this ain't livin'

This book is about two young girls who star in a series of photographs from their childhood into their teens. The photographs become controversial as the girls grow older, with people calling them pornographic and suggesting that their father is unfit, and ultimately one of the girls is murdered because of her role in the images. The other flees, changes her name, and lives in hiding until a mysterious letter arrives.

It’s kind of an interesting narrative, because we have a dual narrative going on: the present day, with our now grown older sister learning more about the circumstances of the photographs and her sister’s death, and the past, in which the younger sister narrates the story of the photographs until she is killed. (A sort of not-so-subtle Lovely Bones reference, but I can forgive the author for it, I think.)

The writing in the book is rather interesting, in that it evolves dramatically between the start and the finish. In the first part of the book, it is very stiff and clunky. “And then Kate did this.” “Kate walked into the library. Kate found her carrel.” Yet, as soon as she comes out and takes her real name back, the writing becomes more smooth and fluid. If it’s a deliberate device, it’s brilliant. If it’s accidental…oh well.

One of the themes which runs through the book is the idea of misunderstanding and confused motives. Characters rarely communicate directly with each other, and there are some resulting confusions about what is really going on, including some rather tragic confusions. The book also discusses the ways in which art shapes society, with the murder at the end of the book being instigated by a man who had never even seen the images; he just heard about them on the radio and thought that they were wrong, a powerful illustration of why it’s important to confirm things independently, I tell you what.

There have been a number of controversies in recent years over nude photographs of young children, and debates about whether or not they are art, and whether or not they are pornographic. One of the characters, talking about this issue, says that the judgment of the artist is critical, as only he or she can hold back images which could be misconstrued. But, we’re also a society which is terrified of nudity in all forms, because we automatically associate it with sexuality, and I’m not sure that this is a good thing.

Demographics:

The Effects of Light, by Miranda Beverly-Whittemore. Published 2005, 350 pages. Fiction.

This memoir is really a collection of essays about particularly interesting incidents from the author’s life, like starring in a hippie home movie when she was four, meeting Mick Jagger at a party, and moving to Switzerland.

And it is totally awesome. Rather than trying to provide some sort of dull story of her life, Gilman just picked out some great stories and told them, in a clear, casual voice which is extraordinarily funny and generally all-round awesome. I feel like I’ve just spent a few hours with her at a dinner party, having a good time and talking about silly things.

It’s also a look into growing up in a specific generation. Gilman grew up in the 1960s, and she definitely had some unique experiences, especially since she lived in New York, which is kind of the Capital of Strange, especially in the ’60s. Her family got up to all kinds of interesting adventures, and she did some fairly awesome stuff as an adult, too.

It’s a book which feels more like a romp than a serious read, but there’s some pithy stuff in here alongside the self-deprecating humour and zany familial doings.

Demographics:

Hypocrite in a Poofy White Dress, by Susan Jane Gilman. Published 2004, 354 pages. Memoir.

Earlier this week, I read a biography which I suspect was largely fictional, and now I’ve just finished a work of fiction which appears to be highly autobiographical. Funny how these things work. At any rate, anyone who likes Margaret Atwood should definitely read Cat’s Eye, because it has lots of interesting information about her life and formative years, and it kind of provides a context for her work.

It’s about a painter who travels to Toronto for a retrospective of her work. As the show is arranged and she wanders the city, seeing how it has changed, she also reflects on her life, looking back in time at her childhood and early years.

One of thing things which I particularly like about this book is the trio of malicious girls who torment the narrator. I think that their behaviour really illustrates how evil children can be, and how the evil of children is often ignored by people who assume that they are innocent and incapable of harming others. On the contrary, children can be far worse than adults, and these three girls epitomize the potential for evil.

The story is interesting, and it manages to be told without making a big fuss over the character and her history. She’s not an artist with a tortured past, she’s just a woman who grew up in the 1940s, and these are her experiences. This particular edition also happens to include an interview with Atwood which is pretty neat.

Demographics:

Cat’s Eye, by Margaret Atwood. Published 1989, 477 pages. Fiction.

Have you ever secretly suspected that food can change the world? Well, it can, and cod is one of the most fascinating examples of a food which has shaped history. Wars have been fought over cod, exploration has been launched in search of cod, new food storage technology has been invented for cod, and conservation programs have been initiated to save this rather homely looking fish.

Cod. It’s where it’s at.

I’ve actually read this book a number of times, and each time, I enjoy it. Kurlansky has picked something which seems totally innocuous, and managed to spin an entire book out of it. He talks about the biology of the cod, the history of nations which have become intertwined with the cod, and the ways in which cod has influenced cuisine, history, and, yes, language. (Did you know that “salt cod” is slang for women’s genitals in the Caribbean?!)

He has a great way with words, and he manages to make all of the topic really engaging and intriguing, piquing the interest of the reader and holding it. That’s kind of hard to do when you start talking about obscure colonial politics and other bizarre subjects, so hats off to Kurlansky.

This book also has a number of cool little cod recipes, some of which would be fun to try out, I imagine. I happen to have a particular fondness for salt cod, having eaten some traditional salt cod dishes growing up, and I remember well the repeated soakings, changings, and boilings involved. One of the things Kurlansky mentioned is that in several regions, people actually prefer salt cod to fresh, because it’s what they are used to, and I rather like that, the idea that history has endured to preserve a food which would otherwise be largely archaic.

