Start with a disappointing morning, finding out that Andy Rooney died at 92, not long after retiring from 60 Minutes, which makes me stop short of wanting to write the five books I have in mind thus far, because if I don't, then I'll live forever. Rooney did absolutely what he wanted to do in his life, and having left it, he left.
A few times, I had the idle notion of writing a letter to him to express my appreciation for his work, for inspiring me to become a writer and teaching me about writing style when I was 11, when I tried to write like him and found that I couldn't. He may have appreciated such a letter, but I always got the impression from him that though he was happy with his life's work, he never really wanted such praise. However, I intend to write to his children, including Brian Rooney, who is based in Los Angeles, to tell them of what their father did for me through his books.
Because our regular groomer is seven months pregnant and her doctor told her to rest from this point prior to giving birth, we went to a place called Precious Pets a little after 10 this morning, dropping off Tigger and Kitty, and being told that they could be picked up between 3 and 4, which turned out not to be the case, because, as Mom explained later, they called earlier, wondering when Tigger and Kitty were going to be picked up. One person told us one thing when we dropped the dogs off, and another person told Mom something else when they called, but no matter, because the groomers there did a phenomenal job. Tigger and Kitty didn't even have to be brushed when they got back. They were completely free of extraneous hair.
My disappointing morning wasn't only because of learning that Andy Rooney had died. Yesterday, I started reading All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers by Larry McMurtry, which was published in 1972. I like McMurtry because when he describes a situation, a character trait, an insecurity, he shows it. You are right inside that character's head, their body, experiencing their developments vividly. That's true of Danny Deck in this novel, whose novel will be published, who has a girlfriend who wants a baby, and a lusty next-door neighbor, and all of this could be interesting if it hadn't been so ponderous. McMurtry has Danny thinking about everything, turning over in his mind every single feeling he's having for pages and pages. It was interesting to me because of Danny's encounters at a pool party, but reading more this morning, I couldn't stand it. And worse than that, I hadn't gone with my first instinct last night, ditching it when I was watching The Ed Sullivan Comedy Special from PBS more than I was reading. I also didn't bring with me Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, which I was thinking about before we left the house. Remember, kids, especially those bibliophiles: If you're going out, and you're reading a book that isn't quite working, yet you want to stick it out for a few more pages, bring a backup book.
I was in a gloomy mood because of this, compounded by stopping at Edwards Valencia 12 for me to get a ticket for Tower Heist, which I wanted to see because of Eddie Murphy doing again what he should have been doing all these years, and Alan Alda, who I've always liked. I thought of going to the noon showing, the first one of the day, but Mom said 2:30 might be better, because we could go to the Target on the other side of the valley, then go somewhere for lunch, and then I could go to the movies.
My thinking is that we were right there, it was a little after 11, and I wouldn't have minded waiting until 12:30, despite the fact that I didn't have a book with me anymore. Certainly the noon showing would be the least crowded, and I could get exactly the seat I wanted: First row in the middle, the one with the quarter-wall in front of it that I could put my feet on. (Fortunately, I got it at the 2:30 showing, standing right next to that theater a little after 1:30)
(As I write this, CBS 2 here in Los Angeles, not having any other programming after football on a Saturday night, is showing Heaven Can Wait starring Warren Beatty. I've no complaints, since it's a good movie, but it's very, very unusual to see this at any time, let alone in the barren TV desert of Saturday night. Good thinking, whoever decided this.)
So 2:30 it was, and I wasn't happy when we got to Target in Golden Valley. I could have gone to the movie, and been done earlier in the day than when the 2:30 showing would have let me out. But gloomy moods soon improve, especially on a Saturday, and so it was that when we were looking in the $1 section near the entrance at that Target, I found a wall calendar of comics from The Argyle Sweater, which were very funny, especially a doctor telling one pinata that the one in the hospital bed will make it, but suffered such a severe beating.
