Unlikeable Characters

I'm just going to pretend that it hasn't been months since the last time I posted, and that I haven't been neglecting this blog. A lot of life stuff is happening, but I don't really want to talk about all of that right now. Right now I want to talk about something I've been noticing in my reading lately.

One of my least favorite things about being pregnant is the fact that I can't sleep very well. I wake up several times a night and then sometimes it takes me a long time to go back to sleep - sometimes it's because I can't get comfortable, sometimes it's because the baby thinks that 3:00 a.m. is the perfect time for some strength-training exercises. During this time, I usually obsess about everything I have to do at work, or money, or whatever else is worrying me. But last night I started thinking about unlikeable characters.

You see, I just finished reading "Remains of the Day," by Kazuo Ishiguro yesterday morning. Then last night I watched the movie "Rampart" with Woody Harrelson. And I disliked the main characters in each so much.  The confusing thing is that I liked the book, but disliked the movie. I'm still trying to figure out the reason for my different reactions to these unlikeable characters. Maybe it's because I like Kazuo Ishiguro more than Woody Harrelson. Maybe it's because "Remains of the Day" is a book, and "Rampart" is a movie. But I think it might be a bit more involved than all that.

Woody Harrelson plays veteran LAPD officer Dave Brown. He sees himself as the last renegade cop who's out there just trying to make sure the good guys win. But he doesn't fit in with the new culture of the LAPD - what he sees as over sensitive, too politically correct police officers who are more and more concerned about police brutality lawsuits, and less concerned with getting the crooks. He gets in trouble for a couple things - like beating the crap out of a guy who crashes into his car, and killing a couple of guys who were robbing a poker game (which, oh by the way, he was trying to rob too).

I don't dislike Dave Brown just because he's a bad cop. There have been plenty of movies where I liked the bad cop character - Training Day is the first example that comes to mind. Dave Brown just can't do anything right. He's a terrible father, a terrible husband, a terrible cop and a terrible person. Absolutely no redeeming qualities. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is that he lacks self-awareness. He doesn't realize that he's a bad guy. He thinks the world is out to get him and that he was dealt a bad hand with his daughter is so angry. When his daughter tells him that he's hurt her and her sister, he is genuinely surprised. He can't understand why they don't know he loves them. But all he does is push them away, belittle things that are important to them and treat their moms terribly.

The bad cinematography aside (someone was trying a little too hard to be artistic and make a statement with images), this movie might have been really great if there had been any sort of resolution, or even a moment of self-realization on the part of Dave Brown. There was nothing. I was so angry when the movie just ended, feeling like I wasted my time. Woody Harrelson's acting was so great, and this movie had a lot of potential. I wanted to like it. I think the real problem with this movie was the plotting. There was no arc. No climax. It just ended on the edge of a cliff, and with no change in the main character's way of thinking or looking at the world. He didn't learn a darn thing. He remained stubbornly obtuse, and I still don't like him.

As for "Remains of the Day," Kazuo Ishiguro gives us another unlikeable character who is similarly obtuse and lacking in self-awareness. Stevens is the butler of Darlington Hall, a great English estate. The story unfolds through a series of flashbacks as Stevens is on a sort of road trip through England. (I saw the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson a number of years ago, and what I remembered from that viewing was the love story between the butler and the housekeeper. But there was so much more to the story this time around. Of course, this could be the difference between the movie and the novel, but I'll have to watch the movie again just to be sure.)

Stevens is an unlikeable character, specifically because he is the perfect embodiment of everything he wants to be. He is dignified and proper and basically nothing else. To him, dignity means keeping one's composure no matter what the situation, and maintaining one's professionalism at all times. In describing to the reader his idea of dignity, he tells stories of great butlers (including his distinguished father) handling uncomfortable situations, like finding a wild animal in the dining room, or dealing with overly drunken house guests. Stevens actually realizes his dream of perfect dignity during a large gathering at Darlington Hall one evening, when he succeeds in handling everything professionally in spite of the fact that his father died right in the middle of the evening.

But what Stevens can't figure out is that his "dignity" also makes him an inhuman shell. Rather than being of comfort to his father in his last moments, or returning the love that his father expresses to him he simply excuses himself saying he has things to attend to. This "dignity" to which Stevens is always aspiring is really a defense mechanism. We see him deploy it on many occasions with Miss Kenton. He can never let her see how he really feels, or what he really thinks.

I might as well warn you that there are spoilers here. The novel is really two parallel stories - the relationship (or lack thereof) between Stevens and Miss Kenton, and the downfall of Lord Darlington. Stevens cannot let himself get close to Miss Kenton, no matter how much she tries to build a genuine friendship. His defenses go up every time they get anywhere near some sort of intimacy. She teases him, he gets defensive. She tries to bring him flowers, he forbids her to enter his office. She lets her guard down, his goes up more. The best he can do is admit to himself that she is very professional and is good at her job, but he never says this to her. Instead, when he gets defensive, he nitpicks at her job performance.

As for the Lord Darlington story line, Stevens always defers to his former master, whom he respects a great deal. Until the end of the book, he denies that Lord Darlington did anything wrong other than attempt to bring about peace in Europe. Lord Darlington's actions were only ever out of gentlemanly and honorable intentions. Of course, it's easy to see later on that getting involved with Hitler's most trusted confidants was probably not the best idea, but Lord Darlington only wanted to facilitate peace and keep things civil, as any respectable gentleman would do.

