I know, I know. I owe you a lot. I've been waylayed by family and travel and holidays. But, the good news from all of my procrastination is that you have A LOT to look forward to!
1. One: The Ending
2. Two
3. The book review of Rabbit, Run.
But here's the thing: I haven't written the first two items on that list, and I haven't yet read the book to write the third. I know. I have a lot to do. So, here I am! In a Starbucks during the holiday, sitting down for what spare minutes I have to give you something. Anything. I haven't forgotten you. I'm simply starting to feel, like I imagine you are, too, the holiday rush.
11.28.2009
11.24.2009
Hard work
The date review is coming, I promise. I had a date last night that interfered with my writing schedule.
11.20.2009
The Third Book
I'll be reading the entire Rabbit Angstrom over the next four weeks, but this is the first in the series, so I will be, obviously, reading it first!
The Lovely Bones
I’m warning you now: this is going to hurt. It’s going to sting and be unforgiving, and I apologize to those of you who love this novel, because I know the number of those who do is large. The reason why I chose this novel was because so many of my dear friends enjoyed it.
I, however, hated it.
I should preface this review with the acknowledgement that I have hated Alice Sebold since freshman year of college when I read Lucky, sprawled across my extra-long twin mattress in my dorm room. No writer has ever infuriated me like she did then. But give The Lovely Bones a try, many of you said. You’ll feel differently about her, you said. I’m always willing to give second chances. I am going out with One again, even after he called my best friend my “home girl” and sent me a link to a porn site last night. (For the record, I’m doing my best to get out of our second date tomorrow. I’m hoping the fact that he is getting sick will force a reschedule, which will give me plenty of room to stop talking to him altogether.)
After seeing the preview for the movie, which, while slightly typical in the Peter Jackson panoramic cinematography kind of way, looked pretty intriguing, I committed to a paperback copy of the book. When I read the blue-covered book it in the right light, the sun shining in between the window frame and the white blinds would reflect the blue off of the cover and onto the white bedspread on which I lay.
That was the only part of this book that I found to be beautiful.
I’m going to try my best to not get nitpicky and nasty. Snarky, you will all have to deal with, but I’ll skip right past my building desire to rip apart the novel from the first page (um, why is there an epigraph that is not really an epigraph and should most definitely be a paragraph IN the book, not BEFORE the book?).
Sorry. The rage Sebold ignites in me is a long and complicated one.
Ok, I’ll tell you. Have you ever read Lucky? Well, I hope not. I hope none of you waste the money on such an egotistical, bullying know-it-all. Lucky is Sebold’s memoir about being the victim of rape. Although, she would probably rip my head off for referring to her as a “victim.” (Hi, get over it.) But this is what really irked me: in the book she details (in detail!) the experience of a good friend of hers who is also raped. Certainly the details of the rape are very different from Sebold’s: she was raped brutally by a stranger, and her friend was date raped by someone she knew. I get it: rape is rape. Trust me, if anyone has struggled inwardly and outwardly with this concept it is I. Seriously. But just as grief is different (and from a very young age I was taught that you cannot judge how people deal with grief), so is trauma. It is no one’s business how one deals with the ramifications of being raped. It is not your place or mine to tell them what to do or how to act. That’s my opinion.
Apparently that’s not Sebold’s. In her memoir she criticizes her friend within its pages and to her face for not pressing charges against her assailant. Maybe I should be more understanding and see this as a symptom of Sebold’s own trauma manifesting itself in fervent anger towards her friend, but this uproar ended their friendship as I remember it, and Sebold showed, even years later upon writing her memoir, no regret for her unyielding, unsympathetic, and downright unfriendly behavior.
How about a little understanding?
This is all I remember of that novel. I remember being outraged and wanting to slam the book into her self-righteous face.
So, there it is: my real beef with Sebold. Maybe now I can continue on in an objective manner?
Doubtful.
Let me first go into what I enjoyed about the novel. I’d hate to follow up that rant with a bulleted list of everything that I hated, which, by the way, is currently hand-written on a page in my Filofax, ready to be elaborated upon.
I did enjoy the understated nature of the crime novel within the pages of this story. It was never overstated to the point of being trashy or predictable (like the rest of the novel, ah HEM). It felt more like a sleeping lion in the corner, left on its own and only occasionally mentioned in the details of the crime itself and the inner-workings of, and flashbacks in, Harvey’s mind. The chapter in which Sebold details the childhood recollections of Harvey and his mother is original and strikingly told, but the connection between his memories and the sickness in his adulthood is a little too thin to see explicitly. But I’m not a psychiatrist. Just an angry reader. Of course some of the details of Harvey’s symptoms, or how his unstable mind manifested itself, are predictable: killing animals, his first time raping a girl to be an accident, he claims: “It was as if something outside of him had resulted in the collision of their two bodies one afternoon” (292). Although, I suppose a lot of criminal behavior is predictable and unoriginal. It just doesn’t make for a compelling character.
There were also elements of vengeance that were left dangling at the end of the novel. Susie, so determined to protect her family and guide them towards her killer, found it more important to make love to a boy she loved at twelve years old when she did “come back to life” (more on this bullshit later) than she did to direct them towards where her killer was still stalking after other young girls. And then for Harvey to (SPOILER ALERT!!!) simply fall down a slope and die so unceremoniously seemed like all too convenient a way of dealing with the crime aspects of the novel. It certainly wasn’t an earned ending or death. More likely it was an easy way to wrap up the pesky issue of a serial rapist and killer on the loose in a pretty pink bow. One with jingle bells dangling from the ends, perhaps?
I did enjoy how intelligent the children in the book were. The adults were certainly thinking characters, but the extent of their respective depths was not as thoroughly plumbed as the depth of the young characters. The adults seemed selfish and stubbornly stuck, while the children were the ones who carried, and carried on under, the grief: Lindsey taking on the role of wife and mother, and Ruth taking on the responsibilities of channeling Susie and the dead. We learn early on that the sister, Lindsey, is labeled as gifted: “But once called gifted, it had spurred her on to live up to the name. She locked herself in her bedroom and read big books. When I read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, she read Camus’s Resistance, Rebellion, and Death” (32). And even Susie, who downplays her own intelligence, falls for a boy quite above his grade-level as far as literature is concerned: “’I like Othello,’ I ventured. ‘It’s condescending twaddle the way she teaches it. A sort of Black Like Me version of the Moor’” (74). Or Ruth who challenges her puritanical teachers when they question her detailed nude drawing from a sexless, wooden figure in class: “’If I’m not mistaken,’ said Miss Ryan, ‘there are no breasts on our anatomy model.”… ‘There isn’t a nose or mouth on that wooden model either,’ Ruth said, ‘but you encouraged us to draw in faces’” (76). The steady, determined brightness of the children seems to throw into greater relief the nonsense of the adults. From this point of view, Sebold achieves her greatest success in the novel.
There were also some strikingly cinematic moments where the narrator pulled away from specific scenes to show what all of the characters were doing in their specific points of grief: “While Len took her hand and brought her away from the wall into the tangle of pipes where the noise overhead added its chorus, Mr. Harvey began to pack his belongings; my brother met a small girl playing Hula-Hoop in the circle; my sister and Samuel lay beside each other on her bed, fully dressed and nervous; my grandmother downed three shots in the empty dining room. My father watched the phone” (196). I imagine these moments will fit flawlessly into Peter Jackson’s vision for the movie. I’m eager to see whether or not he translates them literally into his adaptation.
Ok, can we get a little cutting now? After reading the entire novel, all I can help thinking is that this is an exact confluence of the movie Ghost and the book The Deep End of the Ocean. It is practically the EXACT same story of Mitchard’s book: lost child, grieving and distant mother has affair with police officer assigned to the case, father clings to maintaining the family life and finding the answers to child’s disappearance, and surviving children suffer because of it. I read this book when I was in middle school, folks. It wasn’t good, certainly not good enough to be rewritten and repackaged as something worthy of a literary following a decade later. Admittedly, Sebold’s story is more skillfully told with better language, more compelling characters, and an insight into grief that does not exist The Deep End, in which the lost child is returned halfway through the novel, ending the similarities between the two stories. But it is one thing to be Jacquelyn Mitchard and sell yourself as a trashy beach read, but to put on writerly airs and write the same story? It’s offensive. And, while I was told that the idea of heaven in this book was beautiful and original, I found it to be flat and predictable: a voyeuristic, perfect place where you get everything you ask for and where you can channel yourself into the bodies of the living (an extremely baffling, confusing, eye-roll worthy part of the story). Most of us have seen Ghost; we’ve seen the idea of the dead watching over the living, trying to solve the crime that lead to their demise, trying to protect their loved ones, and somehow shifting into the bodies of those characters who are capable of channeling the dead.
