crooked house

Happy New Year to You from Us

Don't worry about those fireworks, Frosty. I've got  you covered.

The "We" Point of View and E. Nesbit

I've just reread E. Nesbit's The Story of the Treasure Seekers. I reserved it at the library along with a number of other books about treasure hunts and it was just happenstance that I pulled this one out of the pile first.  What's interesting to me, having just finished Then We Came to the End, is Nesbit's use of a combination of the first person and the third person as the point of view. Ostensibly one of the children is writing the book and chooses not to reveal which one he is until the very end. So there's a lot of the "we" point of view, interspersed with many "I" asides:

We are the Bastables. There are six of us besides Father. Our Mother is dead and if you think we don't care because I don't tell you much about her you only show that you do not understand people at all. Dora is the eldest. Then Oswald -- and then Dicky. Oswald won the Latin prize at school -- and Dicky is good at sums. Alice and Noel are twins. They are ten, and Horace Octavius is my youngest brother. It is one of us that tells this story -- but I shall not tell you which: only at the very end perhaps I will. While the story is going on you may be trying to guess, only I bet you don't.

Often those asides are meant to be flub-ups, I think, and it's not very hard to figure out which child's voice it is, at least not when you're reading it as an adult, although I do remember being quite confused by all of this when I first read the book as a child. It's an unusual choice for point of view, tough to pull off, and it's one of the main ways, I think, that the book holds the interest of adult readers.

Nesbit sounds like a fascinating person. That first link is only to her wikipedia entry while the second link is to a very good essay about her in The New York Times, which was written by Gore Vidal in 1964. (Notice how he denigrates librarians for being too enamoured of realistic fiction for children -- what a change from Margaret Wise Brown's time.)  One of the most interesting things about Nesbit (aside from her books) was that she founded the Fabian Society along with her husband. I have reserved two autobiographies of her at the library and can't wait to read them -- Julia Briggs's A Woman of Passion and Noel Streatfeild's Magic and the Magician: E. Nesbit and her Children's Books. (Did anyone else love Streatfeild's books as a child? Nela, I'm thinking your mother must have put you on to those as well as to Blyton's.)

At the End of Then We Came to the End

I almost ignored Then We Came to the End. I've reached a saturation point when it comes to hype, I think -- lately if I've got a choice between a New! Improved! novel written by someone who's been prematurely proclaimed a genius and some old thing written by some old thing, I tend to go with the old thing. I think it's Maud's fault I decided to read the book.  I can't remember quite what she said but because she said it -- clearly it was something encouraging -- I reserved a copy at the library expecting to have mixed feelings about it. I picked up that copy two days ago. And I just put it down now. I've never read anything so funny that's also made me feel so overwhelmingly sad. I thought it was going to be a light, biting satire -- you know, the perfect kind of thing to read when you've got a bad head cold. Don't be surprised if I suddenly develop pneumonia and die -- I'm that depressed now. Why do I love books that make me feel so terrible? It may be related to my addiction to dark chocolate covered nuts and  the way I eat them until I feel like throwing up.

Anyway, the book is hilarious, wise, and surprisingly kind, and sung in perfect pitch -- that much-heralded  first person plural point of view was a dangerous choice, a choice that could have gone terribly wrong. I thought that, at best, it'd be a weak imitation of the point of view in The Virgin Suicides. Instead, I think, it actually works much better in this case. In fact, I think, it's the key to success of the novel -- everything is elevated, everything becomes elegiac, because of it. Much of the kindness and the wisdom of the novel is evoked in large part because the use of the all-inclusive word "we" and the constraints that usage must have put on the writer.  Of course, more obviously, it's also the perfect point of view to use for a novel mocking its workplace setting, a setting where every individual is supposed to be part of a team with some greater purpose.  I do wonder, though, if there'll be an unfortunate rash of copy-catting like back when Lorrie Moore popularized the use of the second person in her short stories. I hope not. Although "we're" feeling the pull of it a little "ourselves." I found this very good interview in which Ferris has some interesting stuff to say about the point of view. It also contains this exchange:

Dave: The book explicitly references Whitman and Emerson, but what comes to mind epigrammatically is Thoreau: lives of quiet desperation. People are thrilled by their health plan, for example, but before they've even completed the thought they're wondering whether a good health plan is overrated. Always there's a sense that a better life might await outside the cubicle.

Ferris: It was important to me that the equivocation of contentedness be explored. It's very easy to say office life sucks, but we need these things, health plans and so forth. Quiet desperation isn't exclusive to the office, but it can be particularly intensified.