Kurlansky also wrote Salt, an equally fascinating book about something which wouldn’t seem to furnish that much of interest until you actually read the book and realize how complex salt is, and how much salt has influenced politics. I’m hoping that he decides to do more books about random interesting foods, because I would really like to read them.

Demographics:

Cod, by Mark Kurlansky. Published 1997, 294 pages. History/gastronomy.

This book is not just about bottled water. It’s about the corporate privatization of water, the battle between bottles and the tap, and how it is that bottled water companies managed to convince people that their product is something which needs to be purchased. Bottled water has become almost a status symbol, even with the environmental backlash, and that’s a rather intriguing state of affairs.

Royte traveled to a variety of locations to visit bottling plants, and to research water treatment plants for tap water. She also spent some time in communities which are battling water companies over water rights. Bottled water companies are basically stealing water from all over the world and selling it at high prices, and people are starting to fight back.

Her previous book, Garbageland, was equally fascinating. Royte is really good at looking at an issue from a variety of perspectives, and hunting out information which might be of interest to readers. She kind of reminds me of a bulldog, doggedly pursuing every clue and bit of information, even if she has to wait for months, as she did several times while working on Bottlemania.

I’ve never gotten the bottled water craze, personally. It seems kind of stupid to me. But it was really interesting to read about, and it was also intriguing to read Royte’s agonized reflections about bottled vs tap, Nalgenes vs metal containers. The book highlighted the fact that water is a really complex issue, and there are no easy answers.

Demographics:

Bottlemania, by Elizabeth Royte. Published 2008, 248 pages. Sociolgy.

Suzy, I feel obliged to warn you that since you recommended this book, if you really liked it, you may not want to read this review. Normally I regard book recommendations as open season, and I haven’t been afraid to trash recommendations (or books people send) before, but people seem to feel bad when I do it, for some reason, so consider this your warning. I don’t hold it against you that I didn’t like this book, given the wide variety of literary tastes in the world, by the way. Plus, I think you recommended it before I shredded Her Last Death, which was another book in this vein that I totally loathed, so it’s not like you were forewarned.

I recently heard a great pejorative slang term to describe an incredibly stupid vanity memoir. Pity memoir? Vamoir? I can’t remember, so if anyone has any idea what I’m talking about, please leave a note in the comments, because this book was the epitome of this slang term. It was a big fat pile of steaming crap.

For a number of reasons.

The first was that it just wasn’t interesting. I prefer to read biographies/memoirs with narrators who have actually done something interesting. Living in grinding poverty is not terribly interesting to me. Horrific, maybe, but, still, not very interesting. Hauling yourself out of poverty to become a wealthy socialite, also not very interesting. This book was all about “look at me, I grew up poor, and now I own a farmhouse in the country with a twee little garden” and, quite frankly, I have better things to look at. I grew up poor, I know what it’s like, I don’t need to read someone else’s poorly-crafted sob story all about it.

I also found a lot of material in this book to be of…questionable veracity. I think I might have liked The Glass Castle if it had been labeled as a work of fiction, because I kind of suspect that’s what it was. I felt the same way reading A Million Little Pieces when it first came out and everyone was raving about it. All of the fawning reviews of this book make me want to gag, and let me tell you, if there’s a time you don’t want to be gagging, it’s right after eating a chorizo burrito.

The episodes in this book are a little bit too pat, too strained, and too inconsistent. The ages swap around a lot, and don’t match up for much of the book; Walls manages to be 13 for what seems like three years. The parents rail against animal abuse, and ruthlessly kill household pets. The characterizations of people in the book don’t seem consistent, at all, and apparently some of the “facts” which she reports have been called into question. About the only thing that’s consistent is her sheep-like insistence on glorifying her alcoholic piece of shit and her weak, spineless, piece of shit mother. Oh, and bagging on her little sister.

I also really disliked the way the book opened, with the assurance that the author is now a wealthy person, as though this is the ultimate thing to aspire to. (“Reader, I married him.”) And throughout the book, we are constantly assured that the author is “smart,” “gifted,” “talented,” “special,” and so forth, ad nauseum. We are also told that she is healthy, with good teeth and hair, which seems unlikely, given the chronic malnutrition she documents, and the extensive untreated injuries which happen to her and her siblings throughout the book. I smell, as they say, a rat.

Is it possible to call the narrator of a  memoir a Mary Sue? Because that’s what this book felt like to me: an idealization of extreme poverty and the life of the narrator. Sure we were poor, but I was smart! Sure we couldn’t eat, but my teeth were healthy! Sure, my parents were worthless pieces of crap who should have been buried alive in an outhouse, but I love them!

The narrative style also left much to be desired. It was very clipped, choppy, and amateurish. And, ultimately, I wasn’t drawn into or interested by the story, at all, both because of the narrative style and because it was simply so unbelievable. Not that being poor is unbelievable, or that the rough chronology of the author’s life is so unusual, but the style in which the book was written and certain scenes really did not gel with me, and that caused me to conclude that the author had probably been engaged in some embroidery, at the very least.

What is it about crappy books that leads me to write long, rambling entries about how much I hate them? I guess it’s that when a book is perfect, I don’t have much to say about it, but when a book is awful, I feel obliged to spell out why I think so. This book=awful. Don’t read it.

Demographics:

The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls. Published 2005, 288 pages. Fiction. Biography?