Stevens spends a great deal of the book standing up for and defending Lord Darlington's actions, but he betrays his true inner feelings in a couple of instances where we see he wants to distance himself from Lord Darlington. He denies having been Lord Darlington's butler on two separate occasions. He meets several people on his travels, and does not correct them when they presume he is a gentleman himself. He does not identify himself as working for Darlington Hall if he does not have to, etc. But even to the reader, he will not admit that these deceits are related to embarrassment or shame at being associated with someone who has become a national disappointment and disgrace. It's because of dignity. It is beneath his dignity to reveal anything personal to strangers, or to discuss his past with people, or to embarrass someone because they misunderstood something. This is all very convenient and allows him to deceive himself - but the reader is not fooled.

Occasionally, Stevens will admit to having made a small mistake. After Miss Kenton receives word of the passing away of a close relative, he leaves her crying in her office and realizes he forgot to offer his condolences. He worries about this all day, but when he finally has another opportunity to express his feelings, he instead picks a fight with her about some trivial housekeeping matter. Similar things happen on several different occasions, and this is why the two of them never actually hook up. It's such a perfect situation. They clearly have a lot in common, and there is certainly chemistry. But though she makes herself available and is obviously open to a relationship and makes several efforts to that end, he is too dignified to entertain the idea.

So, like Dave Brown in "Rampart," Stevens is stubborn, stuck in an old rut, has failed to evolve with the times, fails to be honest about the mistakes he will admit, and makes mistake after mistake, without realizing it. Both characters are obtuse and lacking in self-awareness. Neither can be honest with himself. Neither can be honest with the other people in their lives. Both are terrific at their jobs - Stevens runs a flawless household, Dave Brown rids the streets of as many bad guys as possible. Both are unlikeable. So why do I feel so differently about both of them?

I think it's because of one single paragraph towards the end of "Remains of the Day." Stevens has gone on a long road trip to see Miss Kenton to see if she wants to come back and work at Darlington Hall. When they meet, there is finally a conversation where the feelings between them are addressed by Miss Kenton. She says something simple along the lines of "we could have had a future together." (Sorry, I don't have the book with me, and I can't look up the exact quote right now.) Stevens' internal reaction to this statement is perfect. He admits to himself (and the reader!) that in that moment his "heart was breaking." In that one sentence the reader is treated to a single glimpse into Stevens' soul. Not only does he have one (he's not a robot!), but it is a good one! He has regret, he has sorrow and pain. For a moment he realizes that his life could have been so different, so much fuller. In that one second he admits to himself that he maybe hasn't done everything right. For a moment we feel that pang of regret with him and we can finally empathize with him. Of course, on the outside, he remains stoic and "dignified" and does not reveal this inner turmoil to Miss Kenton (now married and with a new name, but again I don't have the book with me, so I can't remember it).

If there had been one single moment like this for Dave Brown, I think I would have liked the movie "Rampart" a lot more. I just wanted one hint that he had regret for some of the things he's done. I don't need him to be sorry that he killed a date rapist or that he killed and stole from thieves. But I did want him to be aware of how his actions affected his family and friends and others around him. I don't need to know everything that happens to him in his life. I don't need to know if he was eventually convicted or at least fired. But if there's no plot resolution to the film, then it exists solely as a portrait of Dave Brown's character. And it's an incomplete portrait at that. I think that's why the movie failed for me.

Any thoughts? What do you think about unlikeable characters?

Busy-ness as Usual

I know I haven't posted in quite awhile, but I've had a couple things going on lately, OK? For one thing, I've been moving. Which is exhausting. Especially when I have to work 10 hours, then come home and try to unpack. I think I finally know where just about everything is right now. Except all of my books.

I mean, I know that all of my books are in a giant stack of boxes piled up in the loft of my new apartment. But if I wanted to find a specific book, I would have a tough time of it.  I will forever be grateful for the friends who helped us move all those heavy boxes of books up three flights of stairs into our apartment, and then up another set of stairs up into the loft!

There are a lot of other big things happening in the world of Brooke, including craziness at work and my six-month review coming up, as well as a trip to New York next week to visit family and attend the first year birthday party of the cutest little girl in the world - my niece. Look at this face, and tell me you disagree! 

In my reading world, things are going pretty well.  I'm smack dab in the middle of the most recent addition to the Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde - "One of our Thursdays is Missing."  It's excellent, of course. He's so clever and funny and goofy. And British. What's not to like? 

I have a lot to gush about, so that post will be coming soon.  I waited awhile to read this one for a lot of reasons. I'm really glad I did, though, because coincidentally, the next book in that series will be out in October. Yay!  I don't care who you are, if you don't like the Thursday Next series, then you don't like books. I think I may have just come with the title of my next post. 

In addition, my book club picked The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes for our August read, and I'm excited to jump into that. I've always wanted to read it, so this is as good a time as any.  There is some early buzz from some of the group and it's mostly positive, so it looks like it's shaping up to be a good book club meeting. 

