Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

I can hardly presume to write a review about such an obvious classic. This was certainly a good one, although seemed a bit long - but there was ultimately a positive resolution, so that made it worthwhile. Of course Amelia is a sweet lady and deserves her happy ending (as does patient, faithful Dobbin)... but Becky is so much more entertaining! so I'm glad she made it to the end as well. I need to see the recent movie version, but I'm glad I did read the book first... I don't see how any movie could effectively work in all the unspoken elements, like the characters' feelings and thoughts, and the author's funny little digressions. I thought Thackeray had excellent (and amusing) insights about human nature. Really, it's not the story itself, but the way that it's told that makes it a great work of literature.

His Dark Materials - Phillip Pullman (re-read)

I've just re-read Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and, as always, cried at the end. I felt compelled to pick up The Golden Compass the day I came home from seeing the third Pirates of the Caribbean installment, in order to purge that disappointing trash from my mind. (It didn't work! Come on, they KILLED ORLANDO BLOOM! I don't care if he's still technically alive, since Will's gory heart is in that stinky old wooden chest with Elizabeth on that island... THEY KILLED THE MAIN LOVE INTEREST IN THE TRILOGY! What a horrible idea! Not to mention that they also killed off Norrington! WAY TO GO, DISNEY!!)

Anyway... The film version of Compass is due out at the end of this year, and I'm hopeful that this wonderful story will come across well on the big screen. I think many of the elements would be difficult to convey visually - like the mental process by which Lyra reads the alethiometer, the way the children's daemons transform, the difference between severed and normal humans, and the way humans communicate with their daemons through shared feelings. And in the next book, the whole part about the subtle knife, and the things that Lyra and Will are thinking about, and then the third book, with the angels and the mulefa... I hope the movie found a convincing way to show all of these elements, because such an inventive, epic, and heartbreaking story deserves a really spectacular film adaptation. Could be as good as Lord of the Rings... should be at least as good as the Harry Potters! (Speaking of... I can't wait to see the Order of the Phoenix movie - just a month from today!)

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

One day at work I was looking for something to read on my lunchbreak, and I went ahead and bought Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha. It'd been on my to-read list for... oh, forever. (Somehow that list only seems to get longer, never shorter!) Now that it's been made into a movie, I figured I'd better read it before I accidentally learn too much about its plot.

Memoirs tells the story of a successful Toyko geisha in the 1930s and 40s - from her surprising origins, through her career setbacks and personal frustrations, to the achievement of her goals. A colorful array of friends, rivals, mentors, clients, and lovers captivate the reader as the narrator relates her transformation from small-town Chiyo to sophisticated Sayuri. I was left with a fascinating impression of another place and time, which is what I particularly prefer in a book. (I already know what it's like here and now!)

Near the beginning of the book, Sayuri reveals that she has a lot of water in her personality, enabling her to flow around obstacles that might stop others - maybe this accounts for the smooth flow of her tale, too. I particularly noticed some beautiful and thought-provoking metaphors, and the vivid descriptions of the expensive, gorgeously decorated kimono worn by Sayuri and her elegant colleagues. Extensive details about a geisha's everyday life and routines brought the district of Gion to life in my imagination, while fitting in unobtrusively with Sayuri's clear, personable narrative.

A great read, a worthwhile purchase, and an instant favorite. I'm eager to see the movie sometime soon, and to explore other material by Arthur Golden.

The Vine of Desire - Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Anju and Sudha are cousins and best friends since childhood, but their adult lives have taken different paths. In the sequel to Sister of my Heart, Sudha and her baby daughter come to California to stay with Anju and her husband, but the women cannot quite resume the close friendship of their childhood. Anju mourns the loss of her first child and struggles with her university classes. Sudha feels she is in the way, and is particulary anxious to avoid Anju's husband Sunil, who has treasured a secret passion for her since their double wedding - while Sunil pours all his stifled desire into tenderly caring for Sudha's infant. Such a precarious situation can't last... but what will happen to each relationship after the inevitable meltdown?

I liked this a bit less than Sister of my Heart, but I did appreciate seeing what the author envisioned for her characters' next steps.

(Not a Book) Fountains of Wayne's new CD: Traffic & Weather

Fountains of Wayne is one of the few bands that I have always been able to count on to consistently combine brilliant sound and clever lyrics. They first came to my attention when they opened for my then-favorite band, the Smashing Pumpkins, at my first-ever concert, way back in my mid-teens (okay, it was only 10 years ago). I enjoyed their first album, but then they dropped off my radar for several years, resurfacing in 2003 with their excellent third release, Welcome Interstate Managers. I caught up with their second album, Utopia Parkway (not my favorite, but it has some gems) and their B-sides collection, Out of State Plates. But it'd been three years since Plates came out and I was excited to hear about a new album coming...