Maybe this is a facet of my personality. I tend to ask, "What's the alternative?" Sometimes that can make for a terrific stagnation, a stalemate in decision-making.

I thought Ferris did a magnificent job of exploring that equivocation -- sometimes in the novel it seems as if what goes on in the workplace is entirely meaningless or even destructive and sometimes it seems that it's the only safe place there is, that it's the only thing between you and the void. For a book ostensibly about work there's a lot of very dark and dramatic (almost but not quite overly dark and dramatic) stuff going on in the personal lives of the characters.  You're caught between the sense that if you had more time to devote to it maybe your personal life would be more fulfilling and the sense that if you had more more time to devote to it, your personal life just might devour you.

I won't go on about the book any longer -- I'm sure everyone else has already said everything I have to say and more, I just haven't bothered to read any of it. Except to say, in a very unliterary, thoughtless, and uncritical way, that I think that the loony Tom Mota was my favourite character -- unless it was his complete opposite, the inscrutable Joe Pope and who can do that? Make you love two characters who are so perfectly opposed? I'll also lift a description of one of the most heartbreaking characters, Janine Gorjanc, for "our" on-going series of posts about parents in literature:

Janine looked to Carl perfectly motherlike. Unpretty but not ugly. Hippy but not fat. Puffy about the face but with a youthful cuteness buried somewhere in there that might have caused someone to be crazy about taking her to the high school prom. A child, thought Carl, is not the only result of childbirth. A mother, too, is born. You see them every day -- nondescript women with a bulge just above the groin, slightly double-chinned. Perpetually forty. Someone's mother, you think. There is a child somewhere who has made this woman into a mother and for the sake of the child she has altered her appearance to better play the part.

Oh yes -- and thanks, Maud!

A Serial Christmas Present, A Lung Transplant, Buzz Words, and Trippy Games for Toddlers

Levi Stahl and his partner write a serial ghost story as a Christmas present for their nine-year-old nephew, who loves the idea. There's a handmade Christmas gift I could really get behind.

Pasha Malla writes movingly about his stepmother's lung transplant for Toronto Life. Via Sean.

Buzz words of 2007. Via Gwenda. I think my favourite is "mom job."

Mom, Den, and Max: you should check out In the Night Garden (pictured above). It's the website for a British children's television show that Luke and I have never actually seen. But we both love the trippy games you can play on that page. (Here's a British journalist's take on the show. I'm going to youtube in search of an episode, will report back later.)

I greet you

I greet you with:

1) Merry Christmas!

2) Happy Holidays!

0r

3) a moan of commiseration.

Whichever you prefer. If I knew how to set up a poll, I would.

I've been rushing about like a mad woman since I last posted. Well, actually, I rushed about like a mad woman until about midnight on Christmas Eve at which point I threw in the towel, went to bed and  woke up sick. Some people might think it's terribly bad luck for the mother of a toddler to wake up sick on Christmas Day and those people, kindly and sympathetic though they may be, would be terribly, terribly wrong. I got to loll on the sofa running the video camera while Luke opened his presents and David wrestled the turkey into submission in the kitchen in my stead. After he'd finished that, poor David had to put together the hundreds of toys  that had arrived in a thousand separate pieces all the while maintaining a cheerful holiday countenance as he did so. After that, of course, he had to test each and every one of those toys under Luke's close supervision. And then there were the dozens of vegetables to be prepared and the wretched gravy and the setting of the festive table and the scooping up of  great swathes of wrapping paper and the breaking down of boxes and the cleaning up of the cat vomit. (Our cat Theo has a Christmas ribbon addiction. It's a bit like having an alcoholic in the family only instead of having to whip wine bottles out of sight, you've got to hide all the ribbons and bows. Of course, like the alcoholic uncle who inevitably finds some liquor somewhere, Theo always finds a ribbon. And immediately ingests it. He can generally be counted on to throw up at some point during the proceedings.) And I haven't even mentioned the dishing out and the clearing up and the washing of dishes and so on and so on and so on.

This is the second Christmas I've been ill and I just might make a tradition of it. Although last Christmas I think I took it a bit too far -- I had stuff streaming out both ends last year and couldn't figure out which way to turn in the bathroom in order to catch it all. The saintly David dealt with that, too. I was so busy trying to get my aim straight that I missed a lot of the fun. This year I managed not to go so overboard. I simply started hacking up bits of lung. It was much tidier -- all you need really is a sofa and a box of kleenex -- and yet it did the trick.