What bothered me more than the predictably of heaven and death, was the predictably of the grief that each family member experienced. Are you serious with this shit, Sebold? Have you ever known a family who has lost a child? The story of this family is the stuff of soap operas and, well, trashy novels (see above reference to the Jacquelyn Mitchard novel I bought at Costco when I was thirteen). Grief is such an individual and original experience. It is never the same. I’ve never known one sibling to grieve like the next over a lost sister or brother. I’ve never known a best friend to grieve the way another one does. One of the things that makes grief so unbelievably beautiful (if I may say that) is how unique it is in everyone who experiences it. It’s this aspect of grief that makes it a compelling topic, but also a complicated one. And, while no member of the Salmon family experiences Susie’s death the same way as the other, the way in which each experiences it as a father, a mother, a sister, and a brother is extremely stereotypical. I imagine, if Sebold did any research at all (which I highly doubt), it was to read a Psych 101 textbook and call it a day. The father who channels his grief into finding his daughter’s killer, the mother who detaches and feels her daughter’s death is a punishment for never wanting her in the first place, the sister who grows up too quickly, tackling sex far too young as a way of feeling alive amidst death, and the little brother who struggles for attention growing up in a household broken by the death of his sister. Come on, right? Grief is not stereotypical. It is not predictable. Each person’s grief is not, in any way, similar to any grief that has been felt before. I resent Sebold trying to write grief in a way that is a disservice to the poignancy of the losing a loved one.
And as long as I’m being entirely unrelenting, let me just mention how much I began to despise Sebold’s use of “killer” ending lines. You know those lines with all the literary punch of a poem? They ended chapters, they ended sections. Find an ending in the book and you’ll find a so-called “killer” line:
“Our house looked the same as every other one on the block, but it was not the same. Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone” (206).
“I left them in the rain and darkness. I wondered if Lindsey noticed that when she and Samuel began to unzip their leathers the lightning stopped and the rumble in the throat of God—that scary thunder—ceased” (237).
“He turned and walked away, disappearing rapidly into spots and dust. Infinity” (261).
“And I thought of the mix of air that was our front yard, which was daylight, a queasy mother and a cop—it was a convergence of luck that had kept my sister safe so far. Every day a question mark” (299).
“’He took out a loan on his business to buy up old places that aren’t already slated for destruction. He wants to restore them,’ Ray said.
‘My God,’ Samuel said.
And I was gone” (322).
This last one kills me. IT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE! Why does this moment of all moments lead to her leaving her family behind to continue on to heaven? It’s terribly written, and it’s a terrible line to lead to her departure from the inbetween. There are so many moments that are lost on Sebold, so many opportunities for originality that fall, helplessly, into cheesiness.
Look, I love a powerful line like nobody’s business. I spent my early twenties trying to write good poetry (failing miserably, I might add) that had the power to make you feel everything in one line. But I sucked at it, and when Sebold ends every damn section or chapter with a “powerful” line, most of which are meaningless and there only for dramatic effect, they lose their effect! It becomes predictable. Does she really think we’re stupid enough to gasp at her nonsensical sentences when they pop up on every page? No. Instead, we roll our eyes as we approach the end of a chapter or a break in the page and think, “What’s it going to be this time?”
And, while we’re on all things cheesy, I’ll leave you with the one mention of the title (unless you want to actually approach it in an intelligent way and suggest the lovely bones are about the ones that are buried in Harvey’s basement and the sinkhole and the dug out shed where he has kept his victims). But beware, it’s just as insultingly cheesy and predictable as her other attempts at intelligent writing:
“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. That price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life” (320).
Say cheese!
CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!
I give it one star out of five. (This rating is under the assumption that I am allowed to give a book zero stars out of five. There is, after all, an inkling of redemption floating around within its pages.)
I, however, hated it.
I should preface this review with the acknowledgement that I have hated Alice Sebold since freshman year of college when I read Lucky, sprawled across my extra-long twin mattress in my dorm room. No writer has ever infuriated me like she did then. But give The Lovely Bones a try, many of you said. You’ll feel differently about her, you said. I’m always willing to give second chances. I am going out with One again, even after he called my best friend my “home girl” and sent me a link to a porn site last night. (For the record, I’m doing my best to get out of our second date tomorrow. I’m hoping the fact that he is getting sick will force a reschedule, which will give me plenty of room to stop talking to him altogether.)
After seeing the preview for the movie, which, while slightly typical in the Peter Jackson panoramic cinematography kind of way, looked pretty intriguing, I committed to a paperback copy of the book. When I read the blue-covered book it in the right light, the sun shining in between the window frame and the white blinds would reflect the blue off of the cover and onto the white bedspread on which I lay.
That was the only part of this book that I found to be beautiful.
I’m going to try my best to not get nitpicky and nasty. Snarky, you will all have to deal with, but I’ll skip right past my building desire to rip apart the novel from the first page (um, why is there an epigraph that is not really an epigraph and should most definitely be a paragraph IN the book, not BEFORE the book?).
Sorry. The rage Sebold ignites in me is a long and complicated one.
Ok, I’ll tell you. Have you ever read Lucky? Well, I hope not. I hope none of you waste the money on such an egotistical, bullying know-it-all. Lucky is Sebold’s memoir about being the victim of rape. Although, she would probably rip my head off for referring to her as a “victim.” (Hi, get over it.) But this is what really irked me: in the book she details (in detail!) the experience of a good friend of hers who is also raped. Certainly the details of the rape are very different from Sebold’s: she was raped brutally by a stranger, and her friend was date raped by someone she knew. I get it: rape is rape. Trust me, if anyone has struggled inwardly and outwardly with this concept it is I. Seriously. But just as grief is different (and from a very young age I was taught that you cannot judge how people deal with grief), so is trauma. It is no one’s business how one deals with the ramifications of being raped. It is not your place or mine to tell them what to do or how to act. That’s my opinion.
Apparently that’s not Sebold’s. In her memoir she criticizes her friend within its pages and to her face for not pressing charges against her assailant. Maybe I should be more understanding and see this as a symptom of Sebold’s own trauma manifesting itself in fervent anger towards her friend, but this uproar ended their friendship as I remember it, and Sebold showed, even years later upon writing her memoir, no regret for her unyielding, unsympathetic, and downright unfriendly behavior.
How about a little understanding?
This is all I remember of that novel. I remember being outraged and wanting to slam the book into her self-righteous face.
So, there it is: my real beef with Sebold. Maybe now I can continue on in an objective manner?
Doubtful.
Let me first go into what I enjoyed about the novel. I’d hate to follow up that rant with a bulleted list of everything that I hated, which, by the way, is currently hand-written on a page in my Filofax, ready to be elaborated upon.
I did enjoy the understated nature of the crime novel within the pages of this story. It was never overstated to the point of being trashy or predictable (like the rest of the novel, ah HEM). It felt more like a sleeping lion in the corner, left on its own and only occasionally mentioned in the details of the crime itself and the inner-workings of, and flashbacks in, Harvey’s mind. The chapter in which Sebold details the childhood recollections of Harvey and his mother is original and strikingly told, but the connection between his memories and the sickness in his adulthood is a little too thin to see explicitly. But I’m not a psychiatrist. Just an angry reader. Of course some of the details of Harvey’s symptoms, or how his unstable mind manifested itself, are predictable: killing animals, his first time raping a girl to be an accident, he claims: “It was as if something outside of him had resulted in the collision of their two bodies one afternoon” (292). Although, I suppose a lot of criminal behavior is predictable and unoriginal. It just doesn’t make for a compelling character.
There were also elements of vengeance that were left dangling at the end of the novel. Susie, so determined to protect her family and guide them towards her killer, found it more important to make love to a boy she loved at twelve years old when she did “come back to life” (more on this bullshit later) than she did to direct them towards where her killer was still stalking after other young girls. And then for Harvey to (SPOILER ALERT!!!) simply fall down a slope and die so unceremoniously seemed like all too convenient a way of dealing with the crime aspects of the novel. It certainly wasn’t an earned ending or death. More likely it was an easy way to wrap up the pesky issue of a serial rapist and killer on the loose in a pretty pink bow. One with jingle bells dangling from the ends, perhaps?