I have not been let down. Traffic and Weather is just as good as Interstate Managers, and could end up being my favorite of their albums so far. I rarely like every song on an album, no matter who the artist is, but I have a pretty good success rate with the Fountains - about 90% play-throughs (as opposed to the ones where I press 'skip' ). The cover artwork is cute - a collage of graphic shapes in bright colors, and the CD booklet continues in the same vein. The art reflects the bright, shiny, catchy songs on the CD - perfectly put together, as usual. The Fountains manage to cover a wide range of musical styles as well - if I were more fluent in rock musical history, I'd be able to tell you which classic artists clearly influenced this or that song, but I can say that the songs sound strangely familiar, yet completely fresh.

As far as the lyrics, aside from their clever wordplay, quirky turns of phrase, and words fitted faultlessly to the music's rhythms, Fountains of Wayne has always had a special knack for adding just the right details to make their characters seem very real and relatable. They seem to have a special insight into the monotony of living in the nondescript suburbs, the daily grind of going to work at less-than-thrilling jobs, and the hassles of traveling for business (or pleasure). Specific cultural and regional references make the songs even more real. Fountains of Wayne gently reveal the vanity and illusion - as well as the poignancy - of the average person's hopes and dreams, with a little humor and empathy. The lonely twentysomething magazine staffer in "Someone to Love" takes her contacts out of her eyes and watches lame sitcoms instead of being out on the town, a tired waitress sips a diet soda after work, a weary couple try to recover their lost luggage, a delusional dude has big plans for his new used car, and a lazy but creative man fends off his impatient creditors... somehow the Fountains songsmiths make compelling stories out of these everyday people.

Currently, my favorite song is "New Routine," in which frustrated single people move around the globe trying to break out of the tired rut of their daily lives. They're missing something, though - in the song, the folks who seem the most content are the two old friends who meet every day in a diner, shooting the breeze, telling each other jokes "that they both know that they both know."

Other standouts (on a disc full of above-average tracks) include "Strapped for Cash," a humorous look at a terminally broke sleazeball (it reminded me of Heywood Banks, and I think it's the most musically interesting track on the album); "Fire in the Canyon," a beautiful, rolling, country-ish song with pretty harmonies woven together; "Hotel Majestic," about a band (wonder who?) on tour, complete with majestic hooks and perfectly placed hey heys; and "Yolanda Hayes," an ode to a mysteriously alluring DMV employee that starts out catchily enough, but builds to a horn-filled crescendo, asking "Who can you trust with your love these days?"

More glowing reviews at http://www.fountainsofwayne.com/press.asp

Sons & Lovers - D. H. Lawrence

D.H. Lawrence has been on my to-read list for a little while. A friend enjoyed some of his works and I have a high regard for her taste in books (only because it usually matches my own, ha).

Maybe I need to read something else by him before I form my final opinion, because based only on this novel I would say - BLAH. Although I enjoyed the first half of the book, the second part was just so tedious. Maybe that was the point, but it doesn't make for very compelling reading.

The story follows a working-class British family in the early 20th century, and the first half centers on the mother. She has three sons and one daughter, and a somewhat disappointing husband. Oddly, only two of the sons seem to interest her (or the narrator), and the other son and the daughter were not much part of the plot - they're disposed of rather neatly by marriage. Still, her life since her marriage and as the children grew up was a new and therefore interesting subject to me - most of the British fiction I had read either concerned the desperately poor, as in Dickens, or the fairly well off, as in Austen.

The second half of the book pushes the mother into the background as one of the sons, Paul, takes center stage, but that's where things got so boring for me. I think what started to truly get on my nerves was the frequent statement that Paul "hated" his girlfriends or mother for this or that. He hates them for loving him, he hates them for not being what he wants, he hates them for making him feel certain ways. If he's not hating them outright, he's "almost hating" them for the same reasons. I think a thesaurus would have come in handy at the writing of this book.

So Paul can't seem to resolve any of his relationships. He is certainly prevented from marrying either of his girlfriends by the presence of his mother - while she approves of one, but not the other, still he can't settle down with either, while his mother is alive. And maybe not even after her death... near the end of the book she passes away, but he is still unable to commit to either woman. One he manipulates into going back to her estranged husband, and the other he decides he can't be with either. So in the end he at least decides against giving up life, and he goes off to find himself, or something, I don't care really! Maybe to recover his artistic abilities, which had died with his mother? Bizarre really.