And speaking of clubs, if you didn't know about it, you should check out The Classics Club. I'm in the process of compiling my list - I have been for months. But now that there is a separate, official blog for it, I've become motivated to finalize my list and add my name to the long list of bloggers who are participating. The moderators have worked really hard and made an excellent site. You should really check it out and consider participating. I think at the top of my list will be Sherlock Holmes. :)

Catching Up on Down Time

Right now Mike is watching some UFC fighting. There is a man with his chest hair shaved into the shape of an arrow punching the crap out of another man. One could call it a Hairrow. Ha. I kill me.  Here's a picture:

Is this what men think is cool? Does this guy think the Hairrow (I kind of want to copyright that word) will make him seem tougher? Does he think it will get him laid? I mean, I'm sure he's a decent person, and he basically was kicking the other guy's butt, but still.  Boys are weird.

Meanwhile, while my husband watches the gladiators punch, kick and choke each other in a blood-stained arena, I figured I'd stop by to say that I have made absolutely no progress and I have basically resigned myself to not finishing my book club book. Book club is on Sunday and I'm only 25 pages into Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig. 

I'll admit that I started the book with a bit of a bad attitude.  I just wasn't in the mood for it, and it seemed like it was going to be an effort to read. It's summer, and I'm pretty stressed out about work and some other personal things happening in my life. I didn't feel like reading a great philosophical memoir. 

I will try to read some more of it before Sunday, and I'll look up some stuff for conversation, but I just don't have the energy for this right now.


Usually I love what our group chooses to read, and I love how we pick things. Normally, everyone brings suggestions about what they want to read, and we vote. The past few reads have been more difficult, intellectual books. Normally, this is something I like. Especially when its with a group of people I like and respect so much. I get so much out of our discussions.

But it's summer! I need a beach read. I need to get lost. I think that's why I enjoyed the 50 Shades of Grey books - there was nothing to think about, just a place to get lost. An escape. A fantasy so far removed from work and stress. I need that. Having said that, I am having a difficult time coming up with fun, light books to suggest that would also allow us to have a good discussion.  Anyone who happens upon this blog in the next day or so, please give me some suggestions!

As a matter of housekeeping, I'm going to finally delete that post-it on my desktop that has the list of all the books I've read since last October. It's clear I'm never going to get around to writing reviews of all of them. And even if I ever did, too much time has passed and I won't remember anything more than general impressions and feelings anyway. So I've decided to just make some notations on here and on Goodreads, and move on. Every time I open my computer, that list judges and mocks me.

So Book Club will be the highlight of my weekend. I've got to work tomorrow - that's three weekends in a row. It's exhausting and overwhelming, and I'm so tired lately. BUT, there are some fun things on the horizon too.  First, I'm going to Las Vegas with all the girls at work next weekend. Our boss has a house there, and his wife has invited us all for a weekend of fun and sun. I am really looking forward to a weekend by a pool. Second, my husband and I are planning on taking a road trip to Colorado in a couple weekends to my family reunion. I haven't seen a lot of those people in YEARS. I am super excited about this trip! 

So, just to wrap up a random and mostly non-bookish post, here is the list of books on my virtual post-it note, that I am going to purge from my desktop. Tell me if you've read any of these:

1. P.S. I love You - 2011 (not as good as the movie)

2. Dirty Secret - 2011 (A memoir about hoarding? Yes please.)

3. Amaryllis in Blueberry - 2011 (Not that good. Apparently I should have read The Poisonwood Bible instead.)

4. The Gurnsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - 2011 (cute story told through letters.)

5. Sex with the Queen - 2011 (Not as interesting as Sex with Kings - and not just because I prefer dudes)

6. Sex with Kings - 2011 (Very interesting book about the politics involved in being the King's mistress)

7. The Bell Jar - 2011 (I really enjoyed this, and not just because of my morbid interest in Sylvia Plath's suicide. It's the best thing I've ever read about a descent into mental illness. Most interesting is how I totally identified with the protagonist, feeling what she felt - confusion as to why others couldn't understand what it was like to be her. Ok, I apparently still have a lot to say about this. Maybe I'll write an actual post.)

8. You Don't Look Like Anyone I know - 2011 (GREAT memoir about a woman with a condition that makes her unable to recognize people's faces - like the kind where she didn't recognize her mother or her husband. Fascinating.)

9. The Help - 2011 (Brilliant. Fun. Good movie too.)

10. Wicked - 2011 (It could be because I listened to this on audio (the reader was very difficult to listen to), but I was bored to tears. It took me a LONG time to get through this one. (Do you like the parentheses within the parentheses?))

11. Lolita - 2011 (This, I think I enjoyed more because it was on audio and read by Jeremy Irons. Fun fact: Jeremy Irons is the voice of Scar in The Lion King. So then I pictured Scar reading Lolita to me, and it was awesome. Jeremy Irons's voice is perfect for Humbert Humbert.) 

12. The Family Fang - 2011 (FANTASTIC! Read this immediately if you haven't. I won this from my participation in #FridayReads on Twitter, and it's the best gift I got last year.)

