his rich clients and his nights at the airport, pretending Farak is coming off a plane and he is there to meet her. On one such excursion, he meets Stella, a college student. The relationship that develops between them is beautiful and fragile–made even more so by Farak’s desertion of Ushman and Stella’s extreme youth. This was a lovely novel, rich in detail and vividly woven.

Or, An Alternate, and Possibly Very Shallow, Way of Reviewing Books

To me, this is the photo of a woman who takes herself very seriously. She seems to set herself apart: her shoulders are stiff; her mouth set in a firm line. “I am serious,” she seems to say. “I am wise.” Her eyes are wide open, yet not particularly candid; they seem somewhat hostile to me. There is a barrier. She does not want to be known.

This is a photo of author Mary Gaitskill, whose novel Two Girls Fat and Thin I read several years ago (lying in a bathtub in a rental house on the Oregon Coast, trying to warm up after three hours boogie boarding). It was okay, a little pretentiously intellectual. She is also the author of Veronica: A Novel, which I put on hold and tried to slog through over the weekend.

And you know what? Every single thing I hated about the book (I only managed to get to page 27) can be seen in her author photo. Of being completely inaccessible. Of being separate, better than, and completely offputting. Her prose is muscular and acrobatic, seemingly for its own sake. As a writer, she is not with the reader; she is against us. And she wants us to know it. Her mystique is more important than her writing.

This photo is something else entirely. To me, this is a woman (beauty notwithstanding) with eyes who have seen too much but is still kind. “This is who I am,” she seems to say. “I am here. I am present.” She seems candid, at ease with her flaws. She seems interesting.

Then again, I confess a partiality to Kathryn Harrison. I have read everything she has written, and my perceptions of her photos are probably influenced by the fact that I have read her personal nonfiction. But I also have to say that I read Envy yesterday, and it was amazing. The prose was gorgeous. There was one paragraph — the beginning of a chapter that was perfectly placed — that I kept rereading just for the imagery:

On Little Squam Lake, in New Hampshire: a shingled summer cottage at the bottom of a track through the woods, a steep incline that made it impossible to walk toward the front door, especially if you were carrying someting heavy, a suitcase or a bag of groceries. Gravity pulled you into a run, flung you at the house, which was long and low and filled with liquid green light, sun reflected off water and filtered through trees in lush, midsummer leaf. They’d rented in for a month, sight unseen, through one of those miniscule ads in the back pages of The New Yorker.

The cover exhorts young sorcery fans to “set aside Harry Potter and pick up Merlin.” Alas, I disagree. I found Merlin to be extremely irritating and more than a little smug. To be honest, I am not sure if this is Merlin or the author, who made the strange decision to write this in the first person. First person, third person–usually writers know when it works. In this case, it most decidedly did NOT. For me at least. I found myself disliking Merlin and disliking Barron even more. It was a struggle to finish, and I only did so because my library pile was woefully small.

Knock on wood, it seems to be doing better.

And this …

Another eBay purchase.

The watanabe “sausage seal” on the right hand margin dates it to between 1929 and 1942. I haven’t seen any other prints online with the bottom set of characters on the left hand margin(as below). As far as I can tell, using the wonderful Shin Hanga Date Translation, it reads, “Made 17 March, 1933.” The print was originally created in 1932. I could be reading this wrong, but if anyone out there is more knowledgeable than I am (not hard), could you verify the date? Also, does anyone have any idea what the top set of characters is? HELP!!!

I found this to be incredibly tiresome and gave up 50 pages in.

For as long as she can remember, Maerad has been a slave in a Gilman’s Cot, an isolated and very rough settlement from which escape is virtually impossible. She has two sources of comfort: the fact that men leave her alone because they think she is a witch, and the lyre her mother left her. A mysterious stranger appears, and when it becomes clear that she can see him despite his invisibility spell, offers her escape. Cadvan is a Bard battling the evil (isn’t that always the case), and he soon realizes not just that Maerad is a Bard herself from the house of Pellinor, which was thought extinct, but that she is, in fact, the Chosen One. In other words, the battle between good and evil will depend on Maerad.

This was fantastic fantasy. Full of adventure and originality, I couldn’t put this down — and am eagerly awaiting the next installment, to be released in a couple of weeks. Sometimes Croggon’s prose was a little overblown and I stumbled over phrases. ( Like “…he said, subduedly” for Pete’s sake. I full-on tripped on that, never mind stumbled. SUBDUEDLY.) Nonetheless, highly recommend.

***Update on this: Steve is now reading it and is thoroughly engrossed. Every time I try to talk to him he says, “Sh!!! It’s a battle!!!” Never mind the fact that he’s said this through all the Patrick O’Briens, the Abhorsen trilogy, too. I can see we’re going to be fighting over the next volume.

Yesterday around 2, I noticed that Harry’s left eye was completely clouded over. I rushed him to the vet. It was hot, and Harry was panting in the passenger seat, even with the AC running full blast. The vet took one look and said that it was very serious — swollen, infected, and with a puncture right in the center — and that I needed to go to the Pet Eye Clinic. They very kindly called the clinic for me, who said they could squeeze me in between appointments. There was construction blocking the ramp to I-5, and we had to battle downtown traffic to get on the freeway. Then there was the beginning of rush hour traffic. It was hot. I was panicked, imagining that he would lose the eye.

Finally, I got to the clinic. It was peaceful; there was no one in the waiting room in front of me and we only waited about 10 minutes. The vet took one look and was incredibly reassuring. Pugs do this all the time and it was lucky that I brought him in as soon as I saw it.