I understand that the young man's malaise and confusion were the focus, but the repetition, the lack of progress, the poor treatment of others - all these together left me with an impression that I would not be much interested in either learning what became of Paul Morel, or reading anything else by Lawrence.

Nickel and Dimed

Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America - Barbara Ehrenreich

I had been wanting to read this book for some time. I had occasionally paged through it in bookstores, and thought I would find it sympathetic - but I just didn't want to buy it. (Unsurprisingly, working a low-wage job myself I didn't want to spend money on a book about low-wage jobs) . So I finally got around to ordering it from the library last year.

I'd never heard of Ehrenreich before, but from hints within the book I gather she must be a fairly well-paid writer. She identifies herself as a journalist. Intending to learn firsthand how the American working class survives on its meager pay, Ehrenreich takes on a series of low-wage jobs in locations across the country. She tries waitressing, hotel housekeeping, housecleaning, washing dishes in a nursing home, and working in a big-box retail store.

From the start, Nickel and Dimed let me down. I had expected to relate to the work she took on, having worked low-wage jobs myself for several years. In that I was not disappointed - some of Ehrenreich's insights validated my experiences in retail work. I was also intrigued by her descriptions of the different types of jobs - for instance, with the housecleaning company, the illusion of cleanliness to the homeowner takes precedence over the physical reality, if the writer is to be believed.

Unfortunately, more than I enjoyed either of these aspects, I was continually offended by Ehrenreich's attitude. In short, I felt she was presumptuous and condescending.

Partway through my reading, I realized that she was not writing for a general audience, but for a very narrow group of her own peers. That may explain why she tossed around "fifty cent" words like postprandial, glossolalia, soteriological, aphasic, and hortatory, because otherwise I can't see the need for such a showy vocabulary, considering the subject matter. Of course I can use a dictionary like anyone else, but it's annoying when I get the idea that she was only using such terms to point out her thorough education. At one point in the book she begins fretting about "the anxieties of [her] social class," of "educated middle-class professionals." She seems smug whenever she can make a sophisticated cultural reference (showing that she knows the difference between the Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, when her co-workers may not). She is constantly reminding herself in small ways that she isn't one of these people. She can go back to her real life; she has higher knowledge; she has different perspectives.

Above all, it's a game to Ehrenreich - she isn't really living in a low-wage-earner's world. She admits as much, but in that case the whole experiment is practically pointless! Ehrenreich has the starting advantage of a cash reserve to set herself up in an apartment and supplies, and a reserve of $200 cash for emergencies. She refuses to really go hungry because she will use her ATM card if it looks like her next meal is doubtful. She goes home periodically "to catch up on email and for conjugal visits" (but "pays" a money jar for meals she eats there). When she gets a rash from the latex gloves used in her cleaning job, she finds it "too much" to stay "in character," and asks her regular doctor for advice - and a prescription, which she gets the doctor to issue sight unseen. And she can afford to just leave when a particularly stressful shift turns out to be too much for her; she can afford to agitate for work stoppages and unionization at other jobs. In one segment she even tries to make her co-workers eat healthier foods on their lunch breaks. To me, that's not an investigation; that's interference and lack of respect.

Finally, she only stayed at each job for a month. Not nearly long enough to really feel how a person can get worn down. A month! That's nothing. She should try it for six months, a year, see how she feels about it then. She tried working two jobs at the same time (something I've discovered many of my current co-workers do), but that only lasted for two days - and then she quit one of the jobs because she got tired of being yelled at for breaking rules. You know, when people truly have to worry about keeping a job, they aren't so apt to break rules all the time!

Further, she is actually disappointed that a more comfortable efficiency apartment a bit farther away from her first job turns out to be the more affordable dwelling, as it doesn't have the same authentic poverty aesthetic as the local trailer park she would have preferred. When she does finally get to move into a trailer park with an unsavory reputation, she is "hoping for some vibrant multicultural street life" but instead of the drug deals and violent crimes she expects, she only gets the "desolation" of what she describes as "not people but canned labor" going to their jobs at the nearby convenience store and hotel. Even the glamor of poverty turns out to be a false preconception.

With these incidents I realized that she was not truly making an investigation - she was searching for proof to back up what she already believed. This was more than evident in the way she chose to conduct the experiment. If she really wanted to know how people lived on low wages, why didn't she take a large sample and interview many people? Her own experience, even if authentic, could not possibly represent a whole population.