13. One Hundred Years of Solitude - 2012 (I liked this much more AFTER I discussed it win my Book Club.)

14. The Tudors - 2012 (I always like reading books about The Tudors, and I appreciated how this author was careful not to treat the Tudor family like they are gods. He's right in saying that too often history casts them as great leaders (mostly Henry VIII and Elizabeth I) - they were both selfish tyrants, and they both got their country into a boatload of debt. But my appreciation for this waned as I read through the book - he gets a little to aggressively anti-Tudor, and I didn't appreciate that. It's a non-fiction book, and I appreciate a point of view, but not an agenda.)

15. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - 2012 (I loved the themes of forgetting and forgiving throughout this book. Word images brilliant enough to rival the photographs described.)

16. Norwegian Wood - 2012 (REALLY liked this book club pick. Must. Read. More. Murakami.)

17. Her Husband - 2012 (It was kind of dumb of me to read a book about Ted Hughes when all I am really interested in is the tidbits about Sylvia Plath. Therefore I blame myself for the fact that I found this book very boring. 

Find me on Goodreads if you haven't already!

The Unbearable Heaviness of Baking Cake

Sunday afternoon was my meeting with my book club.  I really need to remember to take pictures while we're all there.  Grrr.  Next time!  We read "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera, and we had a little afternoon tea to go with it. There were cucumber sandwiches, chicken salad and both hot and iced tea.  In keeping with the spirit of the tea party, I made tea bag cookies and petit fours.  It was a LOT of work, but they were very yummy. 

I found out about the tea bag cookies from a post on Book Journey's blog, and they were so cute I had to make them.  I followed the link from her blog and found this blog, which describes how to make them.  In French.  I speak French, but not well enough to follow a recipe in it!  Google translate helped some, but not really.  In any event, the pictures were enough to give me an idea what to do, and I just used some sugar cookie dough I had in my freezer, and dipped the cookies in semi-sweet chocolate.  They turned out cute and tasty, so I'm pretty pleased. 

I also made petit fours.  They took the most time, and I actually burned one of the cakes I was making.  I don't think I've ever actually burned a cake before.  The frosting was sort of a fiasco and in the end they looked more like cake with candle wax dripped all over them than the pretty little petit fours I had envisioned, but they were really good.  That's lemon cake with raspberry filling.  I had to bring the leftovers to work so that I wouldn't eat all of them. 


Oh, did you say this is a book blog and not a baking blog? Ok.  Here are my thoughts after meeting with everyone - for once I really didn't change my mind a whole lot after talking with the group.   

It's difficult to create a synopsis for this book, because there's not a lot of plot.  Still, so much happens!  Oh sweet irony.  There is the central love story between Tereza and Tomas.  Then there's a sort of side love story - Sabina and Franz.  Sabina and Tomas were also lovers, by the way.  Tomas, obviously, is a womanizer.  He loves Tereza, and he is able to separate that love from the physical enjoyment he gets from his encounters with other women.  Unfortunately for Tereza, she is not able to separate it, and his philandering causes her a lot of distress and really strange nightmares.   


Meanwhile, the relationship between Sabina and Franz is sort of converse - with Franz having all the feelings and Sabina unable to fully give her heart to Franz (or anyone else for that matter).  Sabina is an artist, and Franz is an intellectual and a professor.  He's also married.  Eventually he screws up the courage to tell his socialite wife that he's been hooking up with a sexy artist, and he's going to go shack up with her.  When Sabina finds out he left his wife for her, she has wild, passionate sex with Franz one last time and then disappears and moves to the US.  Franz is crushed, but then moves in with some grad student who wears giant glasses. 

This book is more of a portrait of the lives of these people, rather than a story.  And those lives are basically there just as something over which Milan Kundera can drape his philosophy.  The philosophy is really the reason to read the book - it's so interesting and quotable.  And if I had to come up with a theme for the book, it's balance.  The couples are kind of extremes, and they sort of balance each other out.  There are all these contrasting ideas - strength/weakness, lightness/heaviness - and which one is better than the other just depends on your perspective.  Strength is not always better than weakness, and being weak doesn't always mean you're the victim.  Take those traditional ideas that have been put into your head and banish them from whence they came!!! 

The real star of this book is language.  Milan Kundera is Czech, but he has lived in France since 1975.  This novel was originally written in Czech, and then translated into French.  It was first published in French in 1984, and then in its original Czech a year later, when it was also translated into English.  The translation I read was so beautiful, though, I had to keep reminding myself that it was a translation.  The author uses language to explain and clarify, but it's also something more than a tool.  It's how we understand the world, and how we understand each other.  If we understand life in different ways, then we speak a different language - just like Sabina and Franz.  

I'm going to end this post with some of my favorite quotes from this book, which will do a whole lot more towards convincing you to read this book than I ever could.  But you should read it.  

"There is no particular merit in being nice to one's fellow man. ... Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists of its attitude towards those who are at its mercy: animals" 

"Looking out over the courtyard at the dirty walls, he realized he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love." 

"If [God] had a mouth, He had to eat.  And if He ate, He had intestines.  But that thought always gave me a fright, because even though I come from a family that was not particularly religious, I felt the idea of a divine intestine to be sacrilegious.  ... Thus [I] came to question the basic thesis of Christian anthropology, namely, that man was created in God's image.  Either/or: either man was created in God's image - and God has intestines! - or God lacks intestines and man is not like Him."  

