Recommended (and Non-Recommended) Reading

I’m back! It’s been some time since I posted – I blame my car’s blown transmission, the holidays, the inauguration, and my discovery of Bud Light Lime. I should probably throw Facebook in there, too.

Despite my absense, I did read or listen to a number of books over the past few weeks. I won't go into the details, but here are my impressions:

Divining Women by Kaye Gibbons:
This book is chock full of strong Southern Women, ghosts real and imagined, family tragedy, eccentric elders, and rising above. It's a jumbalaya of Steel Magnolias, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Fried Green Tomatoes, and Gone with the Wind, seasoned with a dash of Dixie Carter (Bam! Feisty Southern Heroine is on the menu!). The plot is thin, but the characters are rich and, at the end of the day (after all, tomorrow is another day), I enjoyed it. The author narrated the CD and, at first, her thick Southern accent was a bit off-putting, but by the middle of the book, her languid inflection and long drawn out vowels (or, as the author would say, “vah-oles”) were as much a part of the story as any word on the page. Can I see it as a Lifetime special starring Ashley Judd? You bet your deep-fried, gravy-laden, Momma-loving behind.

Saving Fish from Drowning by Amy Tan
I fell asleep listening to it. Multiple times. While I was driving. Not a favorite.

A Kiss Remembered by Sandra Brown
If you’ve read this book, chances are you’re either (a) blushing right now; (b) furious that you'll never get those hours back; or (c) hoping to find your own Mr. Chapman, so he can part your lips with his probing tongue and caress your… Nope, I can’t do it. It was hard enough (no pun intended) the first time around. Have I mentioned I have a long commute? The day I checked this out of the library the pickings were slim. I read the back quickly, and it sounded like a literary fiction romance. Wrong. It’s all romance. I’ve never read romance, so imagine my surprise when (listening to it on CD in the car, no less), I found it consisted of a meager, predictable plot, merely providing segues between pages of, well, soft-core porn, really. One reviewer on Amazon said it was so bad she threw it out of the car on a road trip. It was terrible. But did I turn it off or fall asleep? No. Maybe I'm a little more deperate housewife eating bon-bons and a little less connoisseur of meaningful literature than I thought. For the most part, the book just amused me, due in large measure to how dated it was. To wit: the dashing young professor drives a Datsun, the beautiful protagonist wears silk blouses and has permed hair, and the banking industry is just beginning to loan to single women. All in all, it was mildly entertaining, but not the kind of book I’d ordinarily seek out - and certainly not a book to listen to in a carpool.

The Collected Stories of Richard Yates
I trudged to the library, heavy with the burdens of the day, and planted my son on the round Alphabet-bordered carpet of the children's section before making my way down the aisles to a shelf near the back. I hadn't wanted to read more Yates right after reading Revolutionary Road, because my soul was still raw, but I was ready that day. I ran my fingers over waxy spines and cracked book covers, until I stumbled across a broad-shouldered book I'd never heard of before - The Collected Stories of Richard Yates. I didn’t open it for a week, savoring the anticipation. When I finally pulled back the cover, it was with a cup of tea in one hand, feet in slippers, children in bed. I am now 7 stories in, and rationing it like one savors a favorite candy so it won't run out too quickly.
I can’t sum up the works in a few sentences, so I’ll save a meaningful review for a later post. But, once again, I find that Yates writes eloquently about the smallest of dreams--about that tiny internal light of the soul, which can be extinguished with the slightest of breaths. About our need for human connection, and yet our insecurity among others--our inability to find something meaningful in our lives. About good intentions gone awry, crushed expectations, and the solace of the familiar. His stories aren’t gimmicky or showy, or outwardly intense. They can’t be summarized by words like “sad” or “uplifting.” They are human stories and, thus, they are complicated and real and evoke real, complicated, human reactions. They stay with you. They must be read.