Later in Target, looking at the books, I thought of maybe buying a book, just to read while I was waiting for Tower Heist to start. Nothing. And I still complain that Target took out Medium Raw by Anthony Bourdain too fast, which I had almost entirely read there, save for 30 pages that I had intended to finish the next time I was at Target back in June. Gone.
However, the day perked up when I learned that Mom wanted to go to Wienerschnitzel for lunch. A pastrami sandwich and "Ultimate Chili Cheese Fries" do wonders for me, and they did yet again. This particular order of chili cheese fries felt particularly weighty, and there was the sour cream, as expected, and the diced onions and tomatoes, so maybe it was the sour cream, or maybe there was more cheese on it than there had been in previous times.
Tower Heist was funny, but it felt like shallow entertainment, which was probably its intent. Something to laugh at and move on, but I wish more movies were made during the year that stick, that have a little more to them. Tea Leoni had nothing to do beyond looking hardened. It was nice to see Ben Stiller get a movie that suits him, where he doesn't play the one who's humiliated all the time. He was strong in this, and, since it was filmed entirely in New York, got to employ a slight accent. It was very enjoyable to see Eddie Murphy back as what he should have been all this time, but it doesn't seem like he'll go back into that full force like he did in the '80s. This is a more modulated Eddie Murphy, and in fact, he's only part of the ensemble here, not as big as the trailers have been playing him up. Gabourey Sidibe was very, very good, and I always like seeing Alan Alda (This was the first of his three-picture deal with Universal, which has Wanderlust with Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston next (The trailer was released recently), and whatever comes after that), who is able to go from playing presidential candidate Senator Arnold Vinick on The West Wing to a genuine bad guy in this one. And he doesn't change much. There's vocal inflections and facial expressions he relies on, but not to a great degree. It takes very little for Vinick not to be there anymore and I'm always impressed.
After the movie, what to do next? I called Mom, Dad and then Meridith, who was the only one who answered her phone, and she said they were at Walmart Supercenter. That takes a while, and after I left the movie theater, I thought about going to the mall, to Puzzle Zoo to see not only if they still had the Beavis and Butt-Head bobbleheads, but also if they had anything else interesting, maybe figurines of Groucho Marx or Mark Twain, like they had of Mark Twain some time last year, when I bought one.
But why the mall? I'd been there many times already. I needed to do something useful with my time. I needed to go to Barnes & Noble, to find a copy of Medium Raw and finish the last 30 pages. I called Meridith, told her I was going to walk to Barnes & Noble, and 20 minutes later, I went searching for Medium Raw. I found it with Kitchen Confidential and The Nasty Bits, took a copy and went to the movie books section, since there was a chair right in front of it. I sat down, and finally finished reading Medium Raw. Unlike other books I still have to continue reading, that I likely won't see again until I have a Henderson library card, I remembered exactly where I left off in Medium Raw, because it was so good, so entertaining, so detailed in the writing and yet still so fast-paced.
By this time, I'd forgotten the slight disappointment I felt with Tower Heist. Finishing Medium Raw had been far more worthwhile, yet for Alan Alda and bits of Eddie Murphy's old schtick, I didn't feel like I had wasted $9.50. And Meridith had not only put Kitchen Confidential in the car for me, and All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers in the Goodwill box at home, she also wrote on an index card what I had gotten in the mail: A few book packages, and a bookmark I had ordered that was made from the side of the VHS box for The Breakfast Club (There's a seller on Artfire who makes bookmarks out of old 35mm film and the sides of tape boxes: http://www.artfire.com/ext/shop/studio/CultureRevolution). I got home, and found out that inside two of the book packages were Living Out Loud and Loud and Clear, two books of Anna Quindlen's columns, as well as How Reading Changed My Life, also by Quindlen, which I had read last year, but before I knew who Quindlen was.
There was also a box from McSweeney's, containing Maps and Legends, Michael Chabon's first book of essays, Fever Chart by Tom Cotter, and The Better of McSweeney's, Vol. 2, which had been offered for free alongside other books being offered the same way, by putting in the promo code "BETTER" upon checkout, all part of a massive sale McSweeney's is having to try to encourage customers to start early on their Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and whatever else shopping.
