So Many Books...

Best of -- or not quite yet

2010-01-04T21:09:33Z

I don't think I've ever been so late with my best of list of the year, but 2010 is not exactly knocking itself out to play nice so far. My mother contracted shingles -- admittedly just before Christmas, though she wasn't diagnosed correctly until after it -- and my sister, who was with us for Christmas and in great form then, got sicker and sicker shortly after getting home. This all culminated in her going to Galway Hospital, where a rat-bastard registrar decided that as he couldn't find anything wrong with her, there was nothing wrong with her (despite a 20+ hour coughing fit and difficulty breathing which wasn't an asthma attack) and was all set to send her home at 3 am when she'd driven from Kinvara to the hospital herself. Luckily an underling suggested that it might not be safe for her to drive home and then stayed when the rat-bastard registrar had walked off after agreeing she could stay and talked to a consultant the next morning and now she's in for 3 days' tests. Including a scan to check for a clot in her lung.

Anyway, I will get to my lists - and will get through the books I'm still keen to talk about - but I did at least manage to get my year's best done for the year-in-review at Strange Horizons. And I'm glad to see that sartorias got a mention aside from mine for Treason's Shore - underrated it is indeed, but not here!

Meanwhile, I'm reading the new Jaclyn Moriarty - yes, I am! A lovely friend in Australia sent it to me, and it's wonderful so far. And I have my name on one of the six copies of rj_anderson's Rebel ordered into a local shop, which will be free of embargo in a couple of days. (Irish couple.)

Cloudy Seas

2009-12-29T18:16:01Z

Not the most seasonal of pictures, admittedly, but I was very taken with this ghostly galleon -- when I saw it from my bathroom window this morning, it was so ghostly that it looked as if it were sinking. Only extreme zoom (30 X) made the white sections of the ship visible. Love that this caught the foam being blown off the wave that can be seen between the branches - you can add the sound of those waves in imagination.

Anyway, the seas may have been cloudy at times, but we all got over the Christmas fairly well regardless (as the Irish expression goes). The meal was outstanding, thanks mostly to Becca (ably aided by Younger Daughter), and astonishingly, the turkey didn't give us the least bit of grief of the undercooked vs. overcooked variety.

Have just finished Kristin Cashore's Fire, which I enjoyed greatly (with interesting - to me, that is - reservations about the monarchy/power structure), and have a great desire to babble about, but there's still a bunch of editing reading to be done, so it'll have to wait a bit.

In the meantime, myntti has posted another wonderful link which I'll share with those who may not have seen it yet: The Battle of Pelennor Fields -- in candy! Yummm.

Report on the Irish Children’s Literature and Culture Symposium

2009-12-07T22:17:01Z

This Symposium was held last Saturday in the Humanities Institute of Ireland, at UCD. (So many capitals!) It was free and open to the public, which is impressive in itself, and turned out to be a fantastic event - extremely well organised (much praise due to Susan Cahill, who did said organising), and very well attended too (especially considering it was a December Saturday). I took notes as best I could, but I'm sure some spellings, dates, titles and the like are a bit askew - apologies to anyone to whom I've done this. Behind cuts if anyone's interested in reading more.

This concerned books from the Manning Collection, which contains the work of quite a few Irish women writers and is in process of being digitized for the Irish Virtual Research Library and Archive. (The IVRLA is an amazing resource for Irish studies of many types, open to anyone - here.) Although these women were very popular in their day, they’re largely unknown now (vs the male writers of the same period). Cahill talked about two: L.T. Meade and Rosa Mulholland. Meade was the best known of these – she was very popular and published about 300 novels in her lifetime, many of the books for girls being set in Ireland. An example of one of these is The Children’s Kingdom, published in London. In it Ireland is portrayed as an idyllic rural place of childhood – the girls are able to run wild there freely, but one which must be moved away from as they mature. This fits in with the depiction of Ireland as infantalized so common at the time. Meade was consciously writing for an English audience.

The other writer about whom Susan Cahill spoke was Rosa Mulholland – not one I’d ever heard of, I’m afraid. She was encouraged and later published by Dickens, and Yeats included a story of hers in his Representative Irish Tales. In her girls’ books, England was shown to be a place of stasis, with Ireland a place where they can mature. Giannetta is one of her books which tells of a girl finding humanity in Ireland as opposed to the remoteness of art in England. In the heroine’s finding people whose needs move her, Giannetta condemns absentee landlords and shows moving scenes of peasant evictions. For this, Mulholland was very controversial and indeed (almost? Completely?) blacklisted in England.

I thought this might be about the Wildenstern books, but in fact it was a workshop he’d given in conjunction with Susan Cahill in a primary school (I assume – 11 to 12 year-olds, should be Sixth Class?), introducing the kids to an extract from one of Meade’s books and also to some letters of Máirín Cregan, another writer of children’s books (among other things). It sounded like a wonderful workshop, and we got to hear two samples of the writing the kids did, which was brilliant! Preparing them to hear an extract from a 19th century work, McGann talked about language changing, but still being the method for passing story from one person to another, and the story being essentially unchanging. He also told them of the importance of literature from the 19th century as the derivation for modern lit – using Twilight deriving from Dracula, CSI from Sherlock Holmes and The Terminator (which the girls said bored them), though I can’t remember the modern derivation of the last! He also explained the rural idyll of Meade’s books as escapism from the Industrial Age’s harsh reality as being like watching The O.C. or One Tree Hill. (May just be me, but One Tree Hill doesn’t seem much fun in the way of escapism.) The extract was a scene around the breakfast table, when Papa threw down his paper and delivered the desperately bad news, that the children could not pick any but the white strawberries for a day. None of the children thought the white strawberries were any kind of substitute for the red ones. (There was some discussion afterwards about how much good one day’s rest would do strawberry bushes, but we arrived at no satisfactory conclusion.) The kids then had to translate this into a similar scene that would happen in their own houses. The one we heard involved a text discussion about a gorgeous guy interrupted when the mobile credit ran out, and the mother heartlessly wouldn’t let the girl use her mobile to continue it!

The second half of the workshop involved looking at the letters between Máirín Cregan and her editor and comparing them to McGann’s – lot of similarities along with the differences. After introducing them to the ‘nice sandwich’ letter from the editor, he got the girls to imagine themselves having read lots of rubbish and being fed up with it, and now writing to an author who’d sent more rubbish. The one read out was a letter to Stephanie Meyer and was pretty harsh, concerning lack of plot and the editor's falling asleep over the manuscript!

During the discussion, people asked whether there was any thought that the kids would be interested enough to continue to read these kinds of earlier literature, and the general view was that it wasn’t very likely, as kids now required much faster pace and lots of plot twists. Certainly, if the highpoint of the drama of Meade’s book was no higher than the scene read during the workshop, it’s understandable that kids nowadays require a bit more exciting reading. [My own personal opinion here – I’m not sure that there is quite the complete divide in reading between modern and 19th century – or early to mid 20th century, for that matter – books that McGann described. Surely it’s not only this house in which the big reader kids are still enjoying L.M. Montgomery or Louisa May Alcott? Also with my children’s historical fiction project mindset, I think of the popularity of historical books which don’t have the pace of McGann’s (or the body count, for that matter!)]

Session 2, after tea, was Valerie Coghlan’s paper, ‘The Liminality of the Bog in Irish Children’s Literature’, and Ciara Ní Bhroin’s, ‘Mythologizing the Present – Modern Retellings of Irish Myths for Children’.

Both were fascinating, though the bog one perhaps slightly less evocative for those not growing up in Ireland. Coghlan started with a quote from Thoreau – ‘the bog in our brain and bowels’, which she said to be especially relevant to people in Ireland because so much of Ireland is covered in bogland, and the cutting of turf for fires such an important element in the survival of many – as commonage it provided free fuel for heating and cooking for anyone living near a bog. (Apparently there were generations of schoolchildren who had to write an essay for the Irish exam on ‘A day on the bog’, though many of them would never have been closer to a bog than the briquettes for the fire!)

She then quoted Simon Schama, who describes two kinds of arcadia: shaggy and smooth; dark and light; a place of bucolic pleasure and a place of primitive panic. (I’ve aided my notes with a judicious Google there, so don’t know that it’s entirely accurate quoting.) The bog in Irish children’s literature can feature as either or both, as it’s such a liminal space. Earlier books such as Patricia Lynch’s The Turf-Cutter’s Donkey (1934) portray the bog as idyll, in keeping with the view that the newly-independent state should embrace the view of the innocent, idyllic Ireland. (But the book was published in Ireland and popular in the U.S.) Maura Laverty’s The Cottage in the Bog has the stereotypical plot of children finding a treasure, but uses the liminality of the bog to situate it as part of an innocent (reminiscent of childhood) Ireland.

Mention was then made of (Luke?) Gibbons’ writing about the John Hinde postcards, with the picture of the children, donkey and creels of turf (which everyone recognises instantly, though I had little luck in finding the original image itself online - there's an amusing reworking of it here) – at a time when Ireland was modernising these preserved the image of an unchanging idyllic country, which Lynch and Laverty also depicted.

As late as 1992 John Quinn’s The Summer of Lily and Esme described a city boy’s first experience in the country (and bog) as idyllic, but just a few years later his One Fine Day shows more of the dark arcadia, with the troubles in the North being involved (I think a Republican on the run was captured in the bog, though I don’t know much about this one and couldn’t quite keep up. While trying to find out, I came across this lovely report on John Quinn’s visit to a school.)