I did enjoy how intelligent the children in the book were. The adults were certainly thinking characters, but the extent of their respective depths was not as thoroughly plumbed as the depth of the young characters. The adults seemed selfish and stubbornly stuck, while the children were the ones who carried, and carried on under, the grief: Lindsey taking on the role of wife and mother, and Ruth taking on the responsibilities of channeling Susie and the dead. We learn early on that the sister, Lindsey, is labeled as gifted: “But once called gifted, it had spurred her on to live up to the name. She locked herself in her bedroom and read big books. When I read Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret, she read Camus’s Resistance, Rebellion, and Death” (32). And even Susie, who downplays her own intelligence, falls for a boy quite above his grade-level as far as literature is concerned: “’I like Othello,’ I ventured. ‘It’s condescending twaddle the way she teaches it. A sort of Black Like Me version of the Moor’” (74). Or Ruth who challenges her puritanical teachers when they question her detailed nude drawing from a sexless, wooden figure in class: “’If I’m not mistaken,’ said Miss Ryan, ‘there are no breasts on our anatomy model.”… ‘There isn’t a nose or mouth on that wooden model either,’ Ruth said, ‘but you encouraged us to draw in faces’” (76). The steady, determined brightness of the children seems to throw into greater relief the nonsense of the adults. From this point of view, Sebold achieves her greatest success in the novel.
There were also some strikingly cinematic moments where the narrator pulled away from specific scenes to show what all of the characters were doing in their specific points of grief: “While Len took her hand and brought her away from the wall into the tangle of pipes where the noise overhead added its chorus, Mr. Harvey began to pack his belongings; my brother met a small girl playing Hula-Hoop in the circle; my sister and Samuel lay beside each other on her bed, fully dressed and nervous; my grandmother downed three shots in the empty dining room. My father watched the phone” (196). I imagine these moments will fit flawlessly into Peter Jackson’s vision for the movie. I’m eager to see whether or not he translates them literally into his adaptation.
Ok, can we get a little cutting now? After reading the entire novel, all I can help thinking is that this is an exact confluence of the movie Ghost and the book The Deep End of the Ocean. It is practically the EXACT same story of Mitchard’s book: lost child, grieving and distant mother has affair with police officer assigned to the case, father clings to maintaining the family life and finding the answers to child’s disappearance, and surviving children suffer because of it. I read this book when I was in middle school, folks. It wasn’t good, certainly not good enough to be rewritten and repackaged as something worthy of a literary following a decade later. Admittedly, Sebold’s story is more skillfully told with better language, more compelling characters, and an insight into grief that does not exist The Deep End, in which the lost child is returned halfway through the novel, ending the similarities between the two stories. But it is one thing to be Jacquelyn Mitchard and sell yourself as a trashy beach read, but to put on writerly airs and write the same story? It’s offensive. And, while I was told that the idea of heaven in this book was beautiful and original, I found it to be flat and predictable: a voyeuristic, perfect place where you get everything you ask for and where you can channel yourself into the bodies of the living (an extremely baffling, confusing, eye-roll worthy part of the story). Most of us have seen Ghost; we’ve seen the idea of the dead watching over the living, trying to solve the crime that lead to their demise, trying to protect their loved ones, and somehow shifting into the bodies of those characters who are capable of channeling the dead.
What bothered me more than the predictably of heaven and death, was the predictably of the grief that each family member experienced. Are you serious with this shit, Sebold? Have you ever known a family who has lost a child? The story of this family is the stuff of soap operas and, well, trashy novels (see above reference to the Jacquelyn Mitchard novel I bought at Costco when I was thirteen). Grief is such an individual and original experience. It is never the same. I’ve never known one sibling to grieve like the next over a lost sister or brother. I’ve never known a best friend to grieve the way another one does. One of the things that makes grief so unbelievably beautiful (if I may say that) is how unique it is in everyone who experiences it. It’s this aspect of grief that makes it a compelling topic, but also a complicated one. And, while no member of the Salmon family experiences Susie’s death the same way as the other, the way in which each experiences it as a father, a mother, a sister, and a brother is extremely stereotypical. I imagine, if Sebold did any research at all (which I highly doubt), it was to read a Psych 101 textbook and call it a day. The father who channels his grief into finding his daughter’s killer, the mother who detaches and feels her daughter’s death is a punishment for never wanting her in the first place, the sister who grows up too quickly, tackling sex far too young as a way of feeling alive amidst death, and the little brother who struggles for attention growing up in a household broken by the death of his sister. Come on, right? Grief is not stereotypical. It is not predictable. Each person’s grief is not, in any way, similar to any grief that has been felt before. I resent Sebold trying to write grief in a way that is a disservice to the poignancy of the losing a loved one.
And as long as I’m being entirely unrelenting, let me just mention how much I began to despise Sebold’s use of “killer” ending lines. You know those lines with all the literary punch of a poem? They ended chapters, they ended sections. Find an ending in the book and you’ll find a so-called “killer” line:
“Our house looked the same as every other one on the block, but it was not the same. Murder had a blood red door on the other side of which was everything unimaginable to everyone” (206).
“I left them in the rain and darkness. I wondered if Lindsey noticed that when she and Samuel began to unzip their leathers the lightning stopped and the rumble in the throat of God—that scary thunder—ceased” (237).
“He turned and walked away, disappearing rapidly into spots and dust. Infinity” (261).
“And I thought of the mix of air that was our front yard, which was daylight, a queasy mother and a cop—it was a convergence of luck that had kept my sister safe so far. Every day a question mark” (299).
“’He took out a loan on his business to buy up old places that aren’t already slated for destruction. He wants to restore them,’ Ray said.
‘My God,’ Samuel said.
And I was gone” (322).
This last one kills me. IT DOESN’T EVEN MAKE SENSE! Why does this moment of all moments lead to her leaving her family behind to continue on to heaven? It’s terribly written, and it’s a terrible line to lead to her departure from the inbetween. There are so many moments that are lost on Sebold, so many opportunities for originality that fall, helplessly, into cheesiness.
Look, I love a powerful line like nobody’s business. I spent my early twenties trying to write good poetry (failing miserably, I might add) that had the power to make you feel everything in one line. But I sucked at it, and when Sebold ends every damn section or chapter with a “powerful” line, most of which are meaningless and there only for dramatic effect, they lose their effect! It becomes predictable. Does she really think we’re stupid enough to gasp at her nonsensical sentences when they pop up on every page? No. Instead, we roll our eyes as we approach the end of a chapter or a break in the page and think, “What’s it going to be this time?”
And, while we’re on all things cheesy, I’ll leave you with the one mention of the title (unless you want to actually approach it in an intelligent way and suggest the lovely bones are about the ones that are buried in Harvey’s basement and the sinkhole and the dug out shed where he has kept his victims). But beware, it’s just as insultingly cheesy and predictable as her other attempts at intelligent writing:
“These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence: the connections—sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent—that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. That price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life” (320).
Say cheese!
CHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESE!
I give it one star out of five. (This rating is under the assumption that I am allowed to give a book zero stars out of five. There is, after all, an inkling of redemption floating around within its pages.)
11.18.2009
Real Profiles, Real People
Oh, you pretty pretty boy you. It's unfortunate that, in your profile you admit willingly that the most important thing you are looking for in a woman is her physical appearance and that the last book you read was one by Bill O'Reilly, because you are so so pretty. Maybe we could meet up anyway, and I could just pet you while you remain silent?
11.17.2009
One
Oh, well look who it is! It’s One texting me as I write. Friends, say hello to One. One, say hello to the people. (I feel bad for the poor innocents involved in this exercise, the men who sit eagerly across the table and pour a little too much of their hearts out into my ears and their perspiring cups of water.)
As you were all witness to, the rush to find a date for the first week was a bit frantic. A few spastic emails to potential suitors, and I had myself a catch. Most of them either didn’t respond or outright rejected me. Not permanently, but in an “I’m not sure what my schedule is looking like for this weekend” kind of way. Um, excuse me? A girl is asking you out. Unless you have unchangeable other plans, you say yes. You always say yes!
I find that this is a common trend among online daters, and I’m not here to judge because, before this exercise in consistent dating, I was prone to it myself. It’s comfortable to hide behind the guise of lengthy email exchanges, only sharing your best pictures and a wittily written profile. What am I like when I’m angry, you ask? What is this word, “angry?” Do mean when someone says something that is not absolutely pleasant and butterflies fly from my ears and bubbles emit from my fingertips?