Oh, and in another package, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict by John Baxter, which I had read excerpts of in Buried in Books: A Reader's Anthology by Julie Rugg. So in a stack right now are Maps and Legends, A Pound of Paper, and Living Out Loud. I still want to read Kitchen Confidential next, after reading the short How Reading Changed My Life, but it now has some formidable competition.
Such are the hardships of being a bibliophile. Such are the wonderful results, from a day beginning with disappointment that becomes quietly satisfying, exactly how I like it.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
The Garner Files
I spent yesterday eating up the few details revealed during the press conference for Skyfall, the 23rd Bond movie (as well as the press release that provided the most intriguing plot for a Bond movie in a very long time), and reading the rest of The Garner Files by James Garner and Jon Winokur.
It was worth the wait since March, when I pre-ordered it from Amazon. At the end, in the "Films" section where all his movies are listed, Garner not only writes briefly about each, but rates them, and is not biased toward any of them, pointing out which were crap, which were done only because he was under contract. It makes me respect him even more than I already do.
Reading about My Fellow Americans, which I still hate, despite the presidential aspect, I always suspected this about director Peter Segal, because none of his movies are any good, save for parts of Tommy Boy: "I wish the director were so professional. He was a self-appointed genius who didn't know his ass from second base, and Jack and I both knew it. He had no idea where to put the camera, he didn't know what he wanted, and he was a whiner. The movie could have been a lot better."
The script by E. Jack Kaplan & Richard Chapman and Peter Tolan didn't help either.
It was worth the wait since March, when I pre-ordered it from Amazon. At the end, in the "Films" section where all his movies are listed, Garner not only writes briefly about each, but rates them, and is not biased toward any of them, pointing out which were crap, which were done only because he was under contract. It makes me respect him even more than I already do.
Reading about My Fellow Americans, which I still hate, despite the presidential aspect, I always suspected this about director Peter Segal, because none of his movies are any good, save for parts of Tommy Boy: "I wish the director were so professional. He was a self-appointed genius who didn't know his ass from second base, and Jack and I both knew it. He had no idea where to put the camera, he didn't know what he wanted, and he was a whiner. The movie could have been a lot better."
The script by E. Jack Kaplan & Richard Chapman and Peter Tolan didn't help either.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Anthologies: The Sampler Platter of Books
I love anthologies. They're the sampler platter of books.
Take late this morning, after I had breakfast and decided that I didn't yet want to brush the dogs, preferring instead a few minutes in my room, looking at all the stacks of books around me. I found Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, an entirely e-mail-flavored novel, and put that in an accessible stack. Then I found Buried with Books: A Reader's Anthology by Julie Rugg which is U.K.-based, since that's where the author is, and so countless British writers get space here in such topics as "Degrees of Bibliomania," "'the good practice of buying a book a day'," "Books' lives," and "'An early taste for reading'."
Naturally, I had bought this one and then forgotten about it a few weeks later. Here it was again. There I was, waiting for the mail to come today, bearing The Garner Files, James Garner's memoir which was released yesterday and was shipped to me yesterday from Amazon (I pre-ordered it in March). Sure I was also reading One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko, but it had been months since I had read an anthology that triggered me to copy titles onto a yellow legal notepad. I love anthologies for that reason, that you get samples from authors that you might want to read in full later on. You can pluck at will what you want to read and go from there.
It's why I also love the Best American series. Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best American Short Stories, Best American Travel Writing, always the promise that if not every single piece, there will be at least one piece that'll slam you to the wall and make you shout for more. Another series, Best Food Writing, is where I discovered Anthony Bourdain through an excerpt of Kitchen Confidential in the 2000 edition. And after being violently shaken up, down and upside down from it, I ordered Kitchen Confidential, which I still haven't read yet, but I ought to put it in the same accessible stack that Attachments is in.