Later books fit more into the category of ‘Bog Gothic’, though this actually described adult books. Examples were Siobhan Dowd’s Bog Child (2008) and Maeve Friel’s Distant Voices (1994). In Bog Child the liminality of the bog land extends to the border area between the North and the Republic, as the protagonist runs every day through the bog in which there’s no marker of the border. The Troubles in Northern Ireland also form the background for Distant Voices, in which a girl is haunted by a boy from Viking times, eventually linked to a bog body.

The last point made was about the change in depiction of the bog in children’s fiction as Ireland has become more culturally diverse. In the discussion at the end of the section one of the teachers present said that not one of the children in this year’s class knew anything about bogs – at least mine were taken to Peat World on school trips!

The second talk of the session considered the retellings of Celtic myths for children, and my notes for this are even more sketchy, as so much – all fascinating - was covered. This may be a bit less than 100% accurate, as a result.

The talk began with the famous children’s retellings of the Celtic Revival period, such as those by Lady Gregory. These had an important role in nation building - intended to inculcate pride in the glorious pre-colonial past. (This was contrasted with the situation during the other famous Celtic period – the Celtic Tiger, in which culture was viewed as a commodity, unlike the strong idealistic basis of the Revival period.)

One notable feature of the collections of myths for children is that they all contain essentially the same, small number of stories – although there are a huge number of originals, some are more easily adapted for children, which is doubtless a partial explanation of the limited numbers appearing in collections. Very few of them feature Celtic deities – probably relating to Christian editing. The Ulster Cycle, for example, has heroes, though it’s possible these were originally deities. The number one tale in almost every collection (and many, many of the book covers) is the story of the Children of Lir. This is actually quite a recent story, though it’s often mistakenly thought to be older. Originally the stepmother is the children’s aunt, though this is often ‘tidied up’ for the child’s version. Although it’s one of the Three Sorrows, the ending is often sentimentalized and made happier.

The other two which are popular are how Cú Chulainn got his name and Oisín in Tir na nÓg. The story of Cú Chulainn is one of the only parts of the Táin told for children, as it’s more easily santized than the rest. (Exceptions for older readers are Carlo Gébler’s The Bull Raid (2004? I wrote this down, but Fantastic Fiction says 2005), which tells the story in appropriately gory detail, and a graphic novel by Colmán Ó Raghallaigh, which can be seen here. Even the graphic novel omits any portrayal of Cú Chulainn’s supernatural aspects, when he goes into a killing rage. IIRC) An interesting analogy was made between the culture of the Táin and that of the Celtic Tiger, which certainly puts the most famous national mythic hero in a different light from that in which he’s normally viewed!

Then there’s Fionn, who’s got various aspects in myth retellings, so the stories about him are more varied – sometimes he’s the heroic leader of the Fianna and sometimes a trickster figure, for example. The most common story about him included in children’s collections is his getting wisdom from the Salmon of Wisdom – this might be more empowering for children than some of the other myths typically included, as it’s the child who gains wisdom in no time, while his teacher has spent seven years trying to capture the salmon.

Again, the talk ended with a summary of how things are changing in recent times: the god Lugh is being ‘reinstated’ as a hero of some stories, and a 2000 collection by Soinbhe Lally (? I could only find the 1998 Favourite Irish Fairy Tales, so not sure whether I wrote down the wrong date or it’s a different collection) clearly describes the Tuatha Dé Dannan as gods. Recent uses of Celtic myth in fantasy and SF the supernatural is neither romanticized as a sentimental vision of the past nor rationalized away, but viewed as vital to root modern children & teens to their national past.

After lunch, Dr Mary Shine Thompson presented ‘A Bend of the Road: Children’s Literature Studies in Ireland’. This was absolutely fascinating, but the details of the achievements made in children’s literature studies here probably less so to those who might be reading this from out foreign (and I’ll never finish if I don’t shorten things a bit). The aspects of the section of the talk on 'Why Now' that are internationally relevant are:
-The emergence of right-based societies. Marginal groups now seen as entitled to representation and this includes children, akin to the growth of gender studies and post-colonial studies.
-The dismantling of the high/popular literature opposition, and critics who’ve seen the emancipatory possibilities in this.
-Democracy is ‘the close brother’ to capitalism, and children are clearly seen as a consumer commodity.

In terms of the future, Thompson sees the collaboration with other related disciplines, such as history and education as essential and potentially fruitful, and said that there’s need for more study on the ignored areas of children’s literature like poetry and drama – also (I think it was here) film. And mustn’t be afraid of the virtual environment! Blogging, gaming, 2nd Life and Facebook all hold much room for study.

Having started with the line ‘…a bend of the road which still sheltered primroses’ from a John Montague poem, she then ended with two, alternatate possibilities: ‘… when weary Odysseus returns, Telemachos must leave.’ AND/OR the older and younger generations can ‘…smile in the shared complicity of a dream.’

Finally there was a roundtable discussion between Celia Keenan (director of the MA in children’s literature at St Patrick’s College, Drumcondra), Dr Patricia Kennon (Froebel College of education, editor of Inís and president of IBBY Ireland) and Dr Éilís Ní Dhuibhne (UCD and also an author, as Elizabeth O’Hara). (Lovely picture of Oisín McGann on the Inís webpage, btw. )

This started with a discussion of the problems of reviewing of books by Irish authors in such a small community. Not only do all the reviewers tend to know all the writers, illustrators and publishers, but they may also be published by the same publishers! (This reminded me strongly of the situation in the speculative fiction world, about which Farah Mendlesohn has often spoken – possibly made worse by the even smaller community here.) The problem is not just of knowing the people involved with the book being reviewed, but also the aim of a publication like Inís to promote Irish writers and illustrators, and the dearth of room given in major newspapers to children’s books. One possibility, where the reviewer has the choice, is not to review a book that’s really not good.

After this, I either got so caught up in the discussion that I forgot to write down notes or something, because the last thing that I have written down is two comments by Celia Kennon. The first is that she said she was torn between the view expressed by Kimberley Reynolds at the end of her new book (Radical Children’s Literature – I think), that we should embrace the empowerment of children offered by all the changes in children’s literature, and that expressed by Jack Zipes, that we should beware the commercial exploitation of all the energy young people have. (This is a rough scribbled version, and I may well be slightly misquoting, but this was the gist of it.)

Then, at the end of the afternoon, and speaking rather quietly, she said that she worried often about Jacqueline Rose’s argument, that children’s literature was the only type of literature not written by peers of the readers. And I think she said that this problem lurked behind all studies of children’s lit and perhaps meant that it wasn’t literature at all. She went on to say that nowhere was there more patronizing than in the YA shelves. That I am sure of, because I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said, in case I’d misheard. She explained that even ‘good YA’ was often patronizing because of the hopeful note to the endings, which wouldn’t be written that way for adults. I asked for an example she felt fit this case, and she said the latest by Melvin Burgess (which I haven’t read), and contrasted the ending to that of John McGahern’s The Dark (unless it was The Barracks), which I have, but so long ago that I might as well not have. (Actually, I think this was back in the day of the Awful Boyfriend, who was an arrogant English Lit student in UCD, while I was a mere science student. He was a big McGahern fan, and I seem to remember trying to read what I should read… Says a lot.)

It was a thought-provoking end to a thoroughly stimulating, fascinating day. My thoughts on the patronizing comment to follow in another post.

Linkage

2009-12-03T23:12:50Z

Promised myself this morning that once I got through the things planned for today, I'd sit down and write a long post about death, loss and YA (stemming from a recent read of Megan Crewe's Give Up the Ghost, which I loved), but stupid headache sat between me and thinking most of the day, and the list grew faster than I got through it, so that's not happening today.

Instead, two posts today linked nicely in my head, at any rate, and another with the death-one-to-come. First, one of the most interesting reviews of Kristin Cashore's Graceling I've read here, which tied in with gnomicutterance's post about loving things that are broken, as (I might have mangled this a bit, so please correct it if wrong) I seem to remember her writing about Graceling and/or Fire that it fit into the kinda subversive, kinda hegemonic category. Not the same as broken admittedly, and I think different from coalescent's objections to Graceling, which are in part done away by the strengths he sees in it, but still connected, maybe.

Also with the review of Graceling is another interesting take on Francis Hardinge's Gullstruck Island, which contains the perfect line 'the end of the novel is full of messy freedoms', although I'm pretty sure I disagree that the end involves 'freedom from history'.

Meanwhile, I'm listening to Jim Butcher's Storm Front on audiobook (read by James Marsters - *not* the happy listening I expected) and while loving a lot of things about it, am hating all the descriptions of the form of just about every bloody female Dresden encounters. I mean, really, does anyone get a lot of pleasure out of the self-acknowledgedly 'old-fashioned' lingering over describing luscious curves and sensuous lips - oh, and cupid-bow lips too? And on and on and on... Talk about the male gaze! (Admittedly, Harry even describes his own 'long legs' more than once or twice, when it's not really necessary, and once so far, even 'my slight frame'.) Does it ever stop, or are all eleven or whatever books exactly the same in this respect? That might be pushing the loving of books with flaws just a bit too far for me.

lady_schrapnell @ 2009-12-02T08:48:00

2009-12-02T08:48:25Z

Happy birthday to vierran45!