"When we want to give expression to a dramatic situation in our lives, we tend to use metaphors of heaviness.  We say that something has become a great burden to us. ... And Sabina - what had come over her?  Nothing. She had left a man because she felt like leaving him.  Had he persecuted her? Had he tried to take revenge on her? No. Her drama was a drama not of heaviness but of lightness.  What fell to her lot was not the burden but the unbearable lightness of being." 

I'm not entirely sure this qualifies as a classic, because it wasn't published until the mid 1980s.  BUT, I'm sort of behind on my challenges, and I had the impression this was a classic when I started it.  I'm not going to link this up to my classics challenge post yet, because if I read enough other stuff, I won't count it.  

It does count, however, for my 1001 Books to Read Before You Die Challenge. Yay!    

Spring 2012 Read-a-Thon Wrap Up

The verdict is in: I am a fan of the read-a-thon.  Here is a list of the things I loved:

1. I got through almost all of my book club book, which probably wouldn't have happened had I not forced myself to take the day to do some reading;

2. I liked reading other blogger's updates, and the cheerleading posts that were going on;

3. I liked the snacks (duh!);

4. I liked how supportive my husband was - even if it really was because he got to spend the evening watching sports. 

Here are some things that I'll change because they didn't work the best for me:

1. It's a really solitary event - despite the other bloggers and the cheerleaders, it can get kind of boring and lonely.  Maybe this is because of the book I was reading, but I don't think so. I think that I'd like to make it a little more social next time.  This means I'll be commenting more on other blogs, and stuff.  But it also means that I'd like to have some people over and really make an event out of it.  I have some ideas, and they'll have to be nurtured over the next couple of months in preparation for October's read-a-thon. 

2. I think I need more of a variety of books.  I really liked The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but I think it's the kind of book that should be read over a longer period of time.  It needs to be savored, not scarfed down. 

3. I need to eat less.  This will make me less tired.  I also need a more comfortable set up.  My back really hurts from sitting on my couch all day.  I could also have benefited from a change of scenery - I was threatening to ride my bike to the park to read, but I was too lazy.  I shouldn't have been so lazy, but it's hard to be un-lazy when you're reading all day.

So, I read over 250 pages in my book, and I read for maybe only a total of 7 hours.  Next time I'm going to read more, and I'm going to plan my work so that I don't have to work on the weekend.  But I'm really happy I participated, and I'm excited to try it again more fully.  

Read-a-Thon Update #2

Ok, so I've done work for about 4 hours, and even though I still have so much work to do, I'm tired and bored with it.  I'll do some more tomorrow.  For now, it's back to reading.  I guess I'll have to go in our bedroom, because I won't be able to read with Mike watching TV in the living room.  I don't think I'm going to make it all the way through The Unbearable Lightness of Being tonight, but I'm going to try. 

For now, because this post looks too boring, I'll leave you with these two pictures of my adorable niece:

Read-a-Thon Updates

Hi there. So, progress is happening, but slowly.  For one thing, I'm doing laundry.  Correction - WAS doing laundry (yay!).  I also spent some time catching up on reading blogs I follow.  That counts as reading, right?  Well anyway, I'm not a big stats person, but here's the update:

Approximately 100 pages in The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Approximately 100 blog posts.

Approximately 4 hours

Approximately 5 cookies, 1 cup of tea, 1 giant bowl of popcorn, 1 bottle of water and 4 chocolate covered raisins. 

Now back to reading! I'll have to stop around 4 pm to do some work, but I'm hoping to be back to reading later this evening.  I'll leave you with a couple quotes from the book I'm reading today:

"he had no idea whether it was hysteria or love."

"His love for Tereza was beautiful, but it was tiring ... [Then Tereza left] Now what was tiring had disappeared and only the beauty remained." 

I love that idea of love at the beginning of a relationship - is it real? is it lust? is it a desire to find love and be loved, rather than actual love?  Then juxtapose those beginning feelings with the ending where a person romanticizes the relationship and forgets everything terrible, only remembering the beautiful - not in a "I want the person back" kind of way, but more like nostalgia - glad to not be going through it again, but glad that it happened, and appreciating the value of it. 

I don't know that this is the point the author is making - mainly because I'm only 100 pages in and I don't know the full story of these lovers yet, but this is what I think of when I read these two sentences. 

Let the Read-a-Thon Begin!

Good morning! It's been slow going here this morning.  I'm up and I went to the store and ate breakfast, and now it's time to settle in to some reading.  I don't really have a stack of books that I'm choosing from, but I have a large bookshelf! 

I know I'm going to start off with The Unbearable Lightness of Being, by Milan Kundera.  Its my book club book for this month, and I haven't even really started it.  I doubt I'll want to read it all day, though, so I do have a few other ideas.

For one thing, I have a large stack of magazines that I haven't read yet - some Bookmarks, a couple New Yorkers, Elle, and some other randomness, so I'll be taking breaks with those.  For another option, I've got several other books around that would fit in with my TBR challenge, so I may go for one of those.

I do have to take a break for a few hours this afternoon to do some actual work, so that kind of sucks, but maybe it will break up the day.  There's a UFC fight on pay-per-view, so that will keep my husband occupied while I continue to read. 