The Garner Files arrived, as I expected, and in another package that also came, another anthology: Modern American Memoirs, edited by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley. Naturally, I was ordering another book when I found this one, and seldom do I read memoirs unless I'm interested in the person who wrote it, such as James Garner, Jane Fonda, or Shania Twain in the case of her From This Moment On. With this, I could explore the writings of such giant names as Wallace Stegner, Cynthia Ozick, Frank Conroy, Malcolm X, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, and see if I'd want to read their memoirs as well.
The only problem I have with anthologies is that there are always titles I find that I want to read right away. After Mom got off the computer, I ordered from abebooks.com Hopscotch & Handbags, The Reluctant Bride, and My Family and Other Disasters, all by Guardian columnist Lucy Mangan (spurred on by excerpts from book-themed columns of hers featured in Buried in Books), as well as Book Book by Fiona Farrell, A Pound of Paper by John Baxter, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan, A Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel, and Library Confidential by Don Borchert. Other titles I copied onto my notepad aren't as important as these and can wait either until interest piques by what else I find out about them, or until I have a library or two or three after we move to Henderson.
I still have to read the rest of Buried in Books, and I'm crossing my fingers that I don't come upon any more I-need-it-NOW titles. The Garner Files is waiting, but I don't want to rush right into it. I'll finish this anthology and then mosey on in. I'm sure Jim Rockford would do it the same way.
Take late this morning, after I had breakfast and decided that I didn't yet want to brush the dogs, preferring instead a few minutes in my room, looking at all the stacks of books around me. I found Attachments by Rainbow Rowell, an entirely e-mail-flavored novel, and put that in an accessible stack. Then I found Buried with Books: A Reader's Anthology by Julie Rugg which is U.K.-based, since that's where the author is, and so countless British writers get space here in such topics as "Degrees of Bibliomania," "'the good practice of buying a book a day'," "Books' lives," and "'An early taste for reading'."
Naturally, I had bought this one and then forgotten about it a few weeks later. Here it was again. There I was, waiting for the mail to come today, bearing The Garner Files, James Garner's memoir which was released yesterday and was shipped to me yesterday from Amazon (I pre-ordered it in March). Sure I was also reading One More Time: The Best of Mike Royko, but it had been months since I had read an anthology that triggered me to copy titles onto a yellow legal notepad. I love anthologies for that reason, that you get samples from authors that you might want to read in full later on. You can pluck at will what you want to read and go from there.
It's why I also love the Best American series. Best American Nonrequired Reading, Best American Short Stories, Best American Travel Writing, always the promise that if not every single piece, there will be at least one piece that'll slam you to the wall and make you shout for more. Another series, Best Food Writing, is where I discovered Anthony Bourdain through an excerpt of Kitchen Confidential in the 2000 edition. And after being violently shaken up, down and upside down from it, I ordered Kitchen Confidential, which I still haven't read yet, but I ought to put it in the same accessible stack that Attachments is in.
The Garner Files arrived, as I expected, and in another package that also came, another anthology: Modern American Memoirs, edited by Annie Dillard and Cort Conley. Naturally, I was ordering another book when I found this one, and seldom do I read memoirs unless I'm interested in the person who wrote it, such as James Garner, Jane Fonda, or Shania Twain in the case of her From This Moment On. With this, I could explore the writings of such giant names as Wallace Stegner, Cynthia Ozick, Frank Conroy, Malcolm X, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and Ralph Ellison, and see if I'd want to read their memoirs as well.
The only problem I have with anthologies is that there are always titles I find that I want to read right away. After Mom got off the computer, I ordered from abebooks.com Hopscotch & Handbags, The Reluctant Bride, and My Family and Other Disasters, all by Guardian columnist Lucy Mangan (spurred on by excerpts from book-themed columns of hers featured in Buried in Books), as well as Book Book by Fiona Farrell, A Pound of Paper by John Baxter, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading by Maureen Corrigan, A Reading Diary by Alberto Manguel, and Library Confidential by Don Borchert. Other titles I copied onto my notepad aren't as important as these and can wait either until interest piques by what else I find out about them, or until I have a library or two or three after we move to Henderson.