I especially take issue with her research methods - or in this case, the lack thereof. For a person who claims to be making a scientific investigation, Ehrenreich certainly assumes a lot out of her own head. Her observations are rife with phrases like I suspect, I imagine, for all I know, perhaps, probably, presumeably, no doubt, of course, it's not for me to ask, I don't have to ask, my guess is, I think what she means is, and so on. She assumes quite a bit, without bothering to ask or check - presumes that nonwhites are preferred for hotel housekeeping jobs, assumes that smokers enjoy nourishing one thing they can call their own (their inevitable tumors), suspects that the maids' uniform pants lack back pockets in order to discourage theft of small items from the homeowners, assumes that drug testing appeals to employers specifically for its demeaning effect. She also second-guesses people's motives for not calling her back, not hiring her, etc. And she tones back her customary profanity, feeling it would be out of place in her new sphere - yet another assumption. Maybe she was worried about blowing her cover, but it seems to me that making up her own reasons for everything defeats the purpose of doing such an in-depth experiment. I could have overlooked it once or twice but the trend was excessive.

Ehrenreich also seems distractingly prejudiced against religion, especially Christianity - a point I felt had no bearing on the story whatsoever, yet she insists that "people wearing crosses or WWJD? buttons" give her dirty looks "as a general rule," and then attends a church revival service purely for entertainment, while establishing that she is an atheist herself. If nothing else these observations could only hurt her mission - as proof of an irrepressible bias, and a deviation from the stated purpose of her book.

She's also very concerned with minorities - practically obsessed with seeking out people of color, disappointed that "everyone else is a tragic-looking hillbilly type." I stopped reading for a long time when she asserted that, among the dissatisfied customers waiting in a restaurant, "The black couple looks ready to summon the NAACP" I don't know how she could have told that just from the way they looked; maybe they were just hungry and tired of waiting for their food while a snobby academic mused on the significance of her sacrifice. I guess it was supposed to be a joke.

The point that really tipped me over the edge was her completely unfounded speculation that the maid service required its employees to scrub floors on hands and knees because the "anal accessibility" of this servile posture appealed to the type of homeowners who liked the idea of a maid to do their cleaning. Now, I don't know if this woman had never tried to wash a floor before or what, but sometimes you do need to get down close to the surface so you can see what you're doing... maybe that was the company's way of insuring the floors were thoroughly clean. Whatever the reasoning, I can't really believe that they wanted to woo their clients with a vision of anal sex!

Overall, Ehrenreich seems to view low-wage workers as some pitiable foreign species. She's incredulous that a "place ... described as so morbidly dysfunctional could amount to a real and compelling human community." She discovers that applying for low-wage jobs is "humbling" because employers are not interested in your personality or life experience - yet she is surprised that she starts to "care" about her job, and tries to do it well. Did she think lower wage workers had no personal pride in their work?

Generally, I admire what Ehrenreich was trying to do, but I don't think she succeeded in her experiment. If anything, Nickel and Dimed shows how grossly out of touch and self-important a person can be.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

"That's not your marble bleeding, I want to tell her, it's the world-wide working class" (90)

146 - musing on friends who have lengthened their names to "gentrified" versions while she shortens hers for convenience to Barb on her name tag

Thinks she's regressed to a childlike state of "Barb" who is not as smart and is more of a bitch-169

Oryx & Crake - Margaret Atwood

(Read early July 2006)

I wasn't planning to read this - I was looking for The Penelopiad (which I later did find), but I didn't find it at the Whetstone branch library when I was there, and I did find this one.

Oryx & Crake takes place in a truly frightening world about 100 years in the future. Gene splicing technology has run amok, and society's elite are the scientists and their families, who live in heavily guarded complexes, sheltered from the desperate and dangerous lower classes. It's not merely crime that keeps the elites in their gated cities - fearsome, incurable viruses that have mutated out of control melt people's bodies like "gumdrops" in a matter of hours. A protective suit - or a vaccine - is needed in order to venture out into the "pleeblands." Scientists are able to create new skins for the reluctantly aging, customize babies for picky parents, and grow specially adapted convenience foods.

In the story's present, a man we know as Snowman, but who was once called Jimmy, is the last human alive after a terrible manmade plague wiped out the entire species in a matter of weeks. Snowman spends most of his time searching for edible food, staying out of the scorching sun, and fending off some of the genetically spliced feral animals that threaten his survival: creatures like rakunks (a cross between a skunk and a raccoon, with fun fur patterns but no odor), pigoons (pigs modified to grow multiple extra human organs, for transplant), and wolvogs (fierce dog/wolf crosses).