Quick update from the wet

2009-11-21T22:40:22Z

My computer has had a temporary reprieve from -- dead, in fact -- by a replacement being ordered, but it's still giving me fits, and I can't get much time on the closer-to-living computer as Becca's writing (on it) like a mad writing thing.

In the few minutes on here, there's time to wish booksandtea a happy birthday (on Irish time, anyway!), and give a link to a really sweet video scooped from m_stiefvater. It probably helps to love Hodgins (that's in Bones, for the non-watchers), but even without it's lovely.

And for a quicker hit of cute, try this. Stumbled across it while looking through Ravelry projects for the hat for Younger Daughter knitting, and had to share the aw moment.

Have almost finished listening to Marcelo in the Real World, which is suffering a bit from an annoying reader, but not too much. It's - well, not sure what it is, exactly - may take me some time to decide if I think it's wonderful altogether or if it's a bit overstuffed. (Like a sausage, as an OU tutor memorably warned against doing in writing an essay.)

lady_schrapnell @ 2009-11-09T21:23:00

2009-11-09T21:23:47Z

I have such a backlog of books read and not talked at this point, that it's becoming overwhelmingly daunting. Tonight will not be the night on which I really cut into the backlog, but instead, a bit of book news (plus query), a contender for the title of worst cover ever, a contender for the title of most appallingly ill-conceived (ahem) merchandise ever, and a super-quick run-through of two books read recently.

First the news: Jaclyn Moriarty has a new book out, Dreaming of Amelia - another set in the Ashbury school world! Unfortunately (pause for teeth-gnashing), it's only out in Australia atm, and will be out in the UK in April 2010, and the US and Canada in June. (I hope this news is news - it was to me, and I was excited enough to check Dymocks' shipping rates - though not enough to pay them. It's via her blog.) The query is whether anyone knows of an Australian online bookshop with cheaper shipping rates.

I don't need to label that one, do I? Here's the link, so you can examine the full WTFery of it. The pearls?! Her face?!?! Words fail me.

Words are also failing at this one, a good day after I saw it ( on Bookshelves of Doom, I think - I was on a mad catch-up bloglines read, and lost track of what wonders were found where). Be warned, you may want to avoid this, if you don't have brain-bleach handy, or blench at TMI of a gynaecalogical variety. If you're ready though... check it out.

The book is Lily St. Crow's Strange Angels, which is one I'd seen on the shelves around for a while, and never bothered to pick up, given the huge number of dark and edgy looking YAs of a supernatural nature. But I saw great reviews on Finding Wonderland and Killin' Time Reading (or perhaps it was Lazygal on Goodreads that I saw.) So, finding myself without book and in a bookshop the other day (imagine!), I picked Strange Angels up, and was very glad I'd had those two readers to give me the push. It was dark, snarky, had a heroine who really cried (like the messy, ugly kind of crying) when it was appropriate for her to do so and had hair that continually frizzed or otherwise misbehaved, and a lovely sidekick/romantic interest-to-come. In fact, it was oddly similar in some story elements to Hush, Hush, which I also read recently. But it worked for me, while Hush, Hush emphatically fell down on the annoyance of repetitive repetitions (yes, *I* did it on purpose) of the 'I'm so attracted to him, but I KNOW I should stay away, but I'm so attracted, but he's DANGEROUS, but I'm ....' Understandable in a lot of ways, but didn't make it much fun for me to read anyway. Also, I'm sorry, but I want angels to be different. Not just high-school jerks with wings, which is what these ones seemed to be. Anyway, everything Hush, Hush didn't deliver for me, Strange Angels did - and the sequel is due out this month. Nice timing!

Cats purr, dogs ... snuggle?

2009-10-28T14:23:34Z

Becca and I were discussing the fact that there's no easy, one word description of the behaviour of a happy dog that can be used in a parallel manner to the 'If I were a cat, I'd be purring' line. Rolling over on your back with feet up in the air so your belly can be patted just doesn't work the same way. But this picture of Doug (it was supposed to be a picture of the fingerless mitts that I finished yesterday for posting today, but Doug loves soft woolen knitted garments, people's laps and photo-shoots equally) pretty much expresses my readerly rolling over on my back with etc... - Though perhaps mine is a little bit less soulful-looking!

This readerly happiness is easy to understand: I have in my possession and unread: Kathleen Duey's Skin Hunger; Linda Buckley-Archer's Time Quake; Oisín McGann's The Wisdom of Dead Men; Gail Carriger's Soulless; Dene Low's The Entemological Tales of Augustus T. Percival: Petronella Saves Nearly Everyone, and Maggie Stiefvater's Ballad. (The latter arrived this morning, after both Better World Books and Book Depository did me grievous wrong by promising they'd send it right off to me but lying!) And I just started listening to Marcelo in the Real World as well. AND I'm loving the beta reading (of a sort) I'm doing!

If this weren't enough, last night I started (and stayed up way too late to finish) sarazarr's Once Was Lost, which was just wonderful. Still too close to it to do much beyond a bit of raving, but it's at least somewhat quote-enriched raving.

Sam is the fifteen-year old daughter of a pastor in a small - really small - town of Pineview, where everyone knows pretty much everyone, and those in the congregation especially knows the business of the pastor and his family. Except for the bit about her mother's having been sent to rehab after getting in an accident while DUI. Sam's father keeps promising he'll tell the congregation, and then she'll finally be able to stop covering up and hiding. But Sam's dad is a lot better at always knowing the right thing to say, and taking the time to say it, to his congregation than he is to his own family. Or than he is with the congregation in this case. And with her mother in rehab, Sam is lost and depressed already, when she hears the news that a girl from the town - from the congregation, in fact - has been abducted. Sam has to try to cope with the shock and fear and grief without help from her mother, her father or God, all of whom seem to have left her in one way or another.

The doctor or minister parent who has time for everyone except his or her own family is a bit of a cliché, perhaps, but Zarr makes Sam's dad, like her mother and Sam herself, so beautifully real that it's anything but cliché. It's also not about satirical point-scoring or finger-wagging, and that may be even more important. (Yes, those of you who've heard this once too often are probably right in guessing that a major contrast for me is the feminist-children-neglecting mother in DWJ's Conrad Fate, who still makes me very cross.)

I think I've said before that one thing I really, really liked about Sara Zarr's previous book, Sweethearts, is that it treats the important adults in the teen protagonist's life as older but not essentially different from the teen. So often the parents seem to be there either to get in the way or be downright harmful to the protag's coping, learning lesson, seeing things from new perspective, whatever. But those are only the jobs of a teen, while the parent has either been there, done that or been there, missed the chance. I like adults who keep on being open to change, learning lessons, assessing who they are and who they want to be, becoming. Obviously a YA book shouldn't be all the story of the adult(s), and this certainly isn't, but Sam's parents are fantastic characters. I completely fell for the mother on reading this:

Mom always says that doubt is just another way of expressing faith, and sometimes I'd hear her mutter things to God, like, "Thanks a lot. I guess we'll chalk that one up to character development," or, "I eagerly await your explanation for this in the hereafter, assuming there is such a thing."

The picture we get through Sam's narrative of her mother's rather sudden slide from drinking way too much to keep herself together in the face of the constant scrutiny and having to live up to her position as pastor's wife, into drinking way, way too much and no longer managing to keep it together is both credible and infinitely sad. It's a neat trick to develop sympathy for a character only seen for much of the book through the memories of another character for whom the reader feels primary sympathy, but Zarr manages admirably.

Sam's narrative is occasionally an extremely difficult position to inhabit, as for example when she fails repeatedly to respond to her best friend's desire for her to share her feelings about her mother's being in rehab, about the abduction, about been sent to live with her friend's family. Completely understandable given what we know about Sam - and some of it pretty classic child of an alcoholic behaviour - but still worrying, when we feel Sam's vulnerability and isolation already, and fear she may cut off the few friends she does have.

All this is powerful stuff, and of course there's the central part of the plot concerning the girl who's been abducted, the search for her, the impact on her family and the people in the town in general, and the information filtering through that the chances of finding her alive drop dramatically after the first 48 hours. Even though I knew what the book was about, I was still knocked sideways right along with Sam when she hears the news of the abduction on the TV. The chapters are headed Day 1, etc (the abduction actually happens on Day 2), and again Zarr does an amazing job of depicting the reactions of all involved. The older brother of the girl taken was particularly good, I thought. But despite the tension and the heartbreaking grief and anxiety everyone feels, somehow the book struck me as never using manipulative tricks to get the reader involved. (I'll be coming back to this one when - if - I finally get around to writing a bit about Catching Fire. There is no comprehensive theory of what constitutes authorial manipulativeness, and what wonderful development of tension and involvement, of course!)