I still have to read the rest of Buried in Books, and I'm crossing my fingers that I don't come upon any more I-need-it-NOW titles. The Garner Files is waiting, but I don't want to rush right into it. I'll finish this anthology and then mosey on in. I'm sure Jim Rockford would do it the same way.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
The Santa Ana Winds Blow In, and With Them, I Change
I like bringing the garbage and recycling bins back to the garage after dark because of the different feel of the atmosphere, far quieter than during the day, nothing else going on, nothing urgent to be taken care of, nothing else to think about. The day is done, the evening is here, and it's only time for reflection of what the day has done and looking to what the evening can do.
I hit the garage door button, waited as it went up, and saw that the tops of the trees were being blown to a flattop style. The Santa Ana winds have officially returned after small fits in the weeks before that didn't even register enough to say that they had arrived. A little late in the year for them, but here they are, and the feeling of the world around me has changed. In a few weeks, December will come, it'll get colder, I will reluctantly have to start wearing sweatshirts even though I swear I can get by with a white t-shirt under a short-sleeve t-shirt and a thick jacket over that, but I will feel empowered.
I always get this way in December. It's cold enough to the extent that no one really wants to do anything. There are jobs to go to and they will do only that and then rush right back home to the warmth of a fireplace (If they have one, and a few do, judging from that smoky smell in the neighborhood) or the heater spurting 80+ degrees throughout the house.
Me, I'm ready because the winter gives me what I want: I feel an impatient drive to get to work, to read a lot more, to research now, to see finally where this next book will take me. By this time last year, I was long finished with What If They Lived?, save for reading over the proofs before the new year and making sure my essays were exactly as I wanted them to read, and that whatever was rewritten conformed to my writing style.
I have not yet begun to read the books I have bought for this first round of research, and even so, those books will not be the only ones necessary for this project. For just these next few days, I'm getting back into the discipline of reading for long hours. You might think I do with how much I express my deep love for reading, but every day, there are chores, occasional shaves and showers, errands during the weekend. There's not a great deal of interruption (I bring whatever book I'm reading into whatever store we're at because I've seen these stores so many times over these past eight years. There's nothing new), but reading comes in fits. I need to get back to reading for hours, and including taking notes while reading. It won't be hard to get back into the groove of that, but I need it to run smoothly.
Of course, there's an ulterior motive to it, being that The Garner Files, James Garner's memoir, which I ordered in March, was released today and I got an e-mail from Amazon saying that it shipped. It'll be here tomorrow. I think I'll practice on that.
Fortunately, my research will start off well. I plan to read The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West first to get a feel for the book I want to write, and West captures the atmosphere I want. Not how he writes it, but that background.
Let winter come. I'm ready to be industrious again.
I hit the garage door button, waited as it went up, and saw that the tops of the trees were being blown to a flattop style. The Santa Ana winds have officially returned after small fits in the weeks before that didn't even register enough to say that they had arrived. A little late in the year for them, but here they are, and the feeling of the world around me has changed. In a few weeks, December will come, it'll get colder, I will reluctantly have to start wearing sweatshirts even though I swear I can get by with a white t-shirt under a short-sleeve t-shirt and a thick jacket over that, but I will feel empowered.
I always get this way in December. It's cold enough to the extent that no one really wants to do anything. There are jobs to go to and they will do only that and then rush right back home to the warmth of a fireplace (If they have one, and a few do, judging from that smoky smell in the neighborhood) or the heater spurting 80+ degrees throughout the house.
Me, I'm ready because the winter gives me what I want: I feel an impatient drive to get to work, to read a lot more, to research now, to see finally where this next book will take me. By this time last year, I was long finished with What If They Lived?, save for reading over the proofs before the new year and making sure my essays were exactly as I wanted them to read, and that whatever was rewritten conformed to my writing style.
