Great Website for Readers

For the past week I've been having lots of fun on GoodReads.com, rating books I've read and creating an extensive to-read list (which is much more helpful than having random paper scraps with scribbled book titles in every nook and cranny). Now I never have to be disorderly and forgetful when it's time to go to the library! Furthermore, you can get your friends and family members to sign up and then scorn them because they didn't rate your favorite books highly enough.

Full of Blood and Bile

Ickie and I just finished delicious Chicken Parmesan and the bottle of Clendenen Nebbilolo that we've been saving for over a month. I should probably call it Chicken Piave instead because I substituted the far superior piave cheese for ordinary, cloying parmesan. During supper, Ickie noticed that after I'd had a glass of wine, my ears turned bright red. This is something that happens to me when I am severely agitated or embarrassed as well as when I've had a bit to drink. I can feel all the blood rushing to my ears; oddly, I don't blush in my cheeks like other pale-complected people do. It's convenient at the office because I can hide my tell under my unruly hair and still appear to be collected while I'm mortified on the inside.

This sparked a conversation about Hippocrates' four humours (of which I'm evidently very sanguine because of my pinkness, but I've got plenty of the other three as well). Think of the levels a person contains of each of the four humours as an ancient personality survey (you'll find many of the characters in Canterbury Tales classified accordingly). Upon reflection, I decided that the four houses at Hogwarts can be easily categorized as the four temperaments! Note the characteristics of each below:

Griffyndor: Sanguine (courageous, romantic, innovative)
Slytherin: Melancholic (moody, traditional; according to Aristotle: acquiring assets)
Ravenclaw: Phlegmatic (calm, brainy; according to Aristotle: logical)
Hufflepuff: Cholergic (idealistic; according to Aristotle: morally virtuous)

It's just another way in which Rowling's books are eclectic. It also proves that Myers-Briggs isn't all that original because folks have been INFPing themselves since 400 B.C. I certainly take narcissistic pleasure in it.

Life on a Vermont Hill Farm

Several weeks ago when we found out we were moving to Maine, I began looking for books set in the area. I just finished Northern Borders by Howard Frank Mosher, about a young boy who grows up with his grandparents on a hill farm in northern Vermont. It did give me some fascinating impressions of New England life, although it was set in the 40s and 50s in a more remote area than we’ll be living. Moreso, the story was captivating, emotional, and familiar. I had expected a charming book about a bucolic existence, but instead I embraced a tough, stubborn family’s morbid passion for the grueling hill country life.

The narrator is young Austen Kittredge who, after his mother’s death, is sent to live with his grandparents and attend the Kingdom County school (all graduates of the local school receive a free education at the state university). Austen is a sympathetic kid, a “famous reader,” who works hard on the farm, is devoted to his relatives, and doesn’t mind being the tool his grandparents use to provoke one another. The grim old couple spends their 40-year marriage in constant battle, which might seem like a stressful affair, but Mosher somehow manages to make it dynamic and amusing.

Other quirky highlights include a retired circus elephant, a plague of flies, a bank robber aunt, and two old uncles (one a preacher, the other a bootlegger). The back stories of all the Kittredge relatives are bewitching. Almost as much remains secret as is revealed in the end about each character, enriching them all the more. Austen’s stern grandfather has a particular obsession with maps and traveling north into the Canadian wilderness, which I found appealing.

I really can’t recommend this book enough, and I’m planning on looking into Mosher’s other novels. The characters remind me of my own cantankerous Scottish relatives as well as Ickie’s admirable farmer grandparents. Northern Borders shared the pleasantly scandalous nature of the Southern novel Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns, which I enjoyed as a teen.

The Society for Putting Things on Top of Papery Things

Among my latest stack of books from the public library is a Wodehouse novel titled The Purloined Paperweight. Ickie made an amusing discovery when he read on the jacket that this edition of the book was published by The International Paperweight Society in Santa Cruz, California. They only print books about paperweights, including the following gems:

The Art of the Paperweight, L.H. Selman
The Art of the Paperweight: Challenging Tradition, L.H. Selman (I love that the first volume wasn't enough; Mr. Selman had to CHALLENGE TRADITION.)
The Encyclopedia of Glass Paperweights, P. Hollister
Songs Without Words: The Art of the Paperweight, Rick Ayotte (Aaah, the wordless song of the paperweight.)
All About Paperweights, L.H. Selman

Mr. Selman has certainly been busy. Apparently he also mediates the enigmatic paperweight discussion group at the IPS website, delving into bountiful topics well beyond my imagination. You can also view their incredibly detailed slideshow about glass paperweights here.

I just love how wonderfully random this is, and I think I need to start a society. I did instigate a Spontaneous Summer Gelato Society last year, but it didn't last very long. Obviously I haven't found my muse in the same way Mr. Selman has. Ickie and I often joke that our cat, Greta, is a member of the Society for Putting Herself on Top of Other Things. Speaking of which, all this has put me in a Monty Python mood, so here are some links for your enjoyment:

International Philosopher Match
Pantomime Horse
The Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch
Knights of the Round Table in Lego

Bridge to Terabithia

As a child I read Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, but I only have vague recollections of it. I remembered it was sad at the end, and I remembered the magic was only in the creditable imaginations of the children. This was a bit of a disappointment to someone who was always trying to crack through the backs of wardrobes, knowing Narnia DEFINITELY existed. I do also remember that it was the first Newberry Award book I read, impressing upon me as a child that Newberry books were good but not always the most fun.