And such is the world of online dating. But I dropped the “getting together” bomb early on in my exchanges with One, considering we made a connection late in the week, and I was desperate to not fail. And then, as we all remember, he ruined the excitement of his acceptance by asking me the stupid question, “Have you ever dated a brotha?” Yes, One is one and the same.
I should preface this with a little rant about how much I despise racial profiling in dating. I think it is one of the few last accepted forms of racism. White women who only date black men, white men who only date Asian girls, black men who only date white girls, and the list goes on. Not recently, but unfortunately not long enough ago, I received a communication via the online dating world from a black man detailing how he only dated short, brunette, white girls. Conveniently, I fit into that category. But here are my issues:
1. Why are you judging me by my looks right from the start? How will I ever know if you chose to contact me because of my smart profile or because of the genes my German ancestors passed to me, blessing me with brown hair?
2. Why is it okay for you to say you only date white girls when, to hear a white man say he would never date a black girl would unquestionably send most people, most likely including you, over the edge? You, sir, are JUST as racist as that white man, and just as much of an asshole.
Stepping off of my soapbox, you can see why I was turned off when One asked me if I had ever dated a brotha before. No, I should have said, but my dog is black and male and I sleep with him every night. Does that count?
Had it not been for this blog and the lack of options, I would have ended communication at that, but I stuck it out. I drove to his town, I sat straight-backed on the bench outside of the restaurant where we were supposed to meet, and I waited. He walked up mere seconds later, in well-fitting jeans, broad shoulders, and a Northface jacket. The same jacket, in fact, that I own (albeit the male version in the more masculine color of burnt orange). It’s a warm jacket, it’s a practical jacket, it’s an undeniably yuppie jacket, and I decided then and there to give him a real shot.
The host walked us to a table far in the back. It was Sunday and each member of the wait staff was dressed in their favorite football team’s jersey. The host was wearing a Steelers jersey. I don’t remember the player’s name on the back. It was a long walk to the back of the restaurant, down an empty section with endless table options.
Once we were seated we must have talked for an hour before we ordered our food. The poor waiter in his Eagles’ jersey continued to hopefully round the corner, asking us if we were ready to order, but neither of us had even opened the menus.
To be honest, I have absolutely no recollection of what we discussed in that time. I know that I asked most of the questions, which was a little worrisome, but I am understanding of the fact that some people get nervous. I definitely remember mentioning a number of critical details about myself, so he must have participated in some way. He told me about his siblings, about his family, and thought it was adorable that I was the baby of my family.
The details of the conversation aren’t really important, are they? What’s more important is that it all flowed easily, and that he was confident and eloquent and cool. (I can’t count the number of painfully uncomfortable dorks I’ve met online, truth be told.) And then, out of the blue, he apologized for asking me if I had ever dated a “brotha.”
“I’m sorry I was so forward in asking about whether or not you had dated a black man," he said, staring at his hands.
“Oh,” I said, not wanting to say that it was okay, because it wasn’t. He continued:
“I guess I just get a little nervous about those things.”
“What things?” I was intrigued by where this was going.
“It’s just that some girls… well… I worry… I don’t want to be your experiment,” he finally got out.
I think this, along with the yuppie jacket and the hour of seamless conversation, was what tipped me to his good side.
What an important lesson for me to learn in this process: not everything can be communicated online, and what is communicated is not always done so effectively. Take One as an example: if it weren’t for this blog and this experiment, I would have passed up a perfectly good first date.
At one point a small child wandered into our section of the restaurant, wielding a roll of silverware like a weapon. I looked back in search of a parent or guardian, and, in the process of turning my head, caught One looking at the child in a way that I imagine I look at children: in adoring awe. I have never seen a man look at a child that way, and I was too transfixed with the expression on his face to engage in any usual swooning over the adorable child myself. I watched him watching the child and thought, shocked, “This one has potential.”
The brief lunch, for which I had pre-planned an excuse to escape (necessary for any first date, in my opinion), turned into a three-hour meal. I have never had a longer lunch, even sitting in the outdoor cafés in Paris, slowly eating thin slices of salmon drizzled with oil, and when I found a break in the conversation to tell him that I should really be getting home (because, after all, I did have to “help my mom go through the boxes in her garage”), he paid the check, waving away my offer to split it.
Let me pause to discuss my stance on the issue of the check.
There is much controversy over this issue, but the way I play it is this: I’m an independent and forward-thinking female. I will gladly show that, and my general tendency towards courtesy, by offering to pay for half. I always extend the obligatory, “Do you want to split that?” offer, and, most times (actually all times that I can remember, a fact that stuns my mother who last went on a date in the 1970’s) they take me up on it. But let me be clear: this is, without a doubt, a test. Yes, I am independent. Yes, I am forward thinking. But I also feel slightly awkward about kissing on a first date (it’s weird if you really think about it!). And I appreciate the door being opened for me. And, while none of this is necessary, it shows consideration. I like a man with strong forearms, and I like a man who can pay the check confidently and without question. I might be a feminist, but I am a woman, and, biologically, I am programmed to be attracted to men who can take care of me. I might not always need it. I might resist it steadfastly in my “stubbornly independent” way, as my father dubs it. But I appreciate it. And I, without second thought, give major bonus points to those men who confidently show their chivalry.
Can we move on?
I can’t really explain what happened when he walked me to my car, other than to say that it is was the same unbearably ridiculous behavior I displayed last night when he called and I giddily paced the floor of my bedroom while talking loudly and laughing like an asshole. When he walked me to my car, I stalled. I opened the car door. I insisted he smell my car (he remarked on the new car scent, it wasn’t entirely unprovoked), and I told him to take care of his… jacket? Yes, my dears, I was a bumbling loser, doing and saying anything to not have him leave, to not have the date be over just yet. He stayed by the open car door, thankfully undeterred by my nonsense. He pulled me into a strong hug that lasted long enough to make me giggle. Yes, for fuck’s sake, I giggled. He stepped away and then leaned in to kiss me on the cheek.
More drivel poured from my mouth, and he finally looked down at his feet and back at me and asked, “Would you mind if I kissed you? You know, on the lips?” I smiled warily down at my feet and he clarified, “Just a little one.” I nodded my consent. He leaned in and kissed me quickly on the lips as if we were young children experimenting with something we had seen on television.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My lips must taste all…” I struggled for the word “… medicinal.” I had applied Carmex to my lips shortly before leaving the restaurant.
At the same time he apologized for something having to do with his lips and our apologies overlapped in the afternoon sun.
“It’s ok,” he said. “I like it.”
We smiled, reluctantly said goodbye, and went our separate ways. On the way out of the parking lot I got lost, and he passed me, beeped, and pointed for me to follow him.
It was adorable. All of it was, really.
Of course there is now the predicament of what to do with an adorable man who just happened to be the first in, what was supposed to be, a long string of fifty-two first dates. I struggled with this for the entire drive home, into the night, and through yesterday: I’m not supposed to like these men! I’m supposed to play them like fools and leave a pile of pathetic hearts and hilarious first date anecdotes in my wake! Was I even allowed to go on a second date with this guy? Was that part of the exercise? I took a decent amount of time thinking about the point of this exercise, and then I remembered why I became attached to the idea in the first place: I am so easily discouraged by bad dates. More than one or two negative experiences and I downspin into a subscription canceling tirade that can last months, only to come out the other side lonely and wishing I had just stuck with it a little longer. I reread the article from O Magazine that I initially posted and took comfort in the detail that sometimes her one coffee date turned into six months. I don’t anticipate finding a long-term relationship from this exercise, but if one date has the potential to turn into two, I certainly am not stubborn enough in my desire for decent blog fodder to turn away from the possibility. As Olive declared in the last lines of the book,
What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry [her husband] and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered.
I am still in contact with other men online, and I am still actively pursuing first dates with them, but, in the meantime, One just may turn into Two. We already have plans for this weekend.
As you were all witness to, the rush to find a date for the first week was a bit frantic. A few spastic emails to potential suitors, and I had myself a catch. Most of them either didn’t respond or outright rejected me. Not permanently, but in an “I’m not sure what my schedule is looking like for this weekend” kind of way. Um, excuse me? A girl is asking you out. Unless you have unchangeable other plans, you say yes. You always say yes!