I thought it was supposed to be nice today, but it seems kind of overcast and icky out right now, so I'll wait for a bit before I decide if I'm going to head to the part to read for a bit.  I'll try to post my progress throughout the day - I'll probably just make one post, and keep updating it.  For now, I'll leave you with this:

Introductory Questionnaire

 

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

Here are my answers:

1) I'm reading from my home in Huntington Beach, California!
2) I've been looking forward to The Unbearable Lightness of Being for quite awhile. Anyways, that's the only book in my stack right now.  Ha.
3) I bought some Mother's English Tea cookies.  It's my diet cheat day, and I couldn't be happier.
4) I've lived in 7 different states in the past 16 years.
5) This is my first read-a-thon, so I have no idea what to look forward to, other than the entire experience as a whole.

Cheers!

Dewey's Read-a-Thon, April 2012

This is just a quick, simple post to announce that I'll be participating in Dewey's Read-a-Thon tomorrow! This is my first time participating and I'm really excited. Alright, maybe not really excited, but I am interested to see how it goes. I do have book club next weekend and I didn't read that book yet, so this will be a good opportunity to try it out.

I'm not making any huge goals, and I'm going to keep my expectations low, but I'm going to try it out, see what works, and then maybe make adjustments for the October Read-a-Thon.

My basic plan is to run to the store in the morning and stock up on some snacks for the day, and then settle in. Mike has a class all day, so luckily I won't be ruining any plans to hang out with him. I certainly won't be starting at 5:00 a.m., which is when it all starts. I get up early every day during the week, and I'm going to sleep in. The books will still be there when I get up.

If it's nice out, I may ride my bike to the park to do some reading, or maybe I'll go out to lunch somewhere and eat outside and read. I do have some cleaning to do, and I have an audio book my mom gave me for my birthday last year that I could listen to while I do that.

But I do know that 24 full hours of reading is not going to happen. For one thing, I have a lot of work to do this weekend, and I can't leave all of it for Sunday - especially because I have plans to hang out with a good friend on Sunday. Also, I'm not going to stay up all night reading - I'll stay up late, but not all night.

So basically,the plan is to see how it goes, and just attempt to read a lot tomorrow. I'll do a few posts tomorrow to track my progress and maybe participate in some mini-challenges or memes. We'll see. The theme for tomorrow is to take it easy - something I almost never do in real life.

Wish me luck!

What to Read Next?

How do you decide what to read next? I find that I am highly susceptible to suggestion, but I don't always realize it. Here's an example: My brother is in his last semester of college as an English and Writing student. He's very well read, and is constantly suggesting books for me, and giving me books to read - usually in genres that are not my first pick. I ALWAYS like the books he gives me - even if I think I won't, and even if it takes me years to get around to reading his suggestions.

But the real story is this: Last summer we spent a lot of time talking about what he was reading for classes, and what he thought was interesting about them. I knew of the books, but I hadn't read most of them. Included in this list is a bunch of books written by the Beat Generation (of which I knew almost nothing), and the book Moll Flanders. I remember this conversation vividly - I loved having a sibling to talk about literature with and it was some good bonding time for us.


A few months later, my brother and I were able to both take a trip home to visit our parents and our sister. It was a magical time - our entire family reunited for almost two weeks - eating, laughing, playing and beating the crap out of each other. One day we took a trip into Portland so that we could go to Powell's Books - the best book store in ALL THE LAND! While I was there, I bought Moll Flanders and a biography of Jack Kerouac. Only when my brother pointed it out did I realize I was buying the exact things we had talked about earlier in the year. It seems obvious now, but I really didn't even make the connection until it was pointed out to me.

There are two lessons here: 1) my brother is brilliant when it comes to choosing great books; and 2) I am totally a follower.

Moving on: I sometimes like to take bubble baths. Shocking! But when the book I'm currently reading is on my Kindle, I have a problem - the Kindle doesn't get to be near a body of water, so what do I read while soaking away my cares? (Did you notice that doing nothing and actually relaxing in a tub of hot water and sweetly scented soap isn't an option?)

Well, the other night I took a stack of books with me and decided to read the first few pages of each, and that would determine what book I would read next. In picking this short stack, I took into account all the challenges I've entered this year. Here are my three choices. I'm putting a poll on my blog so that readers can vote for what I read next, but here is what I thought while browsing these books.

The Corrections

By Jonathan Franzen

I've had this book for years. I promise myself all the time that I will read it around the holidays or when I have some extra time. I've been unemployed for months now (and all through the holidays!) and I still haven't read it.

It seems like the kind of story I'd like: an older, Midwestern woman feels alone living with her aging husband whose declining health makes her days even more difficult. She thinks back on her life and decides that she's ready to have some fun. Desperate for something to look forward to, she set her heart on bringing the family together for one last Christmas at home. I don't yet know if it will work out for her.

It seems heartwarming and nice, but reading the first few pages also promises some good conflict and the back of the book says that modern day life will collide with Enid's ideal - the lifestyle of the 1950s. Seems promising.

So why can't I seem to get into it? I've picked it up 3 times, and put it down for later - I never got more than a chapter in. It's time to change that, because I have to read it for my TBR Pile Challenge. I'm guessing that once I get into it, I'll really enjoy it.