I have not yet begun to read the books I have bought for this first round of research, and even so, those books will not be the only ones necessary for this project. For just these next few days, I'm getting back into the discipline of reading for long hours. You might think I do with how much I express my deep love for reading, but every day, there are chores, occasional shaves and showers, errands during the weekend. There's not a great deal of interruption (I bring whatever book I'm reading into whatever store we're at because I've seen these stores so many times over these past eight years. There's nothing new), but reading comes in fits. I need to get back to reading for hours, and including taking notes while reading. It won't be hard to get back into the groove of that, but I need it to run smoothly.
Of course, there's an ulterior motive to it, being that The Garner Files, James Garner's memoir, which I ordered in March, was released today and I got an e-mail from Amazon saying that it shipped. It'll be here tomorrow. I think I'll practice on that.
Fortunately, my research will start off well. I plan to read The Day of the Locust by Nathanael West first to get a feel for the book I want to write, and West captures the atmosphere I want. Not how he writes it, but that background.
Let winter come. I'm ready to be industrious again.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Here's the Inside of My Head
Remember the kids science show Beakman's World from the '90s? I grew up on that. I had a Saturday morning bowling league when my family and I lived in Coral Springs, Florida, and Don Carter Lanes was just over the city line into Tamarac. It was on at 12:30 on CBS, so I always made sure to tape it just in case I wasn't home by then.
Watch at least this first part of The Best of Beakman's World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7QvOKFm3wg
See those backgrounds, all that space filled up with all those props and those set designs? That's what the inside of my head looks like.
Watch at least this first part of The Best of Beakman's World: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7QvOKFm3wg
See those backgrounds, all that space filled up with all those props and those set designs? That's what the inside of my head looks like.
Where I Am Now and Where I'll Be for the Next Two Years
Over the weekend, I decided it was time to finally figure out what I want to research and write for the next two years. I have a cushion of a few months until my birthday in March and then it's real crunch time to try to be published again by the time I'm 30. I'd rather spend these next few months researching.
And I've decided: I'm going to research and write that 1930s Hollywood studio system book.
If I decided to work on the three presidential books I have in mind, I still have to figure out the angle for the principal one of the three which probably can only come from the books to read for it, whereas I know exactly what I want to do for that Hollywood book. I have to see if it's workable, if there are records kept for what I'm seeking, copious records at least. But I feel like I can do this. I'm not that far removed from What If They Lived?, since it was published in March. So it's best to tap into my experiences from working on that one, use them again, and then move on to entirely new territory.
By the count of November 1, I have two years, four months and 20 days left. Time to begin.
And I've decided: I'm going to research and write that 1930s Hollywood studio system book.
If I decided to work on the three presidential books I have in mind, I still have to figure out the angle for the principal one of the three which probably can only come from the books to read for it, whereas I know exactly what I want to do for that Hollywood book. I have to see if it's workable, if there are records kept for what I'm seeking, copious records at least. But I feel like I can do this. I'm not that far removed from What If They Lived?, since it was published in March. So it's best to tap into my experiences from working on that one, use them again, and then move on to entirely new territory.
By the count of November 1, I have two years, four months and 20 days left. Time to begin.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
A Battle with Depth
Today I tried The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted by Bridget Asher. I left at page 24 because of its stubbornly impenetrable nature. I skimmed through the rest of a flashback and found that the featured wedding lasted for a decent-sized chunk of pages. Some details were beautifully written, such as the family property in Provence, France, but the entire book felt like it was written out of reach. You can observe the events, but you can't feel them. And if you try, the book moves further and further out of your grasp.
Frustrated by it, I moved on to The Kitchen Congregation by Nora Seton. Beautiful writing here too, tapping into deep wells of emotion of family, of cooking, of the descriptions of kitchens and Seton's mother's friends, which take up the first part of the book. She tries for poetic descriptions and accomplishes that sporadically, with some other passages feeling workmanlike, just a way to get to the next part of the thought.
I lasted until page 176. The book ends at page 246, and it's a better average than The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, which ends at page 422. I just shuddered a bit while typing that, imagining trying to get through the rest of it, which I probably would have done if this book had been around in my teens (Although actually, I probably wouldn't have, because I checked out more movie history books than any other kind back then). But I don't have the time now. There's so many books in the world, so much to explore, that if a book doesn't work for me, even after page 20, away it goes for good. If a passage pops up that makes me want to give it a bit more of a go, then I read through the next few pages and decide. My reading list isn't finite, but my life is, and I want to make these decades most enjoyable in reading.