The eye is very infected. I have drops to give him — every hour last night, twice in the night, every two hours today, and every four hours until his appointment next Thursday. We are still worried because he only has 20% of the cornea left (very aggressive bacteria), and the possibility remains that the eye could rupture. If that happens, there’s surgery to repair it. Modern medicine is truly amazing.

Wish us luck.

Every summer, there comes a point at which Steve looks at what I’m reading, and asks, “Harry Potter again?” That kept me occupied for a good week or so … but then of course, I started jonesing for other good kiddie lit. So I made my way through a reread of Garth Nix’s marvellous Abhorsen Trilogy, which amazingly enough, I persuaded Steve to try, and he LOVED it (and he now refers to me as a free magic elemental … don’t ask) and of course, Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials Trilogy. And even though I had read a couple of Diana Wynne Jones’ books a couple of years ago (liked ‘em just fine, but they weren’t all THAT), decided to start again based on a comment on the blog.

The premise of the Chrestomanci novels is that there are serial universes, and we each have our counterparts in each of these different worlds. Every now and then, someone will appear who doesn’t have a counterpart–and that means all their lives are available in one world. These nine-lived magicians, or Chrestomanci as he is usually known, are in charge of making sure that no one misuses magic for nefarious purposes. These first two novels were wonderful, each showing how a different Chrestomanci discovers his powers.

I didn’t like either of these two novels nearly as much as the first two. The Magicians of Caprona seemed peripheral, while Witch Week was one of the novels I had read a long time ago, and which did absolutely nothing for me.

Jones is back in form with Conrad’s Fate, in which Conrad and one of the Chrestomancis (though while he is still in training), act as footmen in a grand house to try to figure out who is “pulling the possibilities.”

The one thing that got me through the first part of this year, which was very busy work-wise, was telling myself that I would take all of July and August off. Well, now it’s midway through July, and I am going a little crazy. To wit: I’ve bought three woodblocks off eBay and a piano. In the last week and a half.

In my defense, I’ve wanted a piano for a while. I have missed being able to sit down and plonk away. And now I can.

Pathetic.

Last November, I ordered a Heisei edition of this print for a birthday present to myself– and then cancelled the order because I bought the new car. I’ve coveted this print ever since.

Last week, I found what I was pretty sure was an older edition on eBay, and managed to snag it. It came in the mail today, and I took it apart. The watanabe seal in the lower lefthand corner dates it to between 1946-57 (the print was originally published in 1935), and unfortunately, someone taped the edges down to the non-acid free matting. It’s also very, very faded.

I don’t know whether it’s worth having a conservator work some magic on it, but fortunately Floating World does free appraisals. I’m having fantasies about it being worth thousands of dollars, but I know that’s extremely unlikely. Still, a girl can dream …

***Update: It’s not worth having any conservation work done on it. The frame it came in was actually quite nice, so I’m having it reframed with the same materials, but adding some conservation matting on the inside and the back.

Seattle abounds in unused fruit: blackberries grow everywhere and many yards have fruit trees that their owners don’t have time to use. So I am on a one-woman mission this summer to make urban jams, jellies, and butters only using free fruit that my friends and neighbors aren’t going to use.

So far, I’ve made lemon raspberry jam, blackberry lime jam, and mint jelly. My new neighbors on the corner invited me to use their plums when I told them their plum tree gave excellent fruit. Geoff said I can use his French plums and apple tree. Elizabeth has another apple tree that she’s offered up.

There’s something very satisfying about making jam. It’s easy as pie (which, come to think of it, isn’t that easy). I like lining my jars up on a window sill where they catch the light like bottled jewels.

That’s what I’m taking, had the second class last night–and I love it.

It’s a combination of karate, judo, kenpo, and Chinese boxing. It kicks my ass, but I’m having fantasies about being able to flip Steve. I came home after my first class and showed him what I learned. He took akijitsu for a long time, and was able to defend himself; within two sneaky moves would have had me flipped on my back. Sigh. Give me time.

I’m taking it, along with Elizabeth, at Seven Star Women’s Kung Fu. Women only, which is kind of nice. In other words, we do kung fu — but sensitively. We do a lot of self-defense, recognizing that women often feel vulnerable to attack and don’t feel comfortable being aggressive. Although lack of aggression isn’t one of my particular problems, I’m still finding it extremely empowering.

This time we mean it. Here we go …

Steve cut this bit out months ago to see if we could get rid of the jog in the wall.

More …

All gone!

This mold is DISGUSTING. We put on masks and gloves, and carried it out as quickly as possible.

The original window area reappears.

Steve realizes that even though we have the new window, he doesn’t have the right tools here to install it. That’s okay; he’s shirtless and his muscles are flexing.

And now it’s like bathing in a Roman ruin. Except that they didn’t have plastic sheeting. Or blue bathtubs.

We were going to start on the floors tomorrow, but Steve realized that he needs to start taking the boat up to yet another race at 5 in the morning — not 5 in the evening as he had originally thought.

In this series of essays, Bruce Feiler recounts the year he spent in Japan as a teacher. The first essay describes the bonding ritual of all the teachers in the Japanese bath — in this case, a natural (and rather muddy) hot spring — in which he forgets his towel. And from there, he plunges us into the clash of cultures, describing social rituals, the Japanese educational system, and the role of teachers as guides in how to become a true Japanese citizen.

I would prefer not to compare this book to Japanland because they cover entirely different territory. Nonetheless, comparisons beckon, and their siren call is too tantalizing to resist; it was too recent a read. While Learning to Bow was very interesting, it wasn’t nearly as riveting a read. Muller does such a fine job of describing her year, drawing us into her struggles. Feiler speaks Japanese and understands Japan more — yet Muller manages to paint a more descriptive picture. Still, this was good, and I would recommend.