Ramona Quimby Age 8 by Beverly Cleary
One of my favorite books of all time - I'm reading it to my kids and have to say, it stands the test of time. Well worth a second look!

The Medium

In The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion eloquently and elegantly describes the time following the sudden death of her husband (writer John Dunne). When you read the book (or listen to it, in my case . . . I have a long commute), which is nothing short of unflinchingly honest and beautifully lyrical, you’re surprised by her admission that she didn’t think she could write about what she was feeling in those post-death days - those days after life changed "in the instant." Rather, she recalls thinking if only she had film and editing equipment, she could organize her thoughts and memories properly; that her particular kind of grief required image and sound—moving snapshots of a lifetime together. Of course, she did eventually write about it and the result is a type of written photo album capturing her very soul, with events and places meticulously described and feelings framed, labeled and on display. It is nothing short of gorgeous.
So on my drive to work today (on a “highway” that, I kid you not, I’ve had to stop on more than once to let chickens cross . . . we’re quite rural here in Northern California, a point Ms. Didion would no doubt appreciate, having grown up Sacramento when it was still farmland) I thought about storytelling and the various mediums through which it is achieved. And I came to a conclusion . . . the medium can make or break the story. I still have my doubts about Revolutionary Road as a movie. The book is replete with self-observation and inner dialogue. How will this translate? Will the movie have voice-over narration? Will it be Leonardo DiCaprio’s voice? If so, can he manage to remove the slight twang that accompanies so many of his spoken words (even, unfortunately, when he’s attempting a decidedly un-twang-y accent. See, Blood Diamond). As for The Year of Magical Thinking, Didion’s story is so intensely personal I can't imagine it would resonate in film quite as much as it does in print. In fact, Ms. Didion turned the book into a stage play, which is the perfect complementary medium to an intimate, one-narrator, first-person, personal tale of emotion.
But you already know that I have some concerns about turning books into movies. Here’s my epiphany for the day. Technically, it’s my second epiphany, the first being that it’s pointless to iron a linen shift and then sit in the car for an hour. In any event, here’s my on-topic epiphany. Some movies would make better books. When discussing books and movies, usually people are concerned with whether the film adaptation has been faithful to the book. But I don’t know that I’ve ever heard someone say a movie, which was not a book first, should be translated into print. But I’m saying it. And I’m giving you a stellar example. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening. This movie showed up in our mailbox the other night (yes, we’re a bit slow on the movie front, two small kids and all that) and I was actually fairly excited. My husband has notoriously bad taste in movies. Let me just give you one example: Dog Soldiers. Dog Soldiers, with the tagline: "Six soldiers. Full moon. No chance." Dog Soldiers, which features a scene of a man morphing into a dog, but the budget must've already been spent on that tagline, so the camera stays focused on the table while a man falls behind the table and rises back up clearly wearing not much more than a plastic dog mask you could pick up at Walgreens. After weathering Dog Soldiers, you can imagine my excitement when I opened the DVD sleeve and saw The Happening. I wouldn't say I'm a die-hard M. Night Shyamalan fan, but I enjoyed The Sixth Sense, loved Signs, and was one of few who couldn’t stop talking about the larger social message in The Village (nature or nurture in the extreme). Lady in the Water was terrible, but not Dog Soldiers terrible, so I figured the odds were on my side with The Happening. So, we watched, and I found the idea fascinating. People suddenly become confused and take their own lives in what is first considered a terrorist attack but is soon understood to be something environmental and unexplainable. In the midst of this crisis, a young married couple (an adequate Marky Mark and flat-as-pancake Zooey Deschanel), facing an unidentified marital calamity of their own, must save their lives while making sense of both their external and internal worlds. The personal parallels the world at large. The almost imperceptible change in their relationship is but a microcosm of the larger environmental change. Like I said, great idea. But I didn’t buy it. It’s as if M. had this brilliant idea and then just started shooting without working out the backstory. I know I was supposed to understand the couple’s angst and disconnect, but I had a hard time caring because the characters weren't developed. And the big secret regarding what was causing the suicides was resolved too quickly. Everything was a bit too tidy and shallow. But imagine if, instead of creating a storyboard, M. had opened a Word document and written a short story - a story exploring the impact we have on our environment, both personal and at large. A story that could, through the written word, navigate both the nuances of the protagonists’ relationship and the history of our impact on the planet. The movie wasn’t much of anything. But the story was brilliant. I think it just needed the right medium.