Here is a photo of Luke and his grandfather in church on Christmas Eve:

This was only the second time Luke had been to a church service. (The first was a memorial for his grandmother on All Saints Day when he was about seven months old. At that service, my precious infant managed to fart so loudly during a moment of silence that the ten-year-old red-head  in front of us whipped around in astonishment and stared with wide, shocked eyes at David and I. He was  clearly trying to figure out which of the two of us was the culprit.)  Grandpa is a church-goer who often mentions that he has just gone to church or that he is about to go to church. He also frequently relates tales of amusing church happenings. Luke must have imagined that church (he calls it "chooch") was a very exciting place. I took that photo as soon as we sat down. A few moments later he started winding his arms around my neck in a gentle strangle-hold and whispering, "Don't like it. Go home now."  Although he did seem to enjoy the hand bell choir. After they finished their song, he clapped and turned to David to ask, "What's on next?" Unfortunately,  the next performance was a lengthy sermon about Christmas in this time of fear and terrorism. Luke and I withdrew to the Sunday School room to search in vain for toys until just before the point where they sang "Silent Night" by candlelight. So, all in all, I don't think it was a bad experience for him. I'm sure there's still a good chance that one day, when he grows up, Luke will decide to become a Pentecostal minister just to spite us.

There's more to tell, and I promise I will, but right now I've got to pause to hack up a bit more lung. I wish you peace and joy or a nice, mildly incapacitating virus (after all, we've still got New Year's Eve ahead of us) whichever you prefer. If I knew how to set up a poll, I would.

Simone de Beauvoir on Little Women

I'm guessing that this childhood favourite of Simone de Beauvoir's has been duly noted by scholars --  she loved Little Women. It was a book in which she thought she had "caught a glimpse" of her "future self":

The March girls were Protestants, their father was a pastor and their mother had given them a bedside book, not The Imitation of Christ but Pilgrim's Progress: these slight differences only made the things we had in common with the March girls stand out all the more. I was moved when Meg and Jo had to put on their poor brown poplin frocks to go to a matinee at which all the other children were dressed in silk; they were taught, as I was, that a cultivated mind and moral righteousness were better than money; their modest home, like my own, had something about it -- I don't know why -- that was quite exceptional. I identified myself passionately with Jo, the intellectual. Brusque and bony, Jo clambered up into trees when she wanted to read; she was much more tomboyish and daring than I was, but I shared her horror of sewing and housekeeping and her love of books. She wrote: in order to imitate her more completely, I composed two or three short stories. I don't know if I dreamed of reviving my old friendship with Jacques, or if, rather more vaguely, I was longing for the barrier between my own world and the world boys to be broken down, but the relationship between Jo and Laurie touched me to the heart. Later, I had no doubt, they would marry one another;  so it was possible for maturity to bring the promises made in childhood to fruition instead of denying them; the thought filled me with renewed hope. But the thing that delighted me most of all was the marked partiality which Louisa Alcott manifested for Jo. As I have said, I detested the sort of grown-up condescension which lumped all children under the same heading. The defects and qualities which authors gave their young heroines usually seemed to be inconsequential accidents; when they grew up they would all be as good as gold: moreover it was only their personal morality that distinguished one from another, never their intelligence; it was almost as if from this point of view their age had made them all equal. But in Little Women Jo was superior to her sisters, who were either more virtuous or more beautiful than she, because of her passion for knowledge and the vigour of her thinking; her superiority was as outstanding as that of certain adults and guaranteed that she would have an unusual life: she was marked by fate. I, too, felt I was entitled to consider my taste in reading and my scholastic successes as tokens of a personal superiority which would be borne out by the future. I became in my own eyes a character out of a novel.

How to Talk to Your Child About Jamie Lynn Spears

Everyone's all in a tizzy and it isn't about Christmas. It's about poor sixteen-year-old Jamie Lynn Spears, sister of Britney, who has just announced to O.K. magazine that she is pregnant. The entertainment news shows and online gossip sites are having a field day. And even the parenting sites are getting in on the action. Just a moment ago I got an email with the heading "How to Talk to Your Kids about Jamie Lynn Spears." To be fair, while that heading has a tinge of hysteria, the advice the site offers is fine. What I really don't understand is the apparent panic from parents and educators. Get a load of this, from an Associated Press story:

"It's very disappointing, but face it, the bubble is burst," said Dr. Judy Kuriansky, a clinical psychologist on the faculty of Columbia University Teachers College. "Thank you, Jamie Lynn, you have ruined the innocence of lots of kids and mothers who would rather not talk about this."