The God of Small Things

By Arundhati Roy

From the back of the book:

"The story of the tragic decline of an Indian family whose members suffer terrible consequences of forbidden love, [this book] is set in the state of Kerala." The back of the book continues to describe the characters involved and how the decline has come about. It seems like a good story of inner strength and coming through adversity for the twins at the center of the story. I also like that it's set in another country with another culture to learn more about.

I've never actually tried to read this yet, except for the few pages I read the other night. This might be a good one to read next. It also would allow me to check something off of my TBR Pile Challenge.

Moll Flanders

By Daniel Defoe

My brother sure was right about this one. The copy I bought at Powell's that day is a Norton Critical Edition, so after I read the novel, I get to read some other stuff about it. It also means footnotes with explanations of antiquated phraseology. The nerd in me just squealed in delight.

Here are a couple of my favorite lines from the first few pages:

"...having gone out of the World by the Steps and the String." This means he got hung. Amazing.

"...my Mother pleaded her Belly," This means she claimed to be pregnant so she couldn't be executed. Instead she was transported to the American colonies.

This book is going to take me a long time to read, because of all the rich verbiage and footnotes, but I'm going to enjoy every moment of it.

Another advantage is that it would be a notch in the Back to the Classics Challenge, the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die Challenge, and my TBR Pile Challenge. So there's that.

Anyway, vote or don't vote. Those are my first impressions of the books I might read next. Any thoughts?

P.S. I notice that when I write posts there is always some punctuation mark I use a lot - it must depend on my mood. Often it's a lot of commas, and I'm very fond of parenthesis. Today it seems to be the colon. Sorry. It's a quirk.

The Bourne Identity

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman who has seen the Bourne movies several times cannot possibly read The Bourne Identity book for the first time without picturing this:



Also, it's impossible to not compare everything that happens in the first few chapters to things that happen in the movie. It is obvious almost immediately that we're dealing with a completely different beast in the book. As I read on, it became even more obvious that whoever wrote the movie (IMBD tells me it is Tony Gilroy and W. Blake Herron) took almost nothing from the book. Here is a list of what the book and movie have in common:

1. The character Jason Bourne, who wakes up with amnesia and doesn't know he's connected with the US Government somehow, but knows all kinds of fighting and survival things (yes, that is my best technical description).
2. The name of Marie (different last names), the girl who helps him find himself.
3. The name of Conklin, someone back at the CIA who was involved in his past somehow.

That's it. EVERYTHING else is different. Now, I'm not totally dumb. I knew there were going to be differences - probably more back story, more details, additional characters, etc. But these are two completely different stories. It took me about half the novel to finally get over my anger that things were so different. And oddly enough, I was angry at Robert Ludlum, the author of the book, because his story wasn't as good. BUT, once the action started picking up in the second half, I really got into it, and ended up enjoying the book.

The Bourne Identity

By Robert Ludlum

This book has been out for a long time - the publication date on my copy is 1980 - so I'm not going to worry about putting spoilers in here - but you've been warned. In the book, Jason wakes up in the care of a doctor on an island off of France, and eventually makes his way to Zurich. While there, he gets found at the bank, but not before getting away with 5 million dollars of the US Government's money. While running away from bad guys, he kidnaps Marie, who spends the next 50 pages trying to get away from Jason. Later, after the bad guys took her, Jason, while hunting down the bad guys (for what reason, he doesn't yet know- nor does he know how he knows everything he knows), sees her getting raped. He saves her life, and kills some bad guys, but in the process almost dies. Marie in turn, saves his life, taking him to a hotel where he heals. She feels grateful that he saved her life, but she's also interested in this complex person who kidnapped her and used her to help him get away, but then later saved her life.

So from there, they start to try to dig into his past, and within a week they're in love. It's been traumatic for them both I guess. Seems to me that you'd need something more than that to really be in love, but what do I know? I'm totally simplifying of course, but eventually they figure out that Jason is bait and had spent years laying a trap for the most deadly and notorious European assassin, who has killed a ton of people. So, with the help of a famous French general (and some others), they are able to track him down, get Jason back to New York and into the hands of the CIA, but not until lots of other people die.

So, the end result is this: I liked the book. It was a typical thriller/suspense kind of book, but it was entertaining. It's not the type of story I typically read, but I still liked it. However, having said all that, I probably won't be reading any more of the Bourne books by Robert Ludlum. I'll stick with this Jason Bourne:



P.S. I heard recently that there's going to be a new Bourne movie: The Bourne Legacy. The sad part is that Matt Damon will no longer be Jason. In fact, there will be no more Jason. He's dead (don't know how they'll explain that). Instead, Jeremy Renner will be a new character who presumably has to live up to or deal with Bourne's Legacy. I have enjoyed Tony Gilroy's scripts so far, and I like Jeremy Renner, so I'll give this one a chance.

New Year, New Celebrity Memoirs

It is telling that my first two reads for 2012 were celebrity memoirs about a descent into, and a rising from alcoholism/addiction. I'm not sure what that says about me, but it must say something.

