Room has been receiving a lot of attention from the media and from book bloggers and from people who long and shortlist full-length English novels for literary awards and other stuff. So, I decided it was time to read what all this fuss has been about.
Summary:
Room is told from Jack's perspective and it's rife with 5-year-old kid-English. You will find this frustrating and off-putting OR your brain will adapt and it'll become almost unnoticeable. I, like many others, found this story strangely compelling. There were even a few "What Happens Next?" moments that drove me to Read On WAY past my bedtime. But, I can't say that I loved this book. Yes, Donoghue does have some very interesting things to say about Freedom, Parenting and Child Development. And yes, she does tackle difficult subject matter in a very unique manner. However, a rotting cork-lined dungeon is still a rotting cork-lined dungeon. And a rape-shed is simply not a happy fun time.
I recommend this book to: Philosopher-kings who dig Plato's Republic (specifically the allegory of the cave)
Math is hard. It hurts my brains. A boy once tried to teach me The Joy of The Möbius Strip using a paper strip and a Bic pen. It was magic to mathematically challenged brain.
This YouTube video was created by 22-year-old Vi Hart who believes that calculus should be replaced with recreational mathematics.
"There's all this fun beautiful stuff that people would enjoy. While some of the other math is more useful for some jobs in the real world, it isn't actually necessary for the average high-school student to know calculus. We should be focusing more on how beautiful or awesome things are." via NewScientist
Visit vihart.com where she has even more math fun with music boxes, food, plastic swords and laundry baskets.
Maybe it's not too late to teach my old brain some new math tricks.
After I mentioned to Brutus (friend/co-worker/faithful blog reader) that I was going to make a real effort to become a more patriotic reader, she told me I just had to readLullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill. So, I did. I was also afraid that she might punch me in my good ovary if I didn't. She has a black belt. The threat is real.
Summary: 12-year-old girl child, unfortunately named Baby, is (un)raised by her negligent, "chocolate milk" (*heroin*) loving, man-child of a father in Montreal's red-light district. Bad things happen.
O'Neill on Lullabies: "I wanted to capture what I remembered of the drunken babbling of unfortunate twelve-year-olds: their illusions: their ludicrously bad choices, their lack of morality and utter disbelief in cause and effect."
Mission accomplished. I really liked O'Neill's writing style. She never lets The Reader forget that Baby is still very much a child. Baby often uses Outrageous Orange and Tickle Me Pink to color over her grim reality and to idolize the grown-ups (whores, pimps, addicts and dealers) who pay attention to her. Baby is essentially looking for Motherly Love in all the wrong places which leaves The Reader with a "life on the streets" survival story that is as beautiful as it is disturbing.
Out of the Mouth of Baby:
"People gave you a hard time about being a kid at twelve. They didn't want to give you Halloween candy anymore. They said things like, "If this were the Middle Ages, you'd be married and you'd own a farm with about a million chickens on it." They were trying to kick you out of childhood. Once you were gone, there was no going back, so you had to hold on as long as you could" (page 17).
"I don't know why I was upset about not being an adult. It was right around the corner. Becoming a child again is what is impossible. That's what you have legitimate reason to be upset over. Childhood is the most valuable thing that's taken away from you in life, if you think about it" (page 77).
"Every good pimp is a mother" (page 186).
Rating: four hugs for Baby (from me) and one boot to the head (courtesy of Juan)
Recently, I inadvertently chose to read a series of Canadian novels about tragic childhoods. I added A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews to my to-read list because it won Canada Reads in 2006 and because it was championed by John K. Samson. Samson is the lead singer of, one of my favorite Canadian bands, The Weakerthans.
Summary: Nomi Nickel, 16-year-old Manitoba Menno(nite) girl, waxes nostalgic over the missing "better-looking half" of her fambly (her mother Trudie and her sister Tash) while yearning to live in NYC.
Overall, I didn't have any problem with the train of thought disjointedness of Toews' prose. She really captures the boringness of growing up in a small town and manages to offset the inherit sadness of the novel with humor. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll hate The Mouth (Nomi's uncle). And given ACK's open-endedness, I also think that it makes for some excellent book club fodder.
Nomi: "I've got a problem with endings. Mr. Quiring has told me that essays and stories generally come, organically, to a preordained ending that is quite out of the writer's control. He says we will know it when it happens, the ending. I don't know about that. I feel that there are so many to choose from" (page 1). Toews also appears to have some difficulties with endings so she leaves it up to the reader to decide which one they like best. Personally, I chose the ending with the highest body count. It just seemed like the Canadian thing to do. Maybe, I'll choose differently in the future.
I recommend this book to: fans of bald teenage heroines, choose your own adventure types and coming-of-age aficionados.