I find that this is a common trend among online daters, and I’m not here to judge because, before this exercise in consistent dating, I was prone to it myself. It’s comfortable to hide behind the guise of lengthy email exchanges, only sharing your best pictures and a wittily written profile. What am I like when I’m angry, you ask? What is this word, “angry?” Do mean when someone says something that is not absolutely pleasant and butterflies fly from my ears and bubbles emit from my fingertips?
And such is the world of online dating. But I dropped the “getting together” bomb early on in my exchanges with One, considering we made a connection late in the week, and I was desperate to not fail. And then, as we all remember, he ruined the excitement of his acceptance by asking me the stupid question, “Have you ever dated a brotha?” Yes, One is one and the same.
I should preface this with a little rant about how much I despise racial profiling in dating. I think it is one of the few last accepted forms of racism. White women who only date black men, white men who only date Asian girls, black men who only date white girls, and the list goes on. Not recently, but unfortunately not long enough ago, I received a communication via the online dating world from a black man detailing how he only dated short, brunette, white girls. Conveniently, I fit into that category. But here are my issues:
1. Why are you judging me by my looks right from the start? How will I ever know if you chose to contact me because of my smart profile or because of the genes my German ancestors passed to me, blessing me with brown hair?
2. Why is it okay for you to say you only date white girls when, to hear a white man say he would never date a black girl would unquestionably send most people, most likely including you, over the edge? You, sir, are JUST as racist as that white man, and just as much of an asshole.
Stepping off of my soapbox, you can see why I was turned off when One asked me if I had ever dated a brotha before. No, I should have said, but my dog is black and male and I sleep with him every night. Does that count?
Had it not been for this blog and the lack of options, I would have ended communication at that, but I stuck it out. I drove to his town, I sat straight-backed on the bench outside of the restaurant where we were supposed to meet, and I waited. He walked up mere seconds later, in well-fitting jeans, broad shoulders, and a Northface jacket. The same jacket, in fact, that I own (albeit the male version in the more masculine color of burnt orange). It’s a warm jacket, it’s a practical jacket, it’s an undeniably yuppie jacket, and I decided then and there to give him a real shot.
The host walked us to a table far in the back. It was Sunday and each member of the wait staff was dressed in their favorite football team’s jersey. The host was wearing a Steelers jersey. I don’t remember the player’s name on the back. It was a long walk to the back of the restaurant, down an empty section with endless table options.
Once we were seated we must have talked for an hour before we ordered our food. The poor waiter in his Eagles’ jersey continued to hopefully round the corner, asking us if we were ready to order, but neither of us had even opened the menus.
To be honest, I have absolutely no recollection of what we discussed in that time. I know that I asked most of the questions, which was a little worrisome, but I am understanding of the fact that some people get nervous. I definitely remember mentioning a number of critical details about myself, so he must have participated in some way. He told me about his siblings, about his family, and thought it was adorable that I was the baby of my family.
The details of the conversation aren’t really important, are they? What’s more important is that it all flowed easily, and that he was confident and eloquent and cool. (I can’t count the number of painfully uncomfortable dorks I’ve met online, truth be told.) And then, out of the blue, he apologized for asking me if I had ever dated a “brotha.”
“I’m sorry I was so forward in asking about whether or not you had dated a black man," he said, staring at his hands.
“Oh,” I said, not wanting to say that it was okay, because it wasn’t. He continued:
“I guess I just get a little nervous about those things.”
“What things?” I was intrigued by where this was going.
“It’s just that some girls… well… I worry… I don’t want to be your experiment,” he finally got out.
I think this, along with the yuppie jacket and the hour of seamless conversation, was what tipped me to his good side.
What an important lesson for me to learn in this process: not everything can be communicated online, and what is communicated is not always done so effectively. Take One as an example: if it weren’t for this blog and this experiment, I would have passed up a perfectly good first date.
At one point a small child wandered into our section of the restaurant, wielding a roll of silverware like a weapon. I looked back in search of a parent or guardian, and, in the process of turning my head, caught One looking at the child in a way that I imagine I look at children: in adoring awe. I have never seen a man look at a child that way, and I was too transfixed with the expression on his face to engage in any usual swooning over the adorable child myself. I watched him watching the child and thought, shocked, “This one has potential.”
The brief lunch, for which I had pre-planned an excuse to escape (necessary for any first date, in my opinion), turned into a three-hour meal. I have never had a longer lunch, even sitting in the outdoor cafés in Paris, slowly eating thin slices of salmon drizzled with oil, and when I found a break in the conversation to tell him that I should really be getting home (because, after all, I did have to “help my mom go through the boxes in her garage”), he paid the check, waving away my offer to split it.
Let me pause to discuss my stance on the issue of the check.
There is much controversy over this issue, but the way I play it is this: I’m an independent and forward-thinking female. I will gladly show that, and my general tendency towards courtesy, by offering to pay for half. I always extend the obligatory, “Do you want to split that?” offer, and, most times (actually all times that I can remember, a fact that stuns my mother who last went on a date in the 1970’s) they take me up on it. But let me be clear: this is, without a doubt, a test. Yes, I am independent. Yes, I am forward thinking. But I also feel slightly awkward about kissing on a first date (it’s weird if you really think about it!). And I appreciate the door being opened for me. And, while none of this is necessary, it shows consideration. I like a man with strong forearms, and I like a man who can pay the check confidently and without question. I might be a feminist, but I am a woman, and, biologically, I am programmed to be attracted to men who can take care of me. I might not always need it. I might resist it steadfastly in my “stubbornly independent” way, as my father dubs it. But I appreciate it. And I, without second thought, give major bonus points to those men who confidently show their chivalry.
Can we move on?
I can’t really explain what happened when he walked me to my car, other than to say that it is was the same unbearably ridiculous behavior I displayed last night when he called and I giddily paced the floor of my bedroom while talking loudly and laughing like an asshole. When he walked me to my car, I stalled. I opened the car door. I insisted he smell my car (he remarked on the new car scent, it wasn’t entirely unprovoked), and I told him to take care of his… jacket? Yes, my dears, I was a bumbling loser, doing and saying anything to not have him leave, to not have the date be over just yet. He stayed by the open car door, thankfully undeterred by my nonsense. He pulled me into a strong hug that lasted long enough to make me giggle. Yes, for fuck’s sake, I giggled. He stepped away and then leaned in to kiss me on the cheek.
More drivel poured from my mouth, and he finally looked down at his feet and back at me and asked, “Would you mind if I kissed you? You know, on the lips?” I smiled warily down at my feet and he clarified, “Just a little one.” I nodded my consent. He leaned in and kissed me quickly on the lips as if we were young children experimenting with something we had seen on television.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “My lips must taste all…” I struggled for the word “… medicinal.” I had applied Carmex to my lips shortly before leaving the restaurant.
At the same time he apologized for something having to do with his lips and our apologies overlapped in the afternoon sun.
“It’s ok,” he said. “I like it.”
We smiled, reluctantly said goodbye, and went our separate ways. On the way out of the parking lot I got lost, and he passed me, beeped, and pointed for me to follow him.
It was adorable. All of it was, really.
Of course there is now the predicament of what to do with an adorable man who just happened to be the first in, what was supposed to be, a long string of fifty-two first dates. I struggled with this for the entire drive home, into the night, and through yesterday: I’m not supposed to like these men! I’m supposed to play them like fools and leave a pile of pathetic hearts and hilarious first date anecdotes in my wake! Was I even allowed to go on a second date with this guy? Was that part of the exercise? I took a decent amount of time thinking about the point of this exercise, and then I remembered why I became attached to the idea in the first place: I am so easily discouraged by bad dates. More than one or two negative experiences and I downspin into a subscription canceling tirade that can last months, only to come out the other side lonely and wishing I had just stuck with it a little longer. I reread the article from O Magazine that I initially posted and took comfort in the detail that sometimes her one coffee date turned into six months. I don’t anticipate finding a long-term relationship from this exercise, but if one date has the potential to turn into two, I certainly am not stubborn enough in my desire for decent blog fodder to turn away from the possibility. As Olive declared in the last lines of the book,
What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry [her husband] and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered.
I am still in contact with other men online, and I am still actively pursuing first dates with them, but, in the meantime, One just may turn into Two. We already have plans for this weekend.
