You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December 2011.
Continued from part the first
12. Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
I am ashamed to say that I can’t remember any of my dreams involving any of these things. Have I ever dreamed such a dream? I know not. The closest I can get is this dream I had as a little girl (maybe first grade) where I was Little Red Riding Hood running away from the wolf and I fell down in a gravel pit and couldn’t get back up. I still vividly recall that dream. Just as I can vividly recall the dream I had in high school where George Michael was dancing around the principal from Fame wearing only a loincloth. George Michael was wearing the loincloth, I mean; the principal was fully clothed. Thank goodness for small favors. But that dream has nothing to do with books at all.
13. What is the most lowbrow book you’ve read as an adult?
This is like asking me who my favorite child is. Come on!
14. What is the most difficult book you’ve ever read?
I found William Faulkner’s Absalom! Absalom! very difficult. But I chose to write my Modern Literature 410 term paper on it because I knew no one else in the class would touch it and I wouldn’t have to compete for checking out secondary sources in the library. That was the only reason. But I ended up reading it two or three times and once I finally figured out what was going on, it was a pretty awesome book. I’m not particularly keen on reading anything else of his, though. (Except I do enjoy his short stories, which are slightly less…difficult.)
15. What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you’ve seen?
I don’t know that I’ve seen any obscure Shakespeare plays. I’ve seen very few Shakespeare plays, period. I think I’ve only seen one onstage (as opposed to a movie version), and that was Taming of the Shrew. Not obscure. I’d pay cash money to see Henry IV Part One, though. Especially if the actor playing Hotspur was hot. Ha ha. (But I’m not kidding.)
16. Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
I’ve certainly read more French authors. I don’t know that I’ve ever finished anything Russian. I keep meaning to. Not that I’ve read or plan to read any of these books in their original language. That would be too hard.
17. Roth or Updike?
I’ve never read either. Oh, no, I’ve read Roth’s “Defender of the Faith.” That was good. So does that make it Roth by default? I don’t know. (Wayne, recommend an Updike book for me.)
18. David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
I know even less about these cats than I do about Roth and Updike.
19. Shakespeare, Milton or Chaucer?
Shakespeare. I like Milton okay. I never really got into Chaucer, probably because I was never forced to take a whole class on him.
20. Austen or Eliot?
Austen. But I like Eliot.
21. What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
That I’ve never finished any Russian novels? That would automatically be a huge gap because Russian novels are so thick. Ha ha. Do you know how many good books there are in the world that I will never read? Too many to count, I imagine. Well, I could, but then I wouldn’t have time to read any of them.
22. What is your favorite novel?
It’s really hard to choose just one, don’t you think? I don’t think I will ever love another book the way I love Little Women, so I should just say Little Women. But if we don’t count Little Women, maybe it’s Life of Pi. (I don’t care what you haters say.)
23. Play?
I don’t know. Do musicals count? It seems like they shouldn’t. I’ve always liked that Man of La Mancha. It’s based on Don Quixote, so that’s kind of literary, don’t you think? And Les Miserables was a book once. (Technically, it still is.) But I’ve already decided that musicals don’t count (and anyway, my favorite musical is 1776). Plays are hard for me to judge, since so much depends on the performance, and performances vary. I do really like Henry IV Part One, but how well does it stand on its own without Henry IV Part Two and Henry V? (And Henry V I think is only okay. It’s like the Return of the Jedi of the Henriad, if you ask me.) You know what’s a good play? I Never Sang for My Father. But I may only think that because I like the Gene Hackman movie so well. Who doesn’t love Gene Hackman? Come on.
24. Poem?
Poem. Poem. I’m just going to come out and say I don’t read a lot of poetry anymore. I used to, when I was younger. I don’t mean for school either. When I was a teenager, I used to read Nikki Giovanni and Anne Sexton just for giggles. I think that tells you all you need to know about my pretentious teenage ass. Am I implying that people who read poetry are pretentious? No, not at all. It’s just that as I grow older, I make a conscious effort to be less of a poser. Or, to the extent that I still am a poser, I try to be self-conscious about it. When I was studying Yeats, I grew very fond of “Cuchulain Comforted” and “In Tara’s Halls.” I just like the way they sound.
25. Essay?
I guess that would have to be George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.”
26. Short story?
Probably Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People.”