I considered giving up on The Kitchen Congregation during the chapter on Senta, who lived below Seton and her husband "on the first floor of a villa in Zurich." Seton's writing is heartfelt at times, but it feels so removed. You try to reach in and you can't get close enough, not because there's a secret password to declare, but because Seton is so deep into her memories, the emotions conjured up by those memories, that it feels like she forgets to look up and see those who are reading about her life. We are welcome, but please, don't get too close. These floors, these walls, are sacred. Look, but don't touch. Learn, but don't feel as much as she has. Sentimentality shouldn't be mawkish, but it shouldn't make you feel like you have to either learn the secret handshake or beg to know about someone's memories, especially with what they describe in food. Clearly Seton is a fine cook, and loves the life she lives in the kitchen, but everything else here doesn't have the same feeling.
I first skimmed past where I had stopped in the Senta chapter while considering whether to leave this book, finding the same writing style throughout. What's established at the beginning isn't going to change. But the next chapter, "Two in the Kitchen", starts with this:
"When I first saw my husband chopping green beans into uniform inches, I thought the marriage would never last. It was so precise, so painstaking. It was the way his mother did it. He liked his green beans cut small, but then he went and married a woman who manhandled green beans--no knife, no ruler."
"Ok, ok," I thought, "I'll stick with it to see the differences between her method of cooking and her husband's method. I want to know about that."
Seton is a careful writer, and she's thought about these various passages a great deal. She wants her words to be as well-cooked as the dishes she produces in her kitchen. But it feels like she holds onto them too tightly. She doesn't want any to slip out of place and upend the entire production. Most of the time, her writing feels too gentle. When she describes the actions of her children Hugh and baby Maddie while she and they visit Ida, an elderly lively friend, she hits upon the kind of writer she should have been throughout the entire book, including Maddie eating many things such as a pocketbook. It's a welcome shot of amusement that should have been suffused throughout the rest of the sentences here.
By page 176, I became disenchanted with it again and couldn't read any more pages. I appreciate the gentleness of Seton's words, but I wish she had looked up, beckoning the reader to get comfortable and settle in. I felt like I was standing up the entire time, smiling in parts, but mostly watching. Just watching. Never feeling.
After giving it up, I opened up Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West, which was the first in my "First Lines" series of entries (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/03/first-lines-from-books-i-love-1.html), even though I hadn't read any of it beyond that first paragraph. I like it already and I think it's going to bloom into love because West isn't self-conscious about her words. She writes well, but she wants the reader to come on in right away, to get to know how she became obsessed with food after her grandmother's funeral, because her grandmother's recipe for buttermilk biscuits would have disappeared had it not been for her, urged by her Aunt Tempe to write down the recipe since she remembered it. So far (and I suspect it'll last through the rest of the book), West's writing is warm and genial. And it is full of good-natured Southern life.
My plan for the weekend had been a double header of Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah and Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, since The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted hadn't arrived by Friday. It came on Saturday, and by that time, I had given up on Kitchen Chinese because despite the delicious descriptions of Asian food, the story became very boring. There's no other way to describe it but just that and move on. I devoured Angelina's Bachelors afterward, and then came The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted and the beginning of the entry you just read. So three books came into view this weekend, and only one survived. I'm never perpetually impatient with books, just those I absolutely cannot continue.
Frustrated by it, I moved on to The Kitchen Congregation by Nora Seton. Beautiful writing here too, tapping into deep wells of emotion of family, of cooking, of the descriptions of kitchens and Seton's mother's friends, which take up the first part of the book. She tries for poetic descriptions and accomplishes that sporadically, with some other passages feeling workmanlike, just a way to get to the next part of the thought.