Dig Out Your Library Card

My friends tell me I’m optimistic to a fault sometimes. Silver linings? Shoot, the clouds above my head have platinum linings. With bling. When life hands me lemons, I’m likely to make homemade lemon tarts and distribute them to my neighbors. So, in the midst of this financial train-wreck, this market-equivalent-of-the-movie-Glitter, it should come as no surprise that I’ve found something positive. I’ve rediscovered a forgotten treasure. The local library. I’d become so accustomed to ordering books online or grabbing a couple of titles at Target or running to the big-box-book-store (say that five times fast) at lunch, that I’d been neglecting the library. Now, though, with Suze Orman and her fantastically white teeth yelling at me every other day from the TV, and food prices going up faster than Hilary Clinton's blood pressure after a Palin rally, I’m trying to tighten my belt and get what I can for free. Hence, my visit to the library this week. The library is a bit like the local outdoor market. You never know what’s going to be available. You might plan on making plum sauce for dinner, but end up serving chilled melon soup, instead. That’s what happened at the library. I wanted to check out The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. Not only were all copies checked out already, there were also over 70 hold requests in line before me. Looks like I’ll be buying the book (don’t tell Suze) if I want to read it sometime before 2010. After my initial disappointment, I remembered Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates – the 1961 book made into a film coming out this fall, starring Leo and Kate. And it was available! I have to shout out a huge thank you to the man or woman who decided to make this book into a movie. If not for your interest, I don’t know that I would have ever heard of this book, or this author. The book is a masterpiece. No wonder Yates, who never achieved huge commercial success, was known as a writer’s writer. Revolutionary Road is so….real. And it’s heartbreaking. Frank and April Wheeler’s sense of suburban suffocation and loss of self is palpable (NPR has a brilliant discussion of the book’s theme). It permeates every page. And it’s entirely relevant (and rather depressing in a “what has become of my life” sort of way). If not for the 9:00 dinners, constant drinking and smoking, and absence of cell phones, the Wheelers could be living in any number of subdivisions in any number of cities in America today. They could be your neighbors. They could be you. Yates has incredible insight – putting words to feelings that most Americans have felt, but don’t know how to articulate – like the revulsion a man sometimes feels at the sight of his children, even though he loves them; like the immense hopelessness one feels when faced with the same mundane, unimportant job every day; like the awkward tension seeping into a room when friends realize they have nothing to talk about anymore. Each character is meticulously described. And I don’t mean simply hair color and shirt style, etc. I mean I know these characters. I could tell you how they would react in any number of situations. And, more importantly, I know why they act the way they do. I have no doubt Yates created intricate biographies for each of his characters before putting pen to paper, and we, the readers, now reap the benefits of his diligence. For the movie to do the book justice, it will have to be detailed. Each word and set piece and thread of cloth must live and breathe the story (I’m thinking of The Ice Storm). If it does, I think the movie just might work. Sam Mendes is at the helm, and if past movies are any indication, he pays attention to the details - almost in a hyper-stylized way (see American Beauty; Road to Perdition). Kate Winslet could tell an entire epic with one look, so she’s a natural choice. I’m more apprehensive about Leo. Frank Wheeler is the cornerstone of the book – he must be perfect for Yates’s vision of American disillusionment to come across. My fingers are crossed that he pulls it off. In any event, though, I’m thankful the movie was made, because it will introduce an entirely new generation to this book. And we have much to gain. As do our therapists.