27. Work of nonfiction?
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote.
28. Who is your favorite writer?
Flannery O’Connor.
29. Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
I really can’t think of one. I tend to miss a lot of the over-hyped books, or books I perceive as over-hyped. And being that I’m as far removed from the world of hype as one with an internet connection can be, if I suspect someone’s over-hyped, they’re probably over-hyped. (Not that over-hyped = overrated, but they tend to go hand in hand.) I don’t necessarily skip those authors on purpose, but I just don’t get around to them. And sometimes I’m just not interested.
30. What is your desert island book?
I guess at this point it would be kind of silly not to say Little Women, wouldn’t it? I mean, I’ve read it a dozen times. I could probably read it another dozen. It’s reasonably long, and that’s a must for desert-island reading. Maybe I should bring Ulysses, though. If it were the only book on the island, I’m sure I would read it.
31. And…what are you reading right now?
I’m currently reading three books: Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields, The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman, and Darkness on the Edge of Town by J. Carson Black.
Mockingbird was a birthday gift from Princess Zurg, and I’m just now getting around to it. It’s pretty interesting for a book about someone who only wrote one book, but Harper Lee was chummy with Truman Capote and worked as his research assistant for In Cold Blood, so that makes a difference. I suppose I am interested in Southern writers in general. It’s a sickness or an eccentricity or something.
I’m enjoying The Imperfectionists, but it’s a library loan and I have to finish it, like, tomorrow, and I’m only 65% of the way through and I’m really too busy doing this blog post to read right now.
Darkness on the Edge of Town I bought on the cheap just because I wanted a psycho killer book for my Kindle, and it looked promising initially, but for a book about a serial killer, it just isn’t that interesting. The writing is okay, but the story is really boring, I’m afraid. Actually, it’s not the story, it’s the main character who’s boring. A humorless female detective–who doesn’t enjoy that sort of thing? Here’s a mistake people make with female protagonists: giving them a boyfriend/husband with whom they have limited interaction and about whom they think so seldom that when he does get mentioned, the reader has forgotten who he is. Why give her a boyfriend/husband at all? To humanize her? Because it doesn’t work. The boyfriend/husband has to be part of the story, or he’s just one more boring thing about your boring character. I would just stop reading the book–if it were a library loan, I’d stop–but I paid for it, so…you know. I feel obligated. It’s silly, though. I’ve certainly made more expensive mistakes than this book. Why can’t I just write it off? I guess I just want to believe that you can get a decent book for $2.99 or less on Kindle. I don’t think I have high standards, but apparently they are higher than I thought they were.
I got this from Tawnya. I’m going to do it in several parts because I’m taking too long to finish it. And it will be easier for you to digest that way.
1. What author do you own the most books by?
Probably Toni Morrison, which is funny because I have a sort of love-hate relationship with Toni Morrison. I got a really good deal on six of her books at once, though, so…that’s probably the main reason I ended up reading as much Toni Morrison as I have.
2. What book do you own the most copies of?
It used to be To Kill a Mockingbird. I think at one point we owned three copies of that book, but we got rid of at least one. I own duplicates of several books. I have the complete works of James Joyce–which I have not read–in this cute little green box that my husband brought home from Ireland several years ago, but I also have the Penguin paperback of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man that I read in college, and it has all my notes in it, so I’m not going to throw away either of those. I also have a paperback copy of Ulysses (that I started and never finished) that Joyce-in-the-Box has rendered redundant, but I’m not going to get rid of it because I keep thinking I’m actually going to read Ulysses, but which version will I want to read–the cute, itty-bitty green one that comes in three cute, itty-bitty volumes, or the big fat paperback with slightly larger print? Probably when I get really serious about reading Ulysses I will buy it on Kindle. And then I will own three copies of Ulysses that I’ve never read.
3. Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
Not at all. I’m notoriously unfussy about ending sentences with prepositions. I considered saying, “Ending sentences with prepositions is something I’m notoriously unfussy about,” but not only is that an awkwardly-constructed sentence but it also was just too cute. And too easy.