I read "Wishful Drinking," by Carrie Fisher and "High on Arrival" by Mackenzie Phillips. I had great expectations of both of these memoirs going in for the following reasons:

1) I know Carrie Fisher has written novels, and she's funny and for crying out loud, she was Princess Leia;




2) All I knew about Mackenzie Phillips is that her dad created The Mamas and the Papas, she is an actress and probably has lots of good stories about celebrities, and I think I remembered a scandalous rumor that her story involved incest.



I assumed that I would like "Wishful Drinking" more, because I prefer writing with a bit of cheek and because I already knew more about Carrie. But I was WRONG. Explanation below.

Wishful Drinking

By Carrie Fisher

In case you grew up under a rock, or are immune to pop culture, or just don't give a hoot, Carrie Fisher is the daughter of Debbie Reynolds (have you SEEN Singing in the Rain? She's beautiful, fun and a great singer) and Eddie Fisher, who famously left Debbie Reynolds (STUPID) for Elizabeth Taylor, who then left him for lots of other husbands (also he later married a few others). A dramatic separation of the parents when a child is really young is enough to make any childhood dysfunctional. Add in the fact that those parents are famous, that her father was largely absent, that she grew up surrounded by celebrities, and that fame and stardom came at a young age for Carrie, it seems almost inevitable that she would become an alcoholic.

I mean, obviously there must be a lot more to it than that, but that's the simple premise Carrie puts before us. That's all the explanation we really get. There is no introspection, there is no description of her thoughts or feelings as she descended into a large pit of alcohol. We're given the facts stated above, and we are told that Carrie is an alcoholic. Accept it, and move on.

It would be one thing, if Carrie was just trying to be positive about the fact that she is now in recovery. But I don't think that's all it is. I got the feeling that she didn't want to let the reader in - she didn't tell us anything about what it was like for her - she just asks us to use our imagination. We can't celebrate her victory over alcohol, because we don't know how much of a victory it is. We're told it's a victory, and that's that. We can't feel bad for the terrible things that have happened to her or because of her, because she remains distant - like she's telling the story of someone else.

It's not that she doesn't have some good stories - she does - but she doesn't really tell them. She just tells us that the story exists. She just says that one morning there was a dead, naked Republican in her bed. There's got to be a lot of background that led up to that, but she glosses over it. There must have been a lot of fallout from that, but beyond an obvious statement, we don't get to see it.

I was disappointed in her failure to let the reader in - I mean, why write a memoir about your life if you don't plan to reveal anything? BUT having said that (kind of redundantly I notice as I reread the above), Carrie Fisher is still exceedingly entertaining. She's funny, quirky and self-deprecating. I did laugh several times. I would love to see her show. But I'm guessing she doesn't put much in her show that's not in this book.

Bottom Line: Entertaining and fun, but unrevealing look at a celebrity's alcoholism.

High on Arrival

By Mackenzie Phillips

I was also surprised by this memoir. It is dark, let me tell you - the exact opposite of "Wishful Drinking." Mackenzie does not leave anything out, and her life has been one dark, tormented, and emotional whirlwind. Where Carrie didn't let me in at all, I got lost in Mackenzie's world - I felt everything she did, and I understood each justification, and I felt the triumph of each success.

A little background: Mackenzie's dad was John Phillips - a great genius in the world of music, but a TERRIBLE father. He was a prolific drug user, and had absolutely no boundaries when it came to pleasure seeking. He wasn't going to let a little thing like worrying about his children get in the way of a good high. He gave Mackenzie a lot of drugs. He taught her how to shoot cocaine. He also didn't let a thing like a blood relationship with his daughter get in the way of sexual pleasure.

But Mackenzie, after telling us all of this, wants us to be sure that we don't totally vilify him. He is an exceptionally talented musician, and he loved his family - all his children and wives - very much. The things he did were not done out of malice or evil tendencies. They were the acts of a very sick, very twisted man who was unable to realize a lot of the harm he was causing. I'll buy this to some extent, but it's hard not to vilify someone who would invite his teenage daughter to stay with him in London, and then leave her in a house with no food or heat for a week while he got high in the country with Mick Jagger. And that's just one of the mild stories.

I wanted to read this memoir because I knew it contained a lot of juicy stories and dropped a lot of names. I was not prepared for the emotional impact it would have on me. Mackenzie is very brave to be putting all of this out there. She addresses every public scandal - drug arrests, behavior that sabotaged her acting career several times, etc. - and every private misdeed - intravenous drug use while pregnant with her son, cruel treatment and use of friends in search of her next high, destruction of all relationships and her many failings as a mother.

But she doesn't just tell stories. She explains her mindset at each moment, and describes how her addiction distorted her view of the world. This makes the reader understand how it is possible to become something so hideous and low, and how unlikely it seems that someone would be able to get out of that position. That's why I was so happy to celebrate her recovery with her. What a deep pit of disease to crawl out of! And no wonder it took several attempts at sobriety to get out!

In the end, I loved this memoir because I respected Mackenzie so much for her openness and honesty, as well as her explanations of the way an addict thinks. I'm no stranger to the world of addiction, but I received quite an education from this memoir. I will think of this memoir often in the future.

Two Celebrity Addiction Memoirs, two very different reads - one light, one dark; one in-depth, one shallow. Though I clearly preferred Mackenzie's book, I appreciate the fact that both women are willing to talk about their lives and their addiction, and to help foster the discussion of addiction so that education and understanding can be spread.