I lasted until page 176. The book ends at page 246, and it's a better average than The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted, which ends at page 422. I just shuddered a bit while typing that, imagining trying to get through the rest of it, which I probably would have done if this book had been around in my teens (Although actually, I probably wouldn't have, because I checked out more movie history books than any other kind back then). But I don't have the time now. There's so many books in the world, so much to explore, that if a book doesn't work for me, even after page 20, away it goes for good. If a passage pops up that makes me want to give it a bit more of a go, then I read through the next few pages and decide. My reading list isn't finite, but my life is, and I want to make these decades most enjoyable in reading.
I considered giving up on The Kitchen Congregation during the chapter on Senta, who lived below Seton and her husband "on the first floor of a villa in Zurich." Seton's writing is heartfelt at times, but it feels so removed. You try to reach in and you can't get close enough, not because there's a secret password to declare, but because Seton is so deep into her memories, the emotions conjured up by those memories, that it feels like she forgets to look up and see those who are reading about her life. We are welcome, but please, don't get too close. These floors, these walls, are sacred. Look, but don't touch. Learn, but don't feel as much as she has. Sentimentality shouldn't be mawkish, but it shouldn't make you feel like you have to either learn the secret handshake or beg to know about someone's memories, especially with what they describe in food. Clearly Seton is a fine cook, and loves the life she lives in the kitchen, but everything else here doesn't have the same feeling.
I first skimmed past where I had stopped in the Senta chapter while considering whether to leave this book, finding the same writing style throughout. What's established at the beginning isn't going to change. But the next chapter, "Two in the Kitchen", starts with this:
"When I first saw my husband chopping green beans into uniform inches, I thought the marriage would never last. It was so precise, so painstaking. It was the way his mother did it. He liked his green beans cut small, but then he went and married a woman who manhandled green beans--no knife, no ruler."
"Ok, ok," I thought, "I'll stick with it to see the differences between her method of cooking and her husband's method. I want to know about that."
Seton is a careful writer, and she's thought about these various passages a great deal. She wants her words to be as well-cooked as the dishes she produces in her kitchen. But it feels like she holds onto them too tightly. She doesn't want any to slip out of place and upend the entire production. Most of the time, her writing feels too gentle. When she describes the actions of her children Hugh and baby Maddie while she and they visit Ida, an elderly lively friend, she hits upon the kind of writer she should have been throughout the entire book, including Maddie eating many things such as a pocketbook. It's a welcome shot of amusement that should have been suffused throughout the rest of the sentences here.
By page 176, I became disenchanted with it again and couldn't read any more pages. I appreciate the gentleness of Seton's words, but I wish she had looked up, beckoning the reader to get comfortable and settle in. I felt like I was standing up the entire time, smiling in parts, but mostly watching. Just watching. Never feeling.
After giving it up, I opened up Consuming Passions: A Food-Obsessed Life by Michael Lee West, which was the first in my "First Lines" series of entries (http://scrapsofliteracy.blogspot.com/2011/03/first-lines-from-books-i-love-1.html), even though I hadn't read any of it beyond that first paragraph. I like it already and I think it's going to bloom into love because West isn't self-conscious about her words. She writes well, but she wants the reader to come on in right away, to get to know how she became obsessed with food after her grandmother's funeral, because her grandmother's recipe for buttermilk biscuits would have disappeared had it not been for her, urged by her Aunt Tempe to write down the recipe since she remembered it. So far (and I suspect it'll last through the rest of the book), West's writing is warm and genial. And it is full of good-natured Southern life.
My plan for the weekend had been a double header of Kitchen Chinese by Ann Mah and Angelina's Bachelors by Brian O'Reilly, since The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted hadn't arrived by Friday. It came on Saturday, and by that time, I had given up on Kitchen Chinese because despite the delicious descriptions of Asian food, the story became very boring. There's no other way to describe it but just that and move on. I devoured Angelina's Bachelors afterward, and then came The Provence Cure for the Brokenhearted and the beginning of the entry you just read. So three books came into view this weekend, and only one survived. I'm never perpetually impatient with books, just those I absolutely cannot continue.
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