4. What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
I should probably be all highbrow and say Mr. Darcy or something, but I think I might be in love with Special Agent Will Trent in Karin Slaughter’s books. I’m not sure what it says about me. That I have a thing for emotionally damaged law-enforcement officers? I don’t think that’s true in real life. But he’s the only character I can think of right now that I could use the L-word with. (I did have kind of a thing for Hotspur in Henry IV Part One, back in the day. But I’m pretty much over it now.)
5. What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children, i.e. Goodnight Moon does not count)?
Little Women, hands down. But I’ve read Gone with the Wind a fair number of times, too.
6. What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Little Women. Still is.
7. What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?
Technically, the worst is this 99cent book I got for my Kindle. It started off promising, but went downhill around chapter…three? Seriously, it was like she hired an editor only for the chapters that would be downloaded for a free sample and wrote most of the rest of the book in an all-nighter right before the deadline. It was ghastly. Appallingly amateurish. And for that reason, I feel like it shouldn’t really count. I’m not even going to tell you the name of the book because a) I don’t remember offhand and b) I feel sorry for the author, who is probably just a frustrated housewife trying to live her dream and anyway, what did I expect for 99 cents, Little Women? (Of course, on Kindle Little Women would have been free.)
So instead I will tell you about the worst “real” book I’ve read this year, which is Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm. I feel free to judge Rick Moody more harshly because Rick Moody can actually write and a lot of people apparently think The Ice Storm is a good book, but I pretty much hated it, and I’ll tell you why. The book is not about sex, but sex is a metaphor for…I guess everything. The characters all think about sex, all the time. Everything is sex. Sex is everything. Trust me, mes enfants, I have nothing against reading books with sex in them, even books with a lot of sex in them. I’ve read some pretty sick crap in my life, too. Read it and not batted an eyelid (except maybe to note, casually, “That was sure some sick crap”). With The Ice Storm, all the sex stuff was initially…provocative (I’m trying not to say “titillating,” because “titillating” makes me feel like giggling), but after a while it just got boring and then it just got annoying. And then it just made me want to scream, “What kind of pervy bastard is this cat???” Not because any of it was particularly beyond the pale–mostly garden-variety sex acts, if you’re really curious–but because it was just. seriously. too. much. And in the end I didn’t really get the point. Fortunately, I borrowed that book from the library, for free.
8. If you could force everyone to read one book, what would it be?
Probably Life of Pi. Because that book is freaking awesome.
9. Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
I don’t know. I don’t pay attention to this stuff. I’m not particularly up on all the big literary big shots. Also, I kind of think these prizes are stupid (although the money that comes with them is not stupid). I like Kazuo Ishiguro. He should probably win a prize.
10. What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Most of the books I would like to see made into movies have already been made into movies. Bad ones. I used to say I wanted to see Atlas Shrugged made into a TV miniseries, but now someone’s gone and made it into movies (or started to). I’d still like to see a better version of The Fountainhead, but that isn’t apt to ever happen. (Did it bother you that I split that infinitive?) When I read Left Behind, I found it reasonably cheesy but also thought it would make a pretty awesome movie. Unfortunately, the movie is terrible. Really not at all good. Probably because it was made on a shoestring by Kirk Cameron. But I still imagine what a big-budget Hollywood director could do with that story and think that would be so badass.
11. What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
I don’t know. Probably The Book of Mormon. Oh no, they already did it!
.
To be continued
And I’m writing this very special blog post, just for her (in case I forget to call her later)! Ha ha, like I could ever forget to do something as important as calling my sister on her birthday (especially after I wrote this very special blog about it)!
Actually, I’m pretty bad at remembering to call people on their birthdays. You might have noticed, if you’re related to me, that I forget it frequently. And don’t even send a card. Because I’m a terrible human being. This self-flagellation is meant as a belated birthday gift to everyone I’ve accidentally slighted. Except Bythelbs, for whom it is meant to be a timely birthday gift. Because today is her birthday! This very day!
I won’t tell you how old she is, except to say that she’s younger than I am. Also, I can’t remember. Just kidding! That was a joke–like, I can’t remember because I’m so old, unlike her.
Random Number of Fun Facts about Bythelbs, Which Number Has Nothing To Do with Her Age
1. She was my favorite pen pal when we were in college. She was at BYU, I was at a small Baptist school in Virginia, and I always looked forward to getting her letters in the mail because they were so funny. This was before e-mail killed the letter-writing tradition. We wrote each other long letters. I’m not sure how I managed to write so many pages about my incredibly boring life–well, actually, I do know how I do it. It’s the same way I write this blog. I guess I’m not sure how I managed to write so many pages longhand without getting a cramp. I was addressing Christmas cards last night and I woke up this morning with a really sore arm. Clearly I had not used those muscles in quite some time. But here I am making this all about me. Expect more of that, probably.