One of my favourite songs is Sufjan Stevens' 'Casimir Pulaski Day' (can be heard here - there are live versions but the sound isn't great, and one of the other videos cuts off too soon), with its heartbreaking ending 'And He takes, and He takes, and He takes'. Once Was Lost addresses that sense of loss and anger - outrage even, that God has 'taken everything', and also marvels at the strength of people who can have hope and faith despite everything. And maybe, just maybe, some of them will have the chance of facing the task Sam imagines Lazarus must have faced, of rebuilding your life after spending time in the tomb.

lady_schrapnell @ 2009-10-17T22:17:00

2009-10-17T21:17:23Z

Have I expressed my rage at the setters-off of (ILLEGAL) fireworks round here in the past? Yes? Right, well it deserves repeating anyway - as last night's debacle (combine Bell's bedtime visit outside and some loud explosions and you arrive at a 2 am visit instead, after which the dogs went quickly back to sleep, and me not) has given me a cracking headache and cost me yet another day's brain functioning. Not a great time for writing a few thoughts on Mary E. Pearson's The Miles Between, but I'm going to forget everything I thought about it soon, so will do it anyway. (And diceytillerman asked so nicely!) Mostly what I liked out here, and what I wasn't keen on, which involves complete spoilers, behind a cut.

Many people probably know about the basic plot of The Miles Between, if they haven't read the books months ago, but for those who don't, it's a fairly simple one to outline: Destiny Faraday is a teen living in a very exclusive boarding school, as she's been abandoned by her parents, although she probably won't be there much longer, given hints that she might be starting to get even the least bit attached to the place or any of the people there. That's what she does - refuse to get attached, and cause herself to be moved to a new school if she starts to. But this one day, a day when she should have been getting a visit from her aunt who has to cancel, she starts acting impulsively and breaking all her routines. Happening to stumble across a beautiful pink convertible sitting outside school, with keys in it, and happening to find next one of her classmates who can drive (two others classmates are picked up) Des takes off on a road trip, in search of just one fair day. One on which 'the good guy wins and everything adds up to something just and right'.

Initially extremely reluctant even to have the others along on the trip, Des very slowly is able to accept them as friends and allow them their fair day, and finally to open up fully to them. That sounds very sappy, but the road trip is mostly wonderful - especially the baby lamb they find on the road and bring with them. Lucky, as Seth promptly names him, is brought - seemingly just by their treating him as a dog - to the most winning of dog-like behaviour (without the tedious house - or in this case, car- training necessary for most puppies!)

I have to say that I felt a little bit of ennui at the beginning of Des's (first-person) narrative: yet another ill-treated, emotionally scarred narrator who can't trust or let anyone in ? But the story of this search for the one fair day was unusual enough to get me over that fairly quickly. I especially loved the generic boundary-slipping around all the 'coincidences'. Some of them weren't coincidences at all in a perfectly realistic way and some were left beautifully open as being either just one of those extremely rare but possible happenings or fantasy. I also liked the other characters and how they got their fair day. Well, except for Aidan, the Pee and the President. That was just a bit silly.

Of course I was very moved by the big reveal scene - hard not to be. I liked this book a lot, despite the problems about which I can't talk without spoiling.

Two things about which I wanted to ramble a bit. One is the use of an unreliable narrator, and the second, I suppose is another inconsistency of mine, which could not let the apparent lack of 100% psychological realism happily co-exist with other non-realist modes.

So, the unreliable narrator bit first. As I said, I was less than enthusiastic about having the narrative be from the point of view of a closed-off, damaged type - and got bounced out a bit by having to read her describing one of her schoolmates as having 'been with child' but then say someone did something 'like she always did'. If I'm going to have to read careful and precise and buy 'with child', I certainly am going to expect '... AS she always did'.

But that was a minor bit of pedantry on my part. The real problem was that - at least up until about half-way through - while I was buying the narrative as reliable, I was feeling extremely resistant to the simplistic, black-and-white presentation of the parents as BAAAADDD. Just bad. No excuses, no shading bad. There just seemed to be too much departure from the realist range of fallible but normal behaviour for me to feel interest in the relationship between Des and her parents. And it got to the point that I started having a niggling feeling that I really didn't like Pearson's take on the world, almost.

I read fairly slowly, and a bit over a few nights, and when I was halfway through I copped on to the fact that the parents were dead - although I still didn't realise quite the extent of the unreliable narration, and didn't click that the aunt (whom I keep wanting to call Aunt Irma, but that's from The IT Crowd and a very different matter!) was also a fabrication. So then it just seemed as unlikely that child services would have kept Des from living with her aunt as it had been that her parents were that bad.

Despite the fact that the big reveal, especially the scene in the cemetery with Des saying goodbye to her parents and baby brother, was very moving, I still felt that the author hadn't played quite fair with us. It's as big a deception as Gen's in The Thief, but that's Gen - who lies as easily as he breathes, and who HAS to be totally living the lie he's telling the reader as well as everyone else in order to (maybe) survive the scam. But Des - I felt, either had to be completely, absolutely credible as a realistic depiction of someone severely traumatized or she's a bit of a cheat. And - much as I enjoyed all the 'coincidences' and could happily go along with the most fantastic of those, I didn't think the depth of Des's denial was really consistent with her being in a succession of 'normal' boarding schools. Yes, I know how incredibly powerful the mind can be when it turns to a variety of coping mechanisms, but still and all - this wasn't something she was telling herself and therefore the reader, with a bit of awareness that the reality was very different. She was writing notes (or making calls, I forget which) to the school about her aunt's visit; she'd been sent to therapists for years because she wouldn't even speak; she was in serious emotional trouble and people knew it.

That quibble ungenerously quibbled, I did like the book a lot. I think it would still have been a good story if it had been a 3rd person narrative, without the shock surprise twist, but with the reader's being taken along in full knowledge of how damaged Des was and just why. Haven't really thought this through fully, but it seems to have a parallel flaw (for my taste - not necessarily an objective flaw) to the one I felt was there in The Adoration of Jenna Fox, in which the Alyss sub-plot seemed more than a bit convenient and shoved into place and less than convincing. And a similar strength in a very strong and moving depiction (when it got to it) of grief and loss and the need to go through them fully in order to be healed.

Just 10 minutes a day to a -- better brain?

2009-10-09T21:21:38Z

I'm SO EXCITED. This afternoon I heard on the radio (BBC Radio 4) that there was an experiment to see whether or not brain training programmes were actually effective, and I almost ran to my computer to check if, as I expected, it would be only for British residents. And it wasn't! I could register on the BBC Lab UK site and was all enrolled in minutes flat. They do an intake test, provide training exercises which they hope people will do for at least 6 weeks at 3 times a week, but can be done however much you feel like doing, and the test will go on for a year.

I'm not sure how rigorous the experimental protocols are, but I *do* know that there's a serious need to find out a) whether these types of brain training programmes (some of which are extremely expensive) actually work and if so, whether they just train you to do better at the exercises but have no lasting effect and no real life effect on memory or information processing. Seriously - I was just reading an article on this in the latest edition of Scientific American Mind.

If anyone else is interested in having a look, the webpage is here. Nothing was asked about residency, although the ethnic background details were heavily British orientated. Never mind. I did my ten minutes today, and am looking forward to tomorrow's dose of helping science while helping my brain (maybe!).

It's fun to live with a writer, v. 3.0.1

2009-10-06T17:03:56Z

Waste water now flowing as it should once again, I've been able to add the odd thing into consciousness other than the calculations of how long it'll be before I dare flush a toilet, and how bad might be the bad consequences of doing so too soon. So, beccadelarosa and I had a nice session going over a story she wrote a while ago which we hadn't discussed yet. Great story, and the snippets of info about light she worked into it are fascinating.

One of the things I enjoyed on reading it first was seeing the infestation of moths we had in our house appearing - transformed, of course - in the story. I wouldn't have treated her story moths to the Vacuum Cleaner of Doom as I did the RL ones. This often happens with Bec's stories - once I told her about a piece I'd heard on the news reporting a study showing that magpies were capable of recognizing themselves in mirrors as themselves, rather than thinking it was another bird. She thought that was really interesting too, and it was much fun to see it turn up in a story - a story which is just up on Farrago's Wainscot, as it happens.

This isn't just a plug for that story or the last issue of Farrago's Wainscot, though, but also reporting on a cool (for me and Becca) but ever-so-slightly disturbing 'coincidence' . A while ago Becca wrote a long story called 'Poison', in which the main character works in a hardware shop. I immediately recognized the shop as one in Dun Laoghaire, a few miles away. I had to go in there to get a key cut for my next-door neighbour a few days ago, and while I was there, a tall guy with a thick, French-sounding accent came in and asked for poison. I could hardly wait to text Bec and tell her this, because -- well, that's how the main character gets to meet the other characters, with a French guy going in to his shop to buy poison. Whoa! (Needless to say, or at least needless for those of you who know Becca's writing, it's fantasy, rather than a murder-mystery type poison purchase.)

That story hasn't yet been taken by anyone, probably because it's too long for most zines, but I'm certain this sign from the universe means it will be published someday! Or else it's just the universe giving a cheer for writers, which is good too.

Life - oooh life. (Sung in the key of Moan.)

2009-10-03T15:53:44Z

So, came down the other morning and noticed there was a really bad smell in the kitchen. No point detailing the hapless hopes I fabricated of reasons which would be less horrible than the most likely culprit: the drains blocked again. Because it was, of course, the drains. And *this* time is the time they have to dig up my next door neighbour's back garden in order to fix the problem in our house. Yes, the next-door neighbour who was robbed in her house last week.