You know, because everyone's still telling their children that they were delivered by storks or plucked out of cabbage patches. In fact, if that quote of Dr. Kuriansky's is to be believed, many mothers themselves have not yet fully grasped the facts. Those poor innocent mothers.  The timing of this "scandal" is particularly interesting. Poor Jamie Lynn (who is said to be a devout Christian and probably is) would be well-advised to call a press conference and  announce that the angel Gabriel visited her in a dream and told her that the father of her unborn child is not her eighteen-year-old boyfriend but God. Mothers across the Western world could heave a collective sigh of relief. "Phew. So that's okay, then. Everything's all cleared up. There is no longer a pressing need to talk about this issue."  I just hope it's a girl. It'd be nice for Jesus to have a sister.

(Seriously, though: when I stop to think of her at all, and I don't intend to do so for much longer than it takes me to write these sentences, I feel sorry for Jamie Lynn, who will have to endure intense media scrutiny while struggling to care for an infant when she is probably not emotionally ready to do so.  Happily,  she is not struggling with poverty as well. Of course I don't think it's a good idea for a teenager to become a mother. But it's a fact that many of them do. And one's children should be made fully aware of that fact, for their own protection.  I'd love to read journalist Amy Benfer, who was herself a teenage mother, on this topic.)

The Result of My High Level of Distractibility and Generally Poor Parenting Skills

A few weeks ago, Luke, my cousin Melissa, and I walked past a large display of these Santa Clause DVDs in a store. I was distracted, trying to find something or other on the ridiculously long list handed out to all subcontractors by Santa. (Mothers are Santa's China.)

"Santa!" cried Luke. "Santa something, something blah blah blah..."

"Alex blah blah blah," said Melissa at the same time, talking about her boyfriend. "Something something blah blah Alex."

"Who dat, Mama?" said Luke, pointing at Martin Short all got up as Jack Frost. (At least, I assume he's supposed to be Jack Frost. Maybe he's just had a lot of Botox.)

"Uh, Santa and..." I said, bending down to rifle through a pile of something or others, searching for one in the proper size and colour.

"Alex blah blah something," said Melissa.

I found an approximation of exactly the right something or other and whisked the pair of them away to the check-out.

Today, in the same store, while I was attempting to return the aforementioned something or other*, Luke pointed to the same display of DVDs and proclaimed, "Santa and Alex!"

To which I said, "Uh? Er?" And then in a flash I remembered and understood. "Ah!"  Oh how easily a young mind is confused and misled, I thought, snickering rudely and looking around for another adult with whom to share. Mockery is much more fun when it is a group activity. That is why I am telling you this story now. Alas, no one looked in the mood -- they were all lurching red-faced through the crowd bearing arm loads of plastic crap and highly processed food items, all in festive colours, and muttering angrily to themselves. So then, instead, I tried half-heartedly to correct my child -- but he was having none of it. Oh well. Jack Frost, Martin Short, Rudolph the f-ing Reindeer, Little Bo Beep, or Alex. Who the hell cares at this point. I trust the misnaming of commercial holiday figures will not damage the child in any meaningful way.

Then when we got I home I learned that Luke also believes that vitamins are called "almonds."

*The aforementioned something or other was initially believed to be an appropriate approximation of exactly the right something or other but, upon further reflection, I decided it was too approximate and therefore not appropriate at all. Thus, it was rejected. I have not yet found a suitable replacement. At this point the recipient is in grave danger of receiving a copy of the delightful and soon-to-be holiday classic "Santa and Alex" DVD instead.

More on Simone de Beauvoir's Childhood Reading

Again, from Simone de Beauvoir's Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter:

A novel I read at Meyrignac [her grandfather's country estate] and which was called The Jungle Rover gave me a nasty shock. The author related his extravagant adventures well enough to make me feel I was actually taking part in them. The hero had a friend named Bob, who was rather stout, a bon vivant, and absolutely devoted to his companions in danger; he won my sympathies at once. They were imprisoned in an Indian jail; they discovered a subterranean passage just wide enough to let a man crawl through. Bob went first; suddenly he uttered a terrible scream: he had encountered a python. With loudly beating heart and clammy palms I witnessed the grim tragedy: the serpent devoured good old Bob! This story obsessed me for a long time. The mere idea of being swallowed alive was enough to make my blood run cold; but I should have been less shaken if I had disliked the victim. Bob's frightful death contradicted all the rules of life: it was obvious, now, that anything could happen.

I wonder if that novel is listed along with her other influences in encyclopedias of philosophy.

The Little Matchgirl's Christmas Tree

Via hoi pippo.

It'd be fun to have one of these at each person's place setting at Christmas dinner -- and suddenly  whammo, you light them all at once! Fsssst! An explosion of flame and then nothing but cinders. Or am I channeling my little boy? I think I'm channeling my little boy...