I wanted to leave you with "Diagnosis" by The Weakerthans but I couldn't find a decent version that was embeddable. This will have to do. It's more fitting given Toews' poetic "indictment of religious fundamentalism." Plus, Nomi thinks that if ever there was an album named for the Mennonite people it would be The Stones' Exile on Main Street (page 137).
SIMPSONS TRIVIA: Matt Groening's father Homer was born in Canada and raised as a Mennonite.
Two weeks ago, while Charlie Sheen was "winning," my landlord was giving me her version of a Notice of Termination. To Whom It May Concern: A cheap bottle of red wine and a "it-is-with-a-very-heavy-heart-I-am-writing-you-this-letter" letter does not qualify as a legal eviction notice. I'm just sayin'.
Next?
I dropped my basket. I went pen. I shook my fist in my own face. I prayed for The Zombie Apocalypse. (Zombies are preferable to moving.)
Then?
I found a new place to live and buried my head in book. Back-to-back-to-back poetic Canadian novels about brutal childhoods. Reviews are forthcoming.
A Moving Miracle? (Crab Babbies!)
Wanted: Alec Baldwin to narrate my move.
Now?
In need of a good literary palate cleanser, corrugated boxes, bubble wrap and duct tape.
*Thankfully, what little interest I had in jumping through the "quasi-judicial" mediation and adjudication hoops necessary to delay the inevitable has subsided.
Last month while watching Canada's annual "Battle of the Books" aka Canada Reads, I began to review and then call into question my personal reading practice. Sadly, only 8 of the 64 books on my "read" shelf were made in Canada. I concluded that it was high time to let my Canadian freak flag fly. In an attempt to rectify this pathetic imbalance and to show Canada some love, I became both a joiner and a creator.
Canadian Book Challenge 4
I decided to join John Mutford, who for the last few years has been hosting a Reading Challenge on his blog. Participants have one year (from Canada Day to Canada Day) to read and review (somewhere online) 13 Canadian books of their choosing. He personally likes to read his way across the country (10 provinces + 3 territories). My plan, because I am already unfashionably late to this party, is to just try and show up in good form.
Canada House
I also created a literary version of Coupland's Canada House on Goodreads. "Canada House" was an art installation that Coupland constructed within a slated-for-demolition, CMHC-inspired house in November of 2003. The house was gutted and then furnished with assorted kitschy souvenirs of Canada. (Think NHL-Logo Drapes, Canada Goose Decoys, Stubbies, Nanaimo Bar Mix, Hockey Sticks and a Hub Cap Quilt.) To learn more about Coupland/Canada House, take off your toque and watch Souvenir of Canada.
While anticipating the return of Breaking Bad, I've been looking for a suitable replacement. Winter's Bone definitely pushed some of the same something-bad-is-going-to-happen buttons that, as a viewer of Breaking Bad, I've grown accustomed to. The book is very well written and the film is a near perfect adaptation. Jennifer Lawrence's performance as Ree Dolly is undoubtedly Oscar-worthy. However, in the end, both the film and the novel left me a little cold.
Summary: Ree Dolly, teen girl, must find her crank cook of a father (dead or alive) before a bond company seizes the house and forces the family (medicated mom + two younger siblings) to live in the fields "like fuckin' dogs."
If you hate spoilers, I suggest you stop reading and watch this YouTube video that I've thoughtfully provided, just for you, instead. Enjoy Wayne and Garth as they Oscar Pick the schwing out of Winter's Bone.
*Spoiler Alert* (in case you weren't paying attention)
An Unusual Coming of Age Story? I don't know why, Winter's Bone, is being touted as a coming-of-age tale. Ree Dolly practically walked out of the womb. With a catatonic mother and an absent father, she is and has been responsible for her siblings for quite some time. Unless severing your father's hands from his waterlogged corpse is now considered a rite of passage, I just don't see it.
Who killed Jessup? This is storytelling at its finest. We never find out exactly who is responsible for Ree's father's death because it isn't important. She doesn't care and neither should we. In the end, her uncle (Teardrop) reveals to her only that he has figured it out. And with this knowledge, he essentially becomes a dead man walking. She knows that he will avenge his brother's (her father's) death and as a consequence he will die. The weight of this revelation had more depth and meaning to it, in the novel.
"an unforgettable story about family, loyalty and hope" Hope? Winter's Bone is a grim tale. For Ree, there is no escape from this village of the damned (The Ozarks and her scary kin). She ain't leavin'. She was born a Dolly and she'll die a Dolly. The blue sack "fat with crinkled bills" (courtesy of the bondsman at the end of the novel) might help her tread water for awhile longer but, ultimately, it won't keep her from drowning.
Somehow hopeful? Near the end of the film, Teardrop gives the kiddies each a baby chick to raise. I thought that this was a really weird and totally unnecessary addition. Are we meant to see this as being somehow hope related?
Y'all do know what happens to farm raised baby chicks, right?
***
The fourth season of Breaking Bad premieres this summer on AMC.