You know things aren't good when you ring DynoRod in a complete state a year after last contact with them and the person answering the phone says 'Oh yes of course, I remember you well - you were dealing with Alan' without a second's hesitation or need to look up records. Alan also remembered me, and that they'd marked the spot in next-door neighbour's garden over the break in the pipe, and said they'd be out Monday morning early to start the fun. Which wasn't bad, except it means minimal water use in the house for us until Monday (this happened on Thursday) and as the opening to the drain is right outside the kitchen... Nuff said. *And* this morning the trash company came in my front garden and took my wheelie bin and green bin. Apparently they meant to replace the bins in the middle house in the terrace with the half-sized ones, but took mine instead. So I have nowhere to put trash or recycling *AND* Dougie seems to have decided that the stress is getting to him and he must pee everywhere all the time.

It's particularly cranky-making as my brain has completely packed up and left the location - would I could do the same! And I have many things to write, and books to talk about, and no brain with which to do it. Seriously - have recently read Jackson Pearce's As You Wish, Mary E. Pearson's The Miles Between and Sarah Cross's Dull Boy, among others. Want to talk books!! (Also have over 2000 unread posts in Bloglines.)

Quick Pollyanna though: my wonderful friends Hirondelle and Katayoun have alerted me on Goodreads to the release date for the new, proper, full-length Connie Willis novel! I've been waiting for this since 2005 Worldcon in Glasgow. Speaking of which, Younger Daughter is going off to a Pixies concert in Glasgow tomorrow and it turns out it's in the SECC, where we all went to the 2005 Worldcon. Serious nostalgic moment there.

Uh oh, it's the "Ooh the drama!" userpic

2009-09-26T16:30:02Z

Happily not a tragedy, though it came pretty close.

Last night, having considered the idea of LJing Jackson Pearce's As You Wish, read on a fairly epic journey to IKEA with younger daughter (very good it was too!) (the book, not the journey), but not having enough energy, I was watching an episode of Bones with Becca when the phone rang at 9:30. It was my elderly next-door neighbour, who often rings if she can't open something or the like, but this time she was frantic and told me someone had come into her house and had run upstairs and she couldn't find her keys to get out. Number one nightmare scenario! I immediately rang the guards and gave my mobile to Becca to ring a neighbour whose number was on the mobile, but he wasn't in. As soon as the emergency line had got all the details I went out and knocked on other neighbour's door, but he wasn't in either, so I went to the house across the road - all in search of one of the guys to come with me into the house (I have a key, but was too chicken to go in by myself). In the few minutes it took to get him, and meet yet another neighbour who'd been rung after me, the guards arrived and we got her to take the chain off the door so we could get in.

Apparently she'd either left the keys in the door outside or not pushed the door quite over, and this fellow had come in to her living room, where she was sitting eating in front of the TV, grabbed her bag and gone out the back, rather than upstairs. When we got in she was still gasping and panicked, unsurprisingly, and I was really worried she'd have a heart attack on the spot. At first I think the guards thought she might have had a nightmare, but when they found the back door locked from the outside, realised it had happened exactly as she said.

Bottom line was she wasn't hurt, *didn't* have a heart attack from the shock, and only lost a very small bit of cash (and a card, but I rang and that was canceled immediately), but none of those was the likeliest outcome at all. Another guard was sent around this morning (forensic expert! Just looking for anywhere there might be a fingerprint or two really, but it's more fun to call him a forensic expert) and he said there's a fair amount of this kind of thing going on, with people taking the train out from town and looking only for drug money. Still and all if her bag hadn't been on the sofa right by the door, she might easily have been knocked down or beaten to tell where cash or valuables were, which doesn't bear thinking of.

Only funny part was after I got back home, at almost 11 the girls said - despite the two barkiest dogs in the world, an inaccessible back door and it being obvious nobody had come in the front door - that they'd gone around the house with the dogs and a crutch (left over from one of Becca's numerous ankle-sprainings) to check the bedrooms. And then Becca solemnly announced "I stand up in an emergency", with finger pointing ceiling-ward. Younger Daughter and I looked at her in puzzlement and Y.D. asked if she meant she rose to the occasion, and she repeated that she stood up. Several times, always with the finger gesture. It was a very drunken pronouncement for someone who was totally sober, and today, she still had no idea what she'd been trying to say.

There wasn't much sleep had on our road last night, again unsurprisingly. But I phoned the locksmith as soon as the guard - forensic expert - had gone, and he was out in less than half an hour and neighbour was feeling much calmer after new locks were in. As soon as I put the new keys on her key-chain she went to put them in a (very crowded) drawer, which freaked me the hell out. I asked her wouldn't she leave them in the door (on the inside, in the Chubb lock, obviously) in case she needed to get out in a hurry and couldn't find them in the drawer, as had happened last night. It had never occurred to her - I suppose we all have our own little collection of worries, but having a door dead-bolted and not being able to find the keys is definitely one of mine!

And now to put together IKEA furniture with Y.D...

A Traveller's Tales, Part -- Whatever

2009-09-24T15:27:07Z

So, last weekend it was off to the UK for a wedding in Cambridge - steepholm's cousin's son, whom I'd never met, being the one whose marriage was being celebrated. (The couple had actually had a civil service on a beach in Honolulu, and the wedding invitations had the pictures to prove it.) I know many of you will have been waiting anxiously to hear that the €125 bottles of water have been selling like -- well, like €1 bottles of water on a hot day. I duly kept an eye out while passing through Dublin airport this time, and spotted someone in lengthy conversation with a woman working in the area. I rushed closer to eavesdrop when the potential customer had left and the woman was reporting on the conversation with someone who seemed to be a manager. The report was that he had never seen anything funnier in his life (score!) and then the woman said she thought he was someone on television. As I couldn't catch up with him to check this, there it stands for this UK trip!

The day before flying to London, I caught one of my favourite campaign posters for a long time.

I showed it to Becca who also appreciated it, and said it was the only good one of the whole lot, as all the 'Yes' crowd have to do now is say 'We need Europe'. We both agreed that we also need democracy, but last time we'd heard, that didn't automatically mean there was only one way to vote to be allowed keep it.

Flying to Gatwick, I had to put away Shiver, which I was rereading for review purposes, as I started crying again, in the aisle seat, with no tissues. Fail. (Me, not the book.) But I did manage to catch a picture of

I can only assume they meant the motorized carts that carry people the enormous distances between security and boarding gate, but really, a buggy is a pram/stroller.

Wedding went off very well, and a lovely chance to spend some time with steepholm's mum and other family members, though it is a bit embarrassing to be seriously drunk and partied under the table by his 93-year old aunt. All right, anyone could drink me under the table (were I to try to keep up), but the out-partying is more shameful.

Two things indicated how very different this circle was from the ones in which steepholm and I normally pootle around. One was the meal at the reception, which was pork. A whole pig's worth of pork. (Not the apple-in-mouth presentation of a French feast, but still, it was a full-sized pig.) And the second dish? Where you might find the vegetarian entrée? Sausages! Seriously - vegetarian, Jewish, Muslim, just don't like pork - doesn't seem to have been an option for the guests.

The second

This cake, a delicious chocolate sponge with buttercream, made by the bride's mother, was left like this after the photos of its cutting. (Sand-castle fitting in with the beach theme of the reception.) Yes, left, abandoned, never served, just left left. A cake isn't just for the photos....

We got to meet emmaco and talisen and potter around Cambridge the next day, which was lovely, and - of course - involved bookshop-visiting. I was pleased to see Wishing for Tomorrow out on prominent display and was anxiously starting to push emmaco towards belief in its wonderfulness, but she already has it ordered, so that was okay! I had audiobook listening to get me back to Bristol on the bus(es) that night and picked up -- maybe stole -- steepholm's copy of the just-published Paradise Barn by Victor Watson for the flight home on Monday. Victor Watson gave a talk at an IBBY conference I went to a few years ago, and included a really interesting section on Hilary McKay's Saffy's Angel (he was a big fan of the Casson family books), so I was very pleased to like Paradise Barn so much. More book reports soon.

Because we all need another time-sink, right?

2009-09-13T21:03:14Z

Discovered via myntti this morning, this wonderfully weird site: Awkward Family Photos.

Many of them are just funny, but this is horrifying *and* hilarious. Possibly the horror comes from the fact that *many* people authoritatively identified that as a real gun rather than a toy, and a loaded one at that. With the baby's finger on the trigger. Good reason to say once again that Tom Lynn had it all right in saying that people are strange...

And all I got was a bottle of water...

2009-09-11T19:58:29Z

Younger Daughter and I went away for a short break earlier this week, and had a wonderful time. She was patient with my occasionally higher-than-normal maintenance level (as in: 'I think he brought me regular instead of soy milk, but don't want to ask him again if it's soy, as it might seem rude since he forgot last time... Can YOU taste it?') and need for industrial strength tea at regular intervals.

We didn't get out of Dublin before I felt the need to catch evidence of something I still find gobsmackingly ludicrous, despite having seen it 4 or 5 times now.

This is in the snazzy new shopping and eating area the far side of security in the airport. There's a large Boots, which makes sense, and a few new cafes, but also a caviar -- bar? Whatever one calls a place they sell caviar around a bar-style set-up. Who'd want caviar in an airport? (Or anywhere.) But the Waters of the World really takes the biscuit in the 'are they having us on?' category.

The King:

And the Queen:

Those are each €124.95, and both decorated with 'stunning Swazrovski crystal stars'. (Quoting in case it's difficult to read.) They're said to be the 'unique treasure to decorate your special occasion with excitement and satisfaction'. Seriously - if you need to spend €125 on a bottle of water to make your occasion satisfying, something is WRONG.