11.16.2009
Apologies
I had such wonderful intentions to review the first book and the first date this evening, while sipping a grande chai at my local Starbucks, but my book review, as you can very well see, spilled over into a 2,000+ word essay! My goodness that was unexpected! It must be my old penchant for proper citations and paper writing come back back to haunt me (and you, you poor readers!). I hope you'll understand why the first week's date review will have to wait until tomorrow. This is an excellent lesson to learn as the year progresses: do not procrastinate and assume it can all be done in one night. This experience, these books, these men deserve more than that. Well, at least the experience and books do. The men have to prove themselves.
Olive Kitteridge
What a perfect book with which to start this endeavor. A small collection of short stories (although I would be willing to write a lengthy paper defending it as a novel) about a small town, small lives, and one large woman. Olive Kitteridge not only followed the lives of the people in this town, but it used their lives to tell the story of aging, of change, and of how these themes influence marriage, love, and parenting.
Let’s just get this out there: the last two paragraphs of this book are words that will stick with me forever. Let’s work under the assumption that all of these book reviews will contain spoilers, there is no way around it. I’ll do my best to not reveal any huge moments that might ruin the book for others, but passages must be used. A discussion of a book isn’t anything without citations, after all.
“What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry [her husband] and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered.
And so, if this man [not her husband] next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter? He most likely wouldn’t have chosen her either. But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union—what pieces life took out of you.”
You see? Could I have chosen a better book with which to start? What a message in these last words, but also throughout the book. The theme of aging is constantly present as we watch Olive, her husband, and her son age through the points of view of other townspeople. It is in “A Little Burst” that we first see Olive’s aging physically. At her son’s wedding she finds herself in a spare bedroom noticing how her body has changed, how clothes no longer flatter her, and how a few spare hairs are sprouting from her chin.
There is mention of “another heart attack,” which of course suggests that she has already had a heart attack, but there isn’t any other mention of it in the book, an example of how Strout understates some of the more traumatic details of the characters’ lives. Another example of this is when she startlingly describes Kevin’s mother suicide: “Kevin could not abide the thought of any child discovering what he had discovered; that his mother’s need to devour her life had been so huge and urgent as to spray remnants of corporeality across the kitchen cupboards” (33). Strout skillfully takes the startling image of brains being blown across a kitchen and finds lyricism in it.
There is a wisdom that comes with aging as the stories progress and we see different examples of how characters experience it. Even though Janie in “Winter Concert” admits to being scared of the “day [she is] going to die” (138), she goes on, just a few paragraphs later, to admit that she does “not envy those young girls in the ice cream shop. Behind the bored eyes of the waitresses handing out sundaes there loomed, she knew, great earnestness, great desires, and great disappointments; such confusion lay ahead for them, and (more wearisome) anger; oh, before they were through, they would blame and blame and blame, then get tired, too” (139). What I adored in Strout’s depiction of growing old was how she took the time to confront the fears of aging while also showing, through the behavior of younger, more vapid characters, how stabilizing the process is.
Of course the horror of aging is not overlooked, in fact is confronted magnificently, and the culmination comes when Olive goes to visit her son and his new wife in New York City, well into the last stages of her life: “Stepping into the little closet of a bathroom, she flicked on the light, and saw in the mirror that across her blue cotton blouse was a long and prominent strip of sticky dark butterscotch sauce. A small feeling of distress took hold. They had seen this and not told her. She had become the old lady her Aunt Ora had been, when years ago she and Henry would take the old lady out for a drive, stopping some nights to get an ice cream, and Olive had watched as Aunt Ora had spilled melted ice cream down her front; she had felt repulsion at the sight of it. In fact, she was glad when Ora died, and Olive didn’t have to continue to witness the pathetic sight” (226).
Strout sheds light on the vibrancy and frustrations of older adults, and I consider myself lucky to have read this book at my age. It is so easy, as Olive’s own son does, to imagine older people in our lives as incompetent annoyances, but Strout wonderfully defends the aged characters. This book serves as a battle call from the top of the octogenarian mountain. It screams, “We are still alive, we are still thinking, we are still feeling!” What perceptive empathy Strout has as a writer for her characters.
In this same vein, the theme of change is shown through the progression of time in the characters lives. There are endless examples, mainly from Olive’s often cynical point of view, of older adults looking at the younger generation in confusion and bewilderment: “Amazing how nasty kids are these days” (65), she observes. Or when she struggles to find the name for ADHD: “One of them is hyperactive, can’t concentrate, whatever it is these days when a kid can’t sit still” (128). For most of the characters there is an extreme disconnect between the younger characters (their children, nephews, employees) and themselves. They struggle with it as their children grow into adults with their own troubled marriages, stubborn children, and emotional distress.
Strout also cleverly extends the theme of change by having the stories progress through the changing seasons: from spring, to summer, to fall, to winter, to spring again in the end as Olive is reborn into her life as a widow. “The tulips died, the tress turned red, the leaves fell off, the trees were bare, snow came. All these changes she watched from the bump-out room, where she lay on her side, clutching her transistor radio, her knees tucked to her chest” (148). As Olive and the other characters age, the seasons in which the stories take place progress from the buds of spring to the dead of winter. The seasons also, predictably, become a metaphor for aging: “She would have to decide soon whether or not to plant the tulips, before the ground was frozen” (162), surely a metaphor for death and one last one hurrah at living after the death of her husband.
Perhaps the only older character who appreciates youth outwardly and sees in them something more than wasted days and energy is Harmon, who admits, “God, I love young people… They get griped about enough. People like to think the younger generation’s job is to steer the world to hell. But it’s never true, is it? They’re hopeful and good—and that’s how it should be” (80). He also is the one character who resists being left behind by in his old age. When he hears of the term “fuck buddy,” he actively engages his son in a conversation to get at the root of the term. What was so compelling about Harmon’s story, “Starving,” and his conversation with his son is that he is asking his son to describe a new, youthful term, but the term describes something that is timeless. We find out that Harmon himself has a “fuck buddy,” though he would be remiss to ever call it that. What was so fantastic about “Starving” was how it bridged this generational gap and showed how, even if the names for relationships and emotions change, they are still universally experienced and complicated, no matter one’s age.
Tied tightly with the theme of change is the complication of marriage and love over time. When Olive’s son marries, she is skeptical of the validity of their vows after they had only known each other a short time: “Of course, right now their sex life is probably very exciting, and they undoubtedly think that will last, the way new couples do. They think they’re finished with loneliness, too” (68). With each mention of matrimony and fidelity, Strout makes a point of showing that marriage is still a lonely state. I can’t find the passage now, but Olive states in the last story that we are all alone: we are born alone and we die alone. She expresses this at other times in the book, drawing on instances in her marriage when she still felt entirely alone: “And yet, standing behind her son, waiting for the traffic light to change, she remembered how in the midst of it all there had been times when she’d felt a loneliness so deep that once, not so many years ago, having a cavity filled, the dentist’s gentle turning of her chin with his soft fingers had felt to her like a tender kindness of almost excruciating depth, and she had swallowed with a groan of longing, tears springing to her eyes. (‘Are you all right, Mrs. Kitteridge?’ the dentist had said.)” (224). Still, marriage serves as the “central heating of [the characters’ lives]” (83): “’I’m right here,’ she said, putting her palm to the side of his face. Because what did they have now, except for each other, and what could you do if it was not even quite that?” (139). It’s a sobering view of marriage, one that is realistic and without the trappings of typical glamorization, where spouses forget each other’s favorite songs, or so much time has passed without discussion of it that the song from two decades ago no longer applies.
The significance of parenthood becomes a unsettling topic in the book. There seems to be a similar trait for all of the characters: their parents suffered emotional and mental breakdowns, oftentimes resulting in suicide. In fact, I can’t think of one character whose parents were not stifled in their nurturing by some sort of emotional flaw. Olive’s mother committed suicide; I think her father did, too. Kevin’s mother definitely did, Henry’s mother suffered at least two known emotional breakdowns, and Julie and Winnie’s mother seems certifiably unstable.
Olive struggles with her own maternal instinct, or lack thereof. She never quite feels comfortable around children. She watches Suzanne, her son’s wife, cup the head of a child naturally, and her reverence for the moment suggests a stab of envy: “But the gesture, the smooth cupping of the little girl’s head, the way Suzanne’s hand in one quick motion caressed the fine hair and the neck, has stayed with Olive. It was like watching some woman dive from a boat and swim easily up to the dock. A reminder how some people could do things others could not” (64). Her love for her son, Christopher, is expressed haltingly and strangely and, unfortunately for him, mostly in her head. It comes out in angry bursts of jealousy and hurt when it is questioned or challenged: “But she loved him! She would like to say this to Suzanne. She would like to say, Listen, Dr. Sue, deep down there is a thing inside me, and sometimes it swells up like the head of a squid and shoots blackness through me. I haven’t wanted to be this way, but so help me, I have loved my son” (71). One can excuse and understand her remove from maternal emotions and her inability to express them in a productive way, considering her own unstable childhood.