Jimmy/Snowman is in charge of the curious new race of humans created by his best friend, genius Crake - also the creator of the plague with which he purposely wiped out the rest of humanity. Jimmy was spared to look after the new race of people, whom he calls Crakers. They are genetically modified with special features that improve upon the regular human design - such as a natural scent that functions as an insect repellent, and body parts that change color at appropriate times for mating, eliminating any jealousy or spurned love.

And who is Oryx? She is a mysterious woman involved with both Crake and Jimmy, forming a love triangle of sorts. She is chosen by Crake to educate the new-style people he has created, who live in a sealed-off area where they never see any other regular humans. Jimmy particularly pines for her, never achieving the intimacy he longs for, and in the blasted post-plague world he imagines or dreams that he still hears her talking with him, or that she visits him in spirit.

Although he has taken up Oryx's task, Jimmy doesn't have quite he same ability to teach, and often simply relies on the new beings' view of him as a god - an idea that goes against Crake's original intent. But what will happen to the Crakers if the 'god' dies? While scouting for some increasingly difficult-to-find food - and answers - Jimmy becomes seriously wounded, and the Crakers' unique healing methods don't help him at all. Will mankind as we know it die with Snowman, or is there still hope? Even if I wanted to ruin the story for you, I couldn't, because it's left open at the end.

I think I will never be able to eat a "bucket of chicken" again, after reading the description of the "ChickieNobs" food product created in one of the labs... basically a living creature modified from a chicken, but with a round body that grew many meaty "knobs" (I picture something like that 1990s children's toy, the Bumble Ball) - headless, but with a small slot in the top to insert nutrients... a lab might grow hundreds of them, the new version of a chicken farm... Although he is disgusted when he first sees them in development, Jimmy comes to enjoy the ChickieNobs as his favorite fast food, and remarks that if you can forget everything you know about their provenance, they aren't so bad. I think that is the image that stuck with me the most... because although the bigger premise of the book is easier to dismiss, those little details seem frighteningly achievable.

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix (#5) - J. K. Rowling

Title: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Author: J. K. Rowling
Read: January 15-19, 2007

It took me a long time to get around to this, the fifth book in the Harry Potter series. I had read #1-4 at my own pace, and had borrowed #5 from a friend, but it languished on the bottom shelf of my bookcase and I couldn't get interested in tackling such a long book. I've always liked the story, but Rowling's writing style aggravates me - excessive passive voice would be easy to avoid, with some careful editing.

I'd also heard that this book was "darker" and that Harry behaved in the erratic, irrational manner of a moody adolescent, which is not exactly a selling point for me.

Anyhow, I might have read the first page or two - I honestly don't remember - but then I started school again and there was no chance I'd be able to devote any time to the book, so I returned it to my friend. That was in early 2005. I vaguely promised myself that I would at least read 5 and 6 before their respective films came out.

Now it's 2007, and I finally got the stomach to take Harry on again. I checked it out from the local library and finished it in about 3 days, staying up very late some nights to see what would happen. It was a good story, as usual, and I didn't see the big deal about Harry's supposedly "darker" behavior. The beginning part, at Harry's adoptive home with the Dursleys, is always my least favorite section, but this time things got off to a quick enough start.

It's a bit silly the way new magical items and spells keep being introduced in each book (things we've never heard of before at all). A little too convenient, IMO. The characters sometimes seem too black-and-white for my taste as well. It's just too easy. Unfortunately, one of the more complex characters (and one of my favorites) was killed off in this episode, and at an awkward point in the story... but I found that refreshingly realistic, for a change.

I don't approve of the way Harry always decides to ignore common sense and do things his own way, not tell the adults that can help and protect him - thus creating some unnecessarily dangerous situations for his friends. I mean he does that in every book so far - while his friends and other characters don't behave that way. He is clearly not learning anything. It's kind of hard to keep liking a character who won't learn from his experiences, no matter how tortured and predestined he is.

Anyhow... I guess that is all I didn't like about the book, so overall it was pretty good - good in the sense that it kept me interested in the overall series and eager to read the next installment. Like the others, though, I am sure I will not read it again, and will prefer the movie (whenever it comes out). (Speaking of the movie, sometimes the description and dialogue seemed geared to a movie rather than a book... almost lazy... did she write them with the movies in mind? I have to wonder.)

So far my favorite is still #3, The Prisoner of Azkaban (both book and movie).


P.S. I unexpectedly found myself envying Harry & his friends for getting to take interesting, unusual classes (the ones they were griping about having to attend)! I really wish I could be back at school...