Much cheaper, but still offensively conspicuous waste:

Evian dresses in Christian Lacroix forsooth.

We spent most of one day in Camden, starting at the Camden Stables Market and working the extremely short distance to the regular old Camden Markets. Much work was going on in the Stables Markets, where what appeared to be the original stalls housing the horses who pulled the canal barges were being converted into market stalls. Downstairs was more than half empty, but many beautiful and colourful things from many parts of the world were on display. Also much food, though I'm afraid my difficulty factor kicked in again after we'd started in on the very tasty Thai chicken and noodles, which was worrying lukewarm (to my mind anyway, permanently scarred by a course in food microbiology taken back in my nutrition days). Only had my mobile, so pictures aren't good, but still give some flavour of the place.

That splotch of colour beside the two horses was from the stall on the right, with beautiful carpets spread down on the ramp and many slippers nailed to the piller. When we came back later, the stall owner had covered the carpets with piles of jewelry, from rather cheap but appealing silver rings and pendants to the most stunning lapis lazuli necklaces. All from Afghanistan. Unfortunately, I didn't get a close-up of the little shelters like the one you can see at the right with the weathervane horse on top; each of the four pillers was decorated with a statue of a lovely lady - I've still no idea what they had to do with the Stables. Maybe it's more polite not to ask!

Some of the stalls being done up.

And a massive statue - Younger Daughter said it was done in the style of the Parthenon horses - loved the backdrop and mix of cultures there.

Finally, in Camden Lock Markets, we visited the Yumchaa Tea Shop, which turned out to be everything we'd hoped it would be! Lovely shabby and mismatched armchairs and painted brick walls, and a view of the canal outside. Very nice cakes (lemon drizzle and apple sultana - and neither too sweet) and wonderful tea. Plus a very sweet guy working there who was impressed with Y.D.'s knowing Rooibos tea and almost embarrassingly impressed and pleased when I complimented the music (turned out to be his iPod) and said we'd recognized the two Sufjan Stevens songs. In fact, he said we were the coolest ever. Y.D. laughed at me for blurting out 'Oh, you even know how to pronounce his name!', but Becca didn't think that was too bad, as it must be the true fans who discover it isn't pronounced suff-jan, as you'd think. And a picture...

Wishing for Tomorrow

2009-09-04T17:25:48Z

It's Hilary McKay's Wishing for Tomorrow, not an update on my emotional state. This nearly broke my heart even before reading, as I've been waiting for it for what seems like ever. It was due to be published the 3rd of September, but I noticed it was shipping from Amazon (UK) before going away to Cornwall with steepholm, so checked the 3 bookshops nearby(ish) the day before (one by phone inquiry). After some time and searching, I found it and carried it home with great rejoicing. Which rejoicing stopped as soon as I started trying to pack my bag, and realised there was no way I'd be able to bring it. Everyone feels my pain right? New Hilary McKay in my hands and forced to leave it unopened in my room.

Weep no more, as it's read and LOVED. Have to say that my first reaction to a Little Princess sequel was a slightly bemused one, but that had long been put behind in trust that a Hilary McKay A Little Princess sequel would be wonderful. Even that trust couldn't have quite led me to the gorgeousness of Wishing for Tomorrow though. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous.

That said, I should perhaps elaborate just a little bit, which is difficult when all one wants to do is quote and quote. Short version is it's what happened after Sara went off happily to live with the Indian Gentleman, and the main character is poor Ermengarde, who of course didn't get to go off and live happily ever after. There's also plenty about the youngest at Miss Minchin's, Lottie, and about Lavinia and Miss Minchin too. And I think that's what made it so wonderful for me - there's all the emotional payoff that you get in true Victorian style in A Little Princess (yes, I know about novel publication date, but it's still a truly Victorian novel in essence, right?) but coming from a different angle. I love A Little Princess, but the 19th century (I *know*) type of class-laden morality about not being snobbish, and a degree of avoidance of social issues other than the simple black-and-white ones wouldn't really work well in a novel written today. But don't worry - it's not a ham-fisted 'updating' of a last century classic! Rather it's a beautifully done re-visiting of that classic, with all the humour you'd expect from a McKay book, and an effective broadening of perspective. It may just be me, but I found it much more fun to see what made Miss Minchin the horror she was than to see her get more come-uppance. And Lavinia! If I'd been told before that I'd come to like her enormously and root for her while still feeling she fit with the nasty little cow she had been, I'd never have believed it possible.

There are a few new characters - Alice especially (the replacement for Becky, who comes from Epping where there's lots of fresh air, refuses to sleep in the attic and won't be called a scullery maid), and Ermengarde's Aunt Eliza (who'd always been considered the family fool, by her brother and then by her husband, and whose fate is one that could easily have befallen Ermengarde as things were going) - and they fit in perfectly with the story and add immeasurably to the fun. I won't say anything more about them or the others, because I'm very afraid of giving away something about the ending, and I defy anyone to predict the gloriously satisfying (and funny!) ending. A few quotes behind a cut, just for self-indulgance, and aside from that, just that I thought of Jane Austen while reading, than which higher praise, etc. And - in a completely un-crazed fangirlish way, of course, I think what Hilary McKay doesn't know about friendship might not be worth knowing. (ET remove a silly being-a-crazed fangirl-line, as it occurred to me that authors DO get crazed fangirls, even 50+ year old, very quiet ones.)

Lavinia wants to take piano lessons from the man next-door (who moved into the house where the Indian Gentleman lived), but Miss Minchin won't let her until she gets permission from her (awful) mother. So Jessica teaches her to play 'Chopsticks'. Which she does, over and over and over again, until Miss Amelia is sent to lock up the piano.

'Yes, I have been having a music lesson,' added Lavinia. 'Won't Miss Minchin be pleased that I have managed to make a start. [...]

'Yes, dear, we did hear your playing,' said Miss Amelia. 'It was extremely loud.'

'I think it must be a very good piano', agreed Lavinia.

'And it has gone on for some considerable time...'

'Oh, but I had all my lessons finished,' Lavinia assured her. 'And so had Jessie. You need not worry about that. And I have studied my extra literature too, and learned the battle speech from Henry V and written out my Hamlet essay.'

In the hall behind Miss Amelia, Ermengarde glimpsed the shadowy presence of Miss Minchin standing in the parlour doorway. Lavinia did not seem to notice, however. She continued to discuss Shakespeare in her confident, clear voice.

'... The subject was how Ophelia could have influenced the fate of the Royal House of Denmark by the application of logic and the rejection of the over-emotional arguments put forward by her cousin. (Hamlet. The prince.) I have written seven pages with botanical footnotes. I hope Miss Minchin will be pleased. Should you like me to read it to you, Miss Amelia?'

Miss Amelia said she thought not and retreated very hastily, quite forgetting her orders to lock up the piano and remove the key. Lavinia locked it herself (after one more triumphant rendering of 'Chopsticks'), pocketed the key, and hurried upstairs to learn Latin in bed.

A bit more about the teaching in Miss Minchin's, which comes by way of Lavinia's star pupil-dom. It starts with history.

It was English history of course, as seen through the intolerant eyes of Miss Minchin, which meant lingering over the Romans ('Just what the country needed'), dismissing the Vikings and Saxons ('Unmannerly'), and grudgingly admiring the Normans.

'They raised the tone of the country', admitted Miss Minchin.

She also approved of the Tudors ('They knew their minds') and detested the Stuarts ('Scots').

After the Tudors and Stuarts Miss Minchin skipped a good deal until she reached Victoria, the Queen of her childhood, whom she had once actually seen, and who, as far as looks went, might well have been a distant relation.

Victoria's Empire and its useful products (tea and silk especially) were the basis of all the Select Seminary's geography lessons. Indian diamonds had also once been a useful product of Empire, but in recent times neither India nor diamonds were ever mentioned. Australian Sapphires took their place whenever gemstones were needed.

Finally, one last little one about Ermengarde and her Aunt Eliza (who had determined not to be bitter after her husband, who thought her a fool, was dead, as that would be still to be miserable).

'This house needs something', said Aunt Eliza as she took Ermengarde upstairs. 'It is quite a light, bright house, and yet it is dismal. I don't know why.'

'I remember it was much more dismal when Uncle Julius was alive,' said Ermengarde.

'Oh, yes, wasn't it?' agreed Aunt Eliza, and then she and Ermengarde stared at one another, each suddenly quite shocked at the other's truthfulness.

'Ermengarde,' said Aunt Eliza (still in this mood of awful honesty), 'are you happy, dear?'

'Not yet,' said Ermengarde. 'Are you, Aunt Eliza?'

'Not yet,' said Aunt Eliza.

And then they go off to the theatre, to see Peter Pan, which is one of the funniest scenes of the book, in that perfectly pitched, funny and poignant way. And happy endings are in store, earned in ways which might not be as overtly heroic as Sara's, but are just as truly earned nonetheless.

The old triangle

2009-08-23T21:53:27Z

steepholm was reading Middlemarch when I was in Bristol last time, and I picked it up and read some random sections, with one line getting stuck in my head. It's about Mary Garth, and Mr Farebrother and Fred's both being in love with her. 'What could these two men, so different from each other, see in this "brown patch", as Mary called herself?'