Still, she is an empathetic woman, using her position as a high school math teacher to encourage and support her students even from her removed emotional platform. She is, after all, the one who saves Kevin from suicide and the one who encouraged Rebecca to talk to her any time she needed to, sensing her distress as a child.
To wrap things up, as I edge quickly past the two thousand-word mark (yikes!), I find myself contemplating the believability of Olive as a character. She is sometimes so harsh, so moody, such an extreme version of herself that it seems hard to reconcile with her softer moments, how she changes the lives of her students, and how tenderly she cares for Henry. Perhaps this is a result of her childhood and a resulting emotional remove that I cannot understand thoroughly from a psychological standpoint. But she is a strong character, as a person and as a central point of the novel. I find myself remembering the moments in which she starred the most vividly, the others taking on a quieter place among the pages.
I give it four out of five stars.
Let’s just get this out there: the last two paragraphs of this book are words that will stick with me forever. Let’s work under the assumption that all of these book reviews will contain spoilers, there is no way around it. I’ll do my best to not reveal any huge moments that might ruin the book for others, but passages must be used. A discussion of a book isn’t anything without citations, after all.
“What young people didn’t know, she thought, lying down beside this man, his hand on her shoulder, her arm; oh, what young people did not know. They did not know that lumpy, aged, and wrinkled bodies were as needy as their own young, firm ones, that love was not to be tossed away carelessly, as if it were a tart on a platter with others that got passed around again. No, if love was available, one chose it, or didn’t choose it. And if her platter had been full with the goodness of Henry [her husband] and she had found it burdensome, had flicked it off crumbs at a time, it was because she had not known what one should know: that day after day was unconsciously squandered.
And so, if this man [not her husband] next to her now was not a man she would have chosen before this time, what did it matter? He most likely wouldn’t have chosen her either. But here they were, and Olive pictured two slices of Swiss cheese pressed together, such holes they brought to this union—what pieces life took out of you.”
You see? Could I have chosen a better book with which to start? What a message in these last words, but also throughout the book. The theme of aging is constantly present as we watch Olive, her husband, and her son age through the points of view of other townspeople. It is in “A Little Burst” that we first see Olive’s aging physically. At her son’s wedding she finds herself in a spare bedroom noticing how her body has changed, how clothes no longer flatter her, and how a few spare hairs are sprouting from her chin.
There is mention of “another heart attack,” which of course suggests that she has already had a heart attack, but there isn’t any other mention of it in the book, an example of how Strout understates some of the more traumatic details of the characters’ lives. Another example of this is when she startlingly describes Kevin’s mother suicide: “Kevin could not abide the thought of any child discovering what he had discovered; that his mother’s need to devour her life had been so huge and urgent as to spray remnants of corporeality across the kitchen cupboards” (33). Strout skillfully takes the startling image of brains being blown across a kitchen and finds lyricism in it.
There is a wisdom that comes with aging as the stories progress and we see different examples of how characters experience it. Even though Janie in “Winter Concert” admits to being scared of the “day [she is] going to die” (138), she goes on, just a few paragraphs later, to admit that she does “not envy those young girls in the ice cream shop. Behind the bored eyes of the waitresses handing out sundaes there loomed, she knew, great earnestness, great desires, and great disappointments; such confusion lay ahead for them, and (more wearisome) anger; oh, before they were through, they would blame and blame and blame, then get tired, too” (139). What I adored in Strout’s depiction of growing old was how she took the time to confront the fears of aging while also showing, through the behavior of younger, more vapid characters, how stabilizing the process is.
Of course the horror of aging is not overlooked, in fact is confronted magnificently, and the culmination comes when Olive goes to visit her son and his new wife in New York City, well into the last stages of her life: “Stepping into the little closet of a bathroom, she flicked on the light, and saw in the mirror that across her blue cotton blouse was a long and prominent strip of sticky dark butterscotch sauce. A small feeling of distress took hold. They had seen this and not told her. She had become the old lady her Aunt Ora had been, when years ago she and Henry would take the old lady out for a drive, stopping some nights to get an ice cream, and Olive had watched as Aunt Ora had spilled melted ice cream down her front; she had felt repulsion at the sight of it. In fact, she was glad when Ora died, and Olive didn’t have to continue to witness the pathetic sight” (226).
Strout sheds light on the vibrancy and frustrations of older adults, and I consider myself lucky to have read this book at my age. It is so easy, as Olive’s own son does, to imagine older people in our lives as incompetent annoyances, but Strout wonderfully defends the aged characters. This book serves as a battle call from the top of the octogenarian mountain. It screams, “We are still alive, we are still thinking, we are still feeling!” What perceptive empathy Strout has as a writer for her characters.
In this same vein, the theme of change is shown through the progression of time in the characters lives. There are endless examples, mainly from Olive’s often cynical point of view, of older adults looking at the younger generation in confusion and bewilderment: “Amazing how nasty kids are these days” (65), she observes. Or when she struggles to find the name for ADHD: “One of them is hyperactive, can’t concentrate, whatever it is these days when a kid can’t sit still” (128). For most of the characters there is an extreme disconnect between the younger characters (their children, nephews, employees) and themselves. They struggle with it as their children grow into adults with their own troubled marriages, stubborn children, and emotional distress.
Strout also cleverly extends the theme of change by having the stories progress through the changing seasons: from spring, to summer, to fall, to winter, to spring again in the end as Olive is reborn into her life as a widow. “The tulips died, the tress turned red, the leaves fell off, the trees were bare, snow came. All these changes she watched from the bump-out room, where she lay on her side, clutching her transistor radio, her knees tucked to her chest” (148). As Olive and the other characters age, the seasons in which the stories take place progress from the buds of spring to the dead of winter. The seasons also, predictably, become a metaphor for aging: “She would have to decide soon whether or not to plant the tulips, before the ground was frozen” (162), surely a metaphor for death and one last one hurrah at living after the death of her husband.
Perhaps the only older character who appreciates youth outwardly and sees in them something more than wasted days and energy is Harmon, who admits, “God, I love young people… They get griped about enough. People like to think the younger generation’s job is to steer the world to hell. But it’s never true, is it? They’re hopeful and good—and that’s how it should be” (80). He also is the one character who resists being left behind by in his old age. When he hears of the term “fuck buddy,” he actively engages his son in a conversation to get at the root of the term. What was so compelling about Harmon’s story, “Starving,” and his conversation with his son is that he is asking his son to describe a new, youthful term, but the term describes something that is timeless. We find out that Harmon himself has a “fuck buddy,” though he would be remiss to ever call it that. What was so fantastic about “Starving” was how it bridged this generational gap and showed how, even if the names for relationships and emotions change, they are still universally experienced and complicated, no matter one’s age.
Tied tightly with the theme of change is the complication of marriage and love over time. When Olive’s son marries, she is skeptical of the validity of their vows after they had only known each other a short time: “Of course, right now their sex life is probably very exciting, and they undoubtedly think that will last, the way new couples do. They think they’re finished with loneliness, too” (68). With each mention of matrimony and fidelity, Strout makes a point of showing that marriage is still a lonely state. I can’t find the passage now, but Olive states in the last story that we are all alone: we are born alone and we die alone. She expresses this at other times in the book, drawing on instances in her marriage when she still felt entirely alone: “And yet, standing behind her son, waiting for the traffic light to change, she remembered how in the midst of it all there had been times when she’d felt a loneliness so deep that once, not so many years ago, having a cavity filled, the dentist’s gentle turning of her chin with his soft fingers had felt to her like a tender kindness of almost excruciating depth, and she had swallowed with a groan of longing, tears springing to her eyes. (‘Are you all right, Mrs. Kitteridge?’ the dentist had said.)” (224). Still, marriage serves as the “central heating of [the characters’ lives]” (83): “’I’m right here,’ she said, putting her palm to the side of his face. Because what did they have now, except for each other, and what could you do if it was not even quite that?” (139). It’s a sobering view of marriage, one that is realistic and without the trappings of typical glamorization, where spouses forget each other’s favorite songs, or so much time has passed without discussion of it that the song from two decades ago no longer applies.