That said, when I saw the trailer for Bridge to Terabithia, I was aghast. Something was very wrong; it appeared that Disney had taken the book, more about childhood friendship and struggles than fantasy, and turned it into some kind of unrecognizable CGI atrocity to capitalize on the recent popularity of Peter Jackson's butchering of The Lord of the Rings (which I still refuse to watch because I love the books so fervently) and Disney's The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (in which I quite liked the young actress who plays Lucy but was otherwise underwhelmed without being particularly offended).

Fortunately, I read this review by a writer who shared my own concerns, and I was pleased to hear that the trailer was misleading and the movie was indeed faithful to the book (aside from changing the time period and location). Memories of the story came back to me when I was watching the movie last night, and I may have enjoyed the movie as an adult more than I did the book as a child, probably because I was too young to appreciate the pathos. I certainly cried an ocean of tears, and I was impressed by the principal actors (young, independent, and likable without seeming cloying or melodramatic). I must say, my favorite person in the movie was little May Belle, who was so adorable she sent me into spasms of delight. She may have been even more endearing to me than the little actress who played Lucy in LW&W. It's hard to say because I'm so overcome with my recent May Belle love.

Generational Strife in a Foreign Land

I've just finished reading two positive reviews of The Namesake, which will be released in theaters this weekend. It intrigues me partly because I'm a fan of director Mira Nair (she directed Monsoon Wedding, which we saw twice in theaters and is primarily responsible for a brief Bollywood film stage Ickie and I enjoyed). I'm also intrigued because I read Jhumpa Lahiri's collection of short stories, Intepreter of Maladies. Each story is deliciously plaintive, concentrating on the crosscultural and relational struggles of its Indian and Indian-American characters.

I've read quite a few books by anglophone authors and always especially appreciate those that deal with the adjustments among generations of immigrant families in America. I had my own experience with culture shock when I lived overseas and returned home. As an ESL tutor in the States, I witnessed firsthand my Chinese student's confusion towards her teenage son. She and her husband just couldn't understand him or communicate with him, a fact made more complex by the fact that he had grown up as an American while his parents remained utterly Chinese.

Speaking of which, I'm also a big fan of Amy Tan. Her books are a bit pulpier and very female-centric, but they have tender, believably strained relationships, usually between a Chinese mother and Chinese-American daughter. Of her novels, my favorite is The Hundred Secret Senses, which focuses on two half sisters. (Tan can also tell a wicked ghost story, of which I'm a devotee.)

The struggle among generations is always a clash. We never seem prepared that our children will be growing up in a different world than our own. Even if three or four living generations have spent all their lives in the same town, our culture changes quickly enough to disconnect each generation. Moving to a new country and watching your children grow up without knowing your native language and retaining none of you native culture must be heart-rending. Everyone who moves away from the familiar and to a new and strange place makes sacrifices and hopefully gains something to account for those sacrifices. In most of these stories, the characters overcome their differences enough to recognize their love for one another, and that's why they are meaningful to me.

Recommended Reading: Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri; The Hundred Secret Senses, The Kitchen God's Wife, The Bonesetter's Daughter, and The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan; When the Emperor Was Divine, Julie Otsuka.
Recommended Films: Eat Drink Man Woman, Monsoon Wedding, Bend It Like Beckham, Bride and Prejudice, In America.

Tread Not Upon My Thesaurus

I just returned from our weekly lunch discussion open to faculty, staff, and students of the college. This week an English professor led an engaging discussion about being stewards of language. It is an issue that has been on my consciousness often: every time I read a novel by Charlotte Brontë or Wodehouse and bemoan our shrinking vocabularies, or wince as yet another person begins her spontaneous prayer with “I just really…,” or read a letter hemorrhaging the word “awesome.”

The professor provided a poignant quote from Orwell’s Essays:

“[The English language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers.”

It in turn reminds me of a lovely quote by Nietzsche, in which he challenges us to reexamine our stale ideas (which are indelibly linked to the words we use):

“Out of damp and gloomy days, out of solitude, out of loveless words directed at us, conclusions grow up in us like fungus: one morning they are there, we know not how, and they gaze upon us, morose and gray. Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.”

One statistic I heard today astonished me—44% of all American adults do not read one book in the course of the year. If that is the case, no wonder our vocabularies are shrinking and we can’t order our thoughts or share them coherently! I think the solution is simple—if we read scholarly books and emulate the language, if we write more and cultivate what we are writing, and if we willingly pause in silence while speaking instead of using “filler language,” just imagine how much clearer and more elegant our communication could be!

Recommended Reading: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. It’s a classic that I first read in the 8th grade, and thanks to Messrs. S&W I vehemently protest every time I hear someone saying she is “nauseous” (i.e., nauseating to others) instead of “nauseated” (i.e., feeling sick).