I'd just been reading Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars, which has a kind of classic YA triangle, with the main character having one dependable, good friend (who's obviously in love with her) and one (possibly) bad boy with gobs of appeal who may be in love with her too, or may have other motivation besides his attraction to her, and is wounded in some way. This is NOT sniping at the book, BTW - I thought the characters in Eyes Like Stars were great, and Ariel especially incredibly well done.

I also said at the time I wrote about Maggie Stiefvater's Lament that the triangle in that blew me away, as she managed to keep the wounded Bad Boy newcomer totally sympathetic while at the same time also ratcheting up the love for the Dependable Best Friend (who's in love with the heroine). (The DBF is James btw - you'll want to remember that name, if you haven't read Lament yet.)

I mentioned this to steepholm the other night, as he was reporting on where he was in Middlemarch at that point, idly tossing off the question of whether Mary Garth was the mother of these YA heroines with the two guys vying for her love - and he replied that it had a long tradition in literature - mentioning Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot. At that I started talking very fast about how they weren't allowed a place in my collection, because I hated that part of the Arthur story, and it was the Arthur story, not the Guinevere story, and did I mention I'd always hated that and the triangle is *always* from the girl's POV and lalala, not listening. Despite all that, I heard something about 'special pleading', but nothing more said about Them, so I didn't argue it.

I can think of lots of recent YAs with this kind of triangle, but didn't get much farther than adding a few of Jane Austen's books, if a bit tentatively, to the list. Elizabeth sort of fits the pattern, if one allows Wickham as the Bad Boy, but Darcy doesn't work for the dependable friend type then, so it's not really right. Marianne is better, though her not appreciating Colonel Brandon at all kind of works against a proper triangulation. I guess Anne Elliot has her moment of triangledom, though Captain Wentworth spends so long not realising he's still in love with her it's brief. (Not that she ever asked for Mr. Elliot's attentions, of course.)

Oh no - just thought of Jo and Laurie and the Professor. But that's too depressing for words and they're not concurrent anyway (and Laurie goes off with Amy). Anne of Green Gables - though Roy Gardner - no. Just no. (Gilbert makes up for any lack in Roy by the length of his devotion, maybe!)

Others I've missed? Or someone want to clue me in on why these girls have such amazingly great male best friends? Seriously, James, in Lament? (And in Ballad too, when it's finally available!)

And it was just 26 hours....

2009-08-20T13:30:23Z

26 hours of communication-deprivation, in the form of no internet and no phone, though, can pack quite a punch. Particularly when it's affecting the whole town in which you live, meaning one bank closed completely, its ATM out of service, the other bank's ATM runs out of cash and none of the shops can take cards of any kind. And your two daughters are in serious need of Sterling currency to go off to Wales.

Becca and Younger Daughter are well on their way to The Green Man Festival by now, and though the sight of Becca weighed down by an enormous backpack and the heavy rain that fell last night and this morning didn't encourage much jealousy, the line-up is fantastic and it seems like a truly wonderful event. I was especially impressed when I saw that Green Man has teamed up with the mental health charity Mind - this is such a great idea. Fundraising, of course, but possibly even more important is raising people's awareness of mental health issues.

Even closer to home - in all senses of the word - Becca is now enrolled in the Open University, taking A275- 'Reading classical Greek: Language and literature'. I got nostalgic and jealous both, when she got her Personal Identifier and first mailing! One thing I hadn't experienced first-hand before was how well the OU does at making study as easy as possible for people with all kinds of disabilities. Becca - who has bipolar and anxiety disorders - got a booklet with all the various services offered - from the obvious, like captioned DVDs or braille texts - to ones that I hadn't thought they'd be so flexible on (exams at home for people who could be seriously upset by going to a new centre, or being in a room full of other students, for example). And it's really written well, so you feel sure the conditions are truly understood, rather than the offer being a sort of hoop-jumping exercise because they have to do it.

That's my psa for the day. I had planned to spend the most unusual weekend with the house to myself (and the Hell Hounds, of course) to catch up on book raves: I mentioned having read and loved lisamantchev's Eyes Like Stars, while in Bristol, and now I've also devoured m_stiefvater's Shiver and E. Lockhart's Treasure Map of Boys. All wonderful, which I hope to say at a bit more length as soon as I finish catching up on unread internet stuff. (1168 unread posts on my Bloglines now. Help?)

Every Progress must have an end

2009-08-15T21:38:44Z

Remember the beautiful blue skies seen in yesterday's installment of Aslan's Progress? All gone for the final stage, taking us back to Bristol. steepholm kept optimistically repeating that the BBC had said the weather was better in the west of the country and we were driving westwards, but the optimism proved a bit more on the hopeful than the realistic side of things. No matter (though trying to juggle umbrella and camera didn't make for great pictures at times).

You can just make out part of the Cerne Abbas Giant there on the hill, but lack of clarity was entirely due to an oncoming rain-shower rather than prudery.

Next stop was Lyme Regis - primarily of interest to me because of Persuasion, but as steepholm reminded me, it's also the likely setting of the scene in Howl's Moving Castle in which Howl and the Witch of the Waste have their duel, much more relevant Aslan-wise.

Once we'd finally found a parking place, and were heading off (food first, sights second being our motto), the rain really moved in seriouly. But steepholm had his rainjacket and one of those universal beach-shops (sells buckets and pails, beach balls, towels, sun-screen, jelly shoes - with some small amount of variation for locality) provided me a cheap and quite snazzy black-and-red umbrella with impressive spring action, so we were undaunted.

Almost as soon as we got down by the waterfront, we were caught by a most amazing sight - here temporarily graced with Aslan's presence.

Adrian Gray has a website which is really worth checking out, as his photographs are stunning, though nothing's the same as seeing him actually do the balancing. As we did, when he obligingly tossed the top stone onto the sand and chose another one to balance - despite having said it would be quite difficult because the dampness reduced friction significantly. No gimmicks, just enormous amount of patience and an incredible eye - for physics and beauty both, I guess.

There were a lot of cool sand structures too, but this is where I was really struggling to hold the umbrella over camera, and not managing to catch many of them.

And on to the Cobb, site of Louisa Musgrove's famous fall:

The flight of stairs is really steep, and I for one took it very carefully!

Jane Austen's books were almost everywhere, but prints of Meryl Streep as the French Lieutenant's Woman were definitely all around us.

No time to fix that cloak a bit better, as the umbrella (remember the umbrella from above?) was needed at that point, so I'd to shoot quickly.

But this makes up for the loss of dignity a bit:

And this too:

(You can just see one of the prints from Adrian Gray, which was well wrapped against the wet, under Aslan, so his nice plush base didn't get bedraggled.)

And then back to Bristol, where the Balloon Fiesta had just begun. The next evening we went up to the Clifton Observatory, hoping to get the splendid view of the evening's launch that can be had from there. Much of Bristol seemed to have had the same idea, but not a balloon was to be seen. Figured Aslan should be given a good view of the Suspension Bridge anyway, as it features in a couple of Diana Wynne Jones's books, including my two favourites (most days), Deep Secret and Fire and Hemlock.

I took a bunch more pictures in steepholm's back garden, to get a nice one for his work Bulletin, and some of them are on my flickr page, but I think this is a fitting end to the weblog of the Progess...

And even more Progress

2009-08-14T22:25:47Z

More landscape in tonight's installment - and all of these pictures are clickable if you want to see bigger versions on my Flickr account. (There are some more there which I haven't pasted in the post too, but not all of them are public yet.)

We'll pick Aslan up the next morning, on the road through the New Forest, where we promptly got stuck in a traffic jam. Pleasant place for one, though every time we stopped, as below, it would be in a less scenic stretch than all we'd just passed through.

First stop was in Christchurch in Dorset, where we had a wander around the Priory - seen here, as a nice backdrop for steepholm. There's an extraordinary wall covered in stonework cross-hatching, which looks very like the icing on a Christmas cake - you can just see it on the far right of the largest size picture on the Flickr page.

Christchurch has lots of water, in a variety of forms, which makes both of us happy, and this is on the canal lock. Pretty snazzy community behind it, with each townhouse having berth for a good-sized boat. (We decided it was a bit too rich for our blood, as we chose imaginary future living places.)

Back on the road heading for Dorchester, I was very taken with the cloud formations. No Aslan connection, but good sky is worth something nonetheless.

And so to Maiden Castle - largest Iron Age hill fort in Europe. And truly an amazing place, so of course, a bit of silliness to start with:

Everyone remembers "They're Taking the Hobbits to Isengard", right? If not everyone does - a reminder. It's the running along mountain ridges part of the video I was thinking of.

The next two are taken from the car park at the bottom of the hill - where yesterday's teaser was taken too.

Oops - the photographer? That can't be right!

It's very difficult to get good shots because of the series of interlocking, winding ridges and gullies which form the largest part of the defense of the fort. As you can see here -

- and here -

One of my favourites:

This was an oddly late Roman Temple at the top of the hill. The wall steepholm is sitting on was astonishing - a little more lichen-covered than some, but otherwise could be fairly modern - and to be sitting on a stone wall and know it was built in the 4th century AD...

Perfectly peaceful, and the day had turned glorious - as you can see in the next shot, when we were reunited with Aslan (who was much too heavy to cart up the hill).

That night we stayed in a lovely old (actually only Edwardian, but I'd have sworn older) country house, just a mile from Dorchester.

(The house seems to like hiding from camera almost as much as I do.) Beautiful gardens, which can just be seen here- Aslan seems to be approving the large lavender bushes.