The significance of parenthood becomes a unsettling topic in the book. There seems to be a similar trait for all of the characters: their parents suffered emotional and mental breakdowns, oftentimes resulting in suicide. In fact, I can’t think of one character whose parents were not stifled in their nurturing by some sort of emotional flaw. Olive’s mother committed suicide; I think her father did, too. Kevin’s mother definitely did, Henry’s mother suffered at least two known emotional breakdowns, and Julie and Winnie’s mother seems certifiably unstable.
Olive struggles with her own maternal instinct, or lack thereof. She never quite feels comfortable around children. She watches Suzanne, her son’s wife, cup the head of a child naturally, and her reverence for the moment suggests a stab of envy: “But the gesture, the smooth cupping of the little girl’s head, the way Suzanne’s hand in one quick motion caressed the fine hair and the neck, has stayed with Olive. It was like watching some woman dive from a boat and swim easily up to the dock. A reminder how some people could do things others could not” (64). Her love for her son, Christopher, is expressed haltingly and strangely and, unfortunately for him, mostly in her head. It comes out in angry bursts of jealousy and hurt when it is questioned or challenged: “But she loved him! She would like to say this to Suzanne. She would like to say, Listen, Dr. Sue, deep down there is a thing inside me, and sometimes it swells up like the head of a squid and shoots blackness through me. I haven’t wanted to be this way, but so help me, I have loved my son” (71). One can excuse and understand her remove from maternal emotions and her inability to express them in a productive way, considering her own unstable childhood.
Still, she is an empathetic woman, using her position as a high school math teacher to encourage and support her students even from her removed emotional platform. She is, after all, the one who saves Kevin from suicide and the one who encouraged Rebecca to talk to her any time she needed to, sensing her distress as a child.
To wrap things up, as I edge quickly past the two thousand-word mark (yikes!), I find myself contemplating the believability of Olive as a character. She is sometimes so harsh, so moody, such an extreme version of herself that it seems hard to reconcile with her softer moments, how she changes the lives of her students, and how tenderly she cares for Henry. Perhaps this is a result of her childhood and a resulting emotional remove that I cannot understand thoroughly from a psychological standpoint. But she is a strong character, as a person and as a central point of the novel. I find myself remembering the moments in which she starred the most vividly, the others taking on a quieter place among the pages.
I give it four out of five stars.
11.15.2009
Alterations
I apologize for not mentioning it sooner, but I've rearranged my post dates to reflect what I learned from this first week. First of all, I struggled to finish the book on time, considering I didn't start reading it until Friday. Whoops! That won't happen again, but I will be posting the book reviews on Friday of each week. I know I have yet to post the one from this week, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. Also, the date reviews will be posted on Monday of each week because, like this week, there may be the occasional Sunday date, in which case I need more than a handful of hours to mull things over in order to craft a decent report for all of you.
All of this is to say that you can look forward to the book review and the date review tomorrow evening. After this week, all book reviews will be posted by Friday night. Promise.
All of this is to say that you can look forward to the book review and the date review tomorrow evening. After this week, all book reviews will be posted by Friday night. Promise.
11.12.2009
Oh, brother!
In an evening email exchange, a black man, who up until now was a serious prospect for a date this weekend, asked me if I had "ever dated brothas" before. If it weren't 41 minutes until Friday, and if I weren't still dateless, I would never speak to him again. But considering there has already been mention of a hungover lunch/brunch situation on Sunday, I may have to make an exception for the sake of the blog. Stay tuned.
11.11.2009
Slacker
Maybe it wasn't the best idea to start this endeavor in the middle of the week. It's 54 minutes until Thursday, and I'm still dateless and have yet to start the book. It's time to get down to business!
11.10.2009
Dating 101
To the man who took his profile picture in his bathroom mirror: put the toilet seat down. If I weren't so desperate to not fail the first week out of the dating gate, I'd declare that a deal breaker.
An explanation. A few rules.
Well, hello. Welcome to the musings of a single, bookish girl.
This blog stems from two of my most recent well-intentioned thoughts, both of which have been inspired by silly articles about even sillier people.
The first thought was that I should read a book a week for an entire year, which stemmed from this article in The New York Times. How crazy is this woman? I thought, upon reading. She is an entire shoe box full of crazy! But she makes a good point. Why can't we commit to reading a book a week? Imagine how many pages we could read in the time we spend checking email and watching reruns of "Mystery Diagnosis."
The second thought was that I should go on one date a week for an entire year, which stemmed from this article in O Magazine. How crazy is this woman? I thought, upon reading. She is an entire shoe box full of crazy! But she makes a good point. Is it not freeing to think of first dates as small links towards a larger goal rather than wondering if each one is going to be the one?
Maybe these women have it right. Maybe we're the crazy ones, stressing over first dates and spending quality book time with the television. In an effort to find some form of emotional and intellectual conclusion (even if it is that books are better than men, which I am entirely prepared for), I'm stepping wildly out of my box in the most terrifying way I know how: dating and analyzing literature. Ideally I'd love for the books to contribute to the dates, and the dates to contribute to the books, but that is my controlling creative side getting in the way. We must not plan too thoroughly. We all must be prepared for the wild cards, the men who are most passionate about firearms and can't imagine life without ammo, the men who embalm bodies for a living, the men who are most inspired by the sword masters of the 15th century.
All real prospectives, by the way.
A few points for any of you who might be stopping by for the first time or poking around for clues:
1. All dates will be referred to by number. The man that I meet during the first week will be referred to as "One," the second week as "Two," and so on. If you feel that this is an objectification of men, take a deep breath, pour yourself a cup of tea, exhale, and enjoy. Also, my name is 104 (and no, that is not the number of men I have slept with), so the objectification goes both ways.
2. Second or third dates with the same man will count as a date for the week. I'm searching for enlightenment, not for the slut card I stopped carrying sometime around the end of college.
3. All books will be referred to by title and author. There's no need for secrecy in that arena.
4. All names used in this blog are made up. Any resemblances to people or places in your life are most likely in your head.
5. All book reviews will be posted on Saturday of each week.
6. All date reviews will be posted on Sunday of each week.
This blog stems from two of my most recent well-intentioned thoughts, both of which have been inspired by silly articles about even sillier people.
The first thought was that I should read a book a week for an entire year, which stemmed from this article in The New York Times. How crazy is this woman? I thought, upon reading. She is an entire shoe box full of crazy! But she makes a good point. Why can't we commit to reading a book a week? Imagine how many pages we could read in the time we spend checking email and watching reruns of "Mystery Diagnosis."
The second thought was that I should go on one date a week for an entire year, which stemmed from this article in O Magazine. How crazy is this woman? I thought, upon reading. She is an entire shoe box full of crazy! But she makes a good point. Is it not freeing to think of first dates as small links towards a larger goal rather than wondering if each one is going to be the one?
Maybe these women have it right. Maybe we're the crazy ones, stressing over first dates and spending quality book time with the television. In an effort to find some form of emotional and intellectual conclusion (even if it is that books are better than men, which I am entirely prepared for), I'm stepping wildly out of my box in the most terrifying way I know how: dating and analyzing literature. Ideally I'd love for the books to contribute to the dates, and the dates to contribute to the books, but that is my controlling creative side getting in the way. We must not plan too thoroughly. We all must be prepared for the wild cards, the men who are most passionate about firearms and can't imagine life without ammo, the men who embalm bodies for a living, the men who are most inspired by the sword masters of the 15th century.
All real prospectives, by the way.
A few points for any of you who might be stopping by for the first time or poking around for clues:
1. All dates will be referred to by number. The man that I meet during the first week will be referred to as "One," the second week as "Two," and so on. If you feel that this is an objectification of men, take a deep breath, pour yourself a cup of tea, exhale, and enjoy. Also, my name is 104 (and no, that is not the number of men I have slept with), so the objectification goes both ways.
2. Second or third dates with the same man will count as a date for the week. I'm searching for enlightenment, not for the slut card I stopped carrying sometime around the end of college.
3. All books will be referred to by title and author. There's no need for secrecy in that arena.
4. All names used in this blog are made up. Any resemblances to people or places in your life are most likely in your head.
5. All book reviews will be posted on Saturday of each week.
6. All date reviews will be posted on Sunday of each week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