There was a walled garden too, but it was too dark by the time we found it. Rather delightfully, the sign on the gate said 'Please close this gate. Jazz lives here'.

And with the image of jazz forever dwelling in the Gertrude Jekyll-designed garden, I'll leave things for tonight. Tomorrow on to Lyme Regis...

Progress on the Royal Progress

2009-08-13T21:49:08Z

When I blithely promised a post with photos as soon as I got back home, I hadn't quite realised that I took 99 photos while away. And this from the person who's quite capable of bringing a camera on a trip and never once taking it out of the case.

A taster, of what's to come in tomorrow's - or the day after's - batch, when I've done more editing, organizing, deciding.... (Check back then for identification of the setting.)

steepholm had a message that there was a package waiting at work while he was in Dublin, so we went up first thing Monday to pick it up - hoping it wasn't some far less interesting work matter!

Was it Aslan?

Oh yeah!

We took a bunch of photos for the Bulletin at steepholm's work, but though nice, like this one --

-- they were rejected as a bit posed-looking. (Taking a posed shot? Me??)

And a close-up

(For anyone who's wondering, yes, the Aslan is a replica of the ones outside the New York Public Library. )

Then home to steepholm's, where I believe I witnessed a complaint:

(The promise of dusted mantelpiece can be seen here, all proper.)

Next morning we set off for Romsey, with severely worsened weather, of course.

With just one *quick* stop.

(I was picking up more yarn for socks for steepholm, so it wasn't that bad!)

We made it to Romsey and ...

Could steepholm's mother look any prouder?

Or, hang on...

She made quite a few comments about how well Aslan looked there on her mantel, and as it didn't have a proper home in Bristol, how willing she'd be to look after it. Temporarily, of course.

It can stay there for now, I guess. Next installment will carry it to places wild and even occasionally wooly.

lady_schrapnell @ 2009-08-10T09:08:00

2009-08-10T08:08:33Z

Happy, happy birthday to beccadelarosa!

Gone, but not Forgetting

2009-08-09T14:55:14Z

After a week in Dublin with steepholm, during which the house did its best to drag every bit of useful waking braincell into the Pit of No Return, precluding my reading most of my flist posts, we came to Bristol together, to a splendidly smooth-running house, in which I've managed to read no LJ whatsoever. However, there has been:

1. A Royal Procession

Everyone knows that steepholm haz Aslan, right? Well, Aslan was brought the length and breadth of the country - or at least from the box in which he traveled to Bristol out and over to Romsey in Hampshire (steepholm's childhood home), and back, via various interesting bits of Dorset, including the New Forest and Lyme Regis. I have photographed the Procession devotedly, and will put photos up as soon as I'm back at my computer. (Had the brilliant idea, managed to remember to bring my camera this trip, but forgot to pack the cable. Sigh.)

2. Reading

Unfortunately, much of it has been reading our own writing, as we're trying to get the Roman Britain chapter of the History Book done and dusted before the end of summer, so nothing like as many books to babble about as usual. Still, read Dust of 100 Dogs (did not like, and shared that on a pagely basis with steepholm as usual) and just finished Lisa Mantchev's Eyes Like Stars, which I loved, and will probably say more about at some point. Also bits and pieces of books set in Roman Britain (rereads and new to me both) and sections of Persuasion aloud, as we drove back from Lyme Regis to Bristol. Partly it was the descriptions of Lyme Regis (watch out for the Cobb in the photos-to-come!), but also it was bits relevant to the characters of Anne and Captain Wentworth, which we'd been discussing. Much fun.

3. Good food, good company, and good (sometimes) crossword puzzling

The good company is not only steepholm, but provided in Dublin by beccadelarosa and Younger Daughter, and in England by steepholm's mother, with whom we had a lovely visit. We got very caught up in sort-of playing a literary game she'd heard about on Radio 4 earlier in the day, which involved remembering the ending line or two of books. Harder than you might think, though between us we came up with close approximations of several of Jane Austen's (mostly from me), Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights (steepholm and his mother, as I've never read it - sshhh!), Great Expectations- ish (I've still to check the existence of the earlier, now not-published version in my Oxford World's Classics ed at home), House at Pooh Corner (steepholm), 1984 (steepholm again) and Peter Pan (can you guess who?). I contributed the end of Joan Aiken's The Teeth of the Gale, though as the other two didn't know it, my success was a bit dulled. It haunted Becca when we read it though, and is memorable!

We do the Telegraph crossword (online, so we don't have to buy the paper, whose political stance is not ours) in the way people take their daily constitutional. Or at least we do when together - not sure what it says of the success of this brain-preserving exercise that we forget when not together! Now, thanks to Becca's discovery, we have Big Dave to help us out if we can't figure out why an answer we got is right. (Okay, okay, or sometimes to help us get it in the first place.) The idea of a daily blog devoted to the explanation of and commentary on the Telegraph's crosswords pleases me enormously.

I will catch up on everyone's posts when I'm back home next week, and the promise of photos to come will have to serve as my apology for seeming to ignore all the interesting things being said in the meantime.

Two growls and a gulp

2009-07-24T22:29:45Z

It's happened that I'm reading two books atm which have some part of the story set in Ireland (I put the first aside to read the wonderful When You Reach Me, which I'll write up properly soon), and both have caused some puzzlement to outright annoyance.

The first is not a highly serious book, and no need to name it, though the nosy could find it on my Goodreads shelf. She's a clever writer, and often very funny, but the Irish stuff so far is pretty cringe-worthy. A young Irish guy (said to be 22 at the most) calling the van he drives 'the gas-guzzling rogue', calling the heroine he's just met 'lass' or 'bonnie Morgan' all the time, saying she shouldn't worry about the van as 'I've been drivin' since I was a boy-o'. And the owner of a successful company (which apparently caters for the most part to foreign tourists, though I suppose there might be the odd Dublin Jackeen) - asks the British woman who's just complained about the lack of vegan food which she requested on the booking form - would chicken do for her. Then there's the word 'feck', which is taken up enthusiastically by the heroine, but is always spelled 'fek'. I think it's more used by people a few generations older anyway, though I'm not sure about outside Dublin, but it just doesn't seem hard to have checked that spelling.

The other book has me more puzzled, as it seems from what I've read to be attempting much more. (It *could* turn out to be alternate history, but nothing has indicated it so far.) The main protagonist's mother is telling about her early childhood in Ireland in the late 50s, and there are a few things that are just odd. She's from a big family (of course) with a good-for-nothing alcoholic father (of course), but when the father left the family 'the nuns' put a huge amount of pressure on the mother -- to go to England. Say what? The family is at 'the docks' in Dun Laoghaire and one of the youngest boys talks back to the nuns, who slap him and then he runs off and jumps off the dock. Nobody does anything to save him because the nuns tell him not to, so he drowns. All the others go off on the mailboat to the south of England where they work like slaves - they're 'property' because the mother 'signed the papers' and they never see their mother again. When the protag asks her mother how they got away with it (telling the other people on the dock to do nothing and let a 4 or 5 year old child drown) she just replies that they got away with whatever they wanted to and 'still do' (this is 1985).

Now, it would be hard to live in Ireland and not know about the truly appalling things that were done by some in the religious orders in Ireland in the past and up until far too recently. And the terrible things done in overlooking or turning a blind eye to the abuse, by those supposed to be overseeing the schools and orphanages. I'm not attempting to deny or white-wash any of it, but this still is pretty strong stuff. For one thing, there is no dock in Dun Laoghaire. The mailboat (which I've taken! It's been replaced by a hovercraft, which I've also taken) used to sail from Dun Laoghaire harbour, but there isn't the kind of docks which this scene would suggest - require. And much more unbelievable is that the nuns would have been forcing the mother to take her family to England. If there was a country in which the Roman Catholic church had far too much power and influence, and one in which it had little, no great credit goes for knowing that Ireland would be the first. If anything the nuns would have been more likely to try to persuade the good woman not to move to that heathen Britain. Why not just keep all those kids here where they had all the power, if they wanted the slave labour?

Most importantly though, it's quite shocking to write a scene set in 1958 in Dublin, in which a bunch of normal Irish people stood around while a young child drowned in front of them. Because a bunch of nuns - controlling everyone how? - told them to? No closed doors, no possibility of pretending you didn't know what was happening, but essentially murder in plain sight of everyone. I was born in 1958 (in the US as it happens, but we were back living in Dublin before the year was out) and that's - well, I have a very hard time buying that as a fair accusation.

To change mode completely, though the setting is still Ireland, the gulp was a story I heard today (while getting reflexology - no headache now - bliss!). A friend's father was in a nursing home and he'd been complaining quite a bit about feeling unwell. He told her his chest and his arms hurt and he felt weak and wasn't eating. She went to the staff and they said they didn't think it was anything too serious, but she was still worried and took him to Loughlinstown hospital. They checked him over, did a lung x-ray in case he had pneumonia, and blood tests. While he was in the hospital his daughter put his false teeth in her bag so they wouldn't get lost. After nothing was found wrong with him she was still not satisfied and took him off to the Beacon Clinic (newish private place) where they found -- a set of false teeth lodged in his trachea. Nobody knew whose false teeth they were, or how they'd got there, but there they definitely were. (I would have thought this an urban myth, if only for the comfort of believing it impossible to do that, but not considering the source.)