2. I was really sad when she got engaged–not because she was getting married before I was (I kind of expected her to do that), but because I was afraid that everything would change and we wouldn’t be as close anymore. Actually, what happened is that she got married, we still wrote each other letters, but when we both started having kids, we did drift apart somewhat. Partly because I became very bad at calling people on their birthdays. Or ever.
3. My blog used to be a complete secret from everyone except my husband, until circumstances conspired to allow Bythelbs to discover it quite by accident. I won’t lie to you, kids. When she told me she’d found my blog, I was like, “Oh…[crap].” Let’s just say it could have been ugly. But instead it brought us close together again because once she’d read my blog–psh, what was left to hide from her? I even convinced her to start her own blog. (And by “convinced” I mean “said, ‘that’s a great idea!’ when she brought it up all on her own.”) Initially I tried to direct some traffic her way–you know, to be the supportive sister–but since I didn’t have much traffic coming my way, there wasn’t much to direct anywhere else. In the end, I think I got about ten times more readers from her than she ever did from me. (And by that I mean I think I got about ten readers from her. Which more than doubled my total readership. So that was awesome.)
4. She has always been the funniest person I know. I don’t know how many people get to see her hilarious side in real life, but she has always been able to make me laugh. During times of my life that were incredibly difficult and dark, she would call just to check up on me and sooner or later I would be cracking up. (In the sense of laughing, not of having a nervous breakdown.) She doesn’t even mean to make me do it, she just does. (And by that I do not mean that I laugh at her…although sometimes I guess technically it is laughing at her…but fortunately she has a good sense of humor about it!)
So–happy birthday, Bythelbs! I hope you’re celebrating in style (though how you will top this Very Special Blog Post, I do not know).
And by that I mean “I hope a cop comes to bust up your party and ends up singing and dancing (not in a creepy way, like a stripper, but just like in this video).”
Back in October, I thanked ordinarybutloud for tagging me in her Seven Stylish Things post because it would give me something to blog about. And then I turned around and continued not blogging. Ha ha! Actually, I think I turned around and blogged about something else, and then lost my will to blog altogether. Again–even with a ready-made topic! This not-blogging is a sickness of mine. It starts with not knowing what to write about. Then it turns into thinking of something to write about but not really feeling like it. Then it turns into thinking, “If I’m going to spend time writing, I should write something real, rather than something bloggy.” And that turns into thinking, “I really don’t know what to write about, and everything there is to write about is something I don’t feel like writing about. And I should have majored in math in college.”
Seriously, I think I should have majored in math in college. I remember our senior…golly, what did they call that? Some special evening they had for graduating seniors at my college. What did they call it? It was a thing. All I remember is that my calculus professor introduced me to his wife (who happened to be the Dean of Students and may have met me before but wouldn’t have had any reason to remember me), and he said, “Pat, this is Mad Maidenname. She’s an English major, but she could have been a math major.” And I said, “Dr. E, I wish you had told me that three years ago.” Seriously, I did (wish and say so). (Totally irrelevant aside: I then found out that Dr. E had majored in both math and English as an undergraduate, and that made me like him even more. I have so many regrets about not majoring in math in college.)
I also remember I was wearing white shoes that night, even though it was after Labor Day (and before Easter). Which makes a perfect segue to the business end of my “Seven Stylish Things about Me” post.
Thing 1
Sometime during my sophomore year of college, I was in my friend’s dorm room, where she was getting ready for a thing. She turned to me and said, “Is it too early to wear white?” And I said, “I dunno. What time is it?” I had never heard that you shouldn’t wear white after Labor Day. Never! I think it was because I was born and raised on the West coast–not just the “West,” but the West Coast, where people are much less formal about their dress (and just about everything). Especially in Oregon, where I was born and raised during my formative years. So yes, I had never heard this rule, and I actually thought it was kind of dumb. I mean, says who? Why not? What’s so offensive about white after Labor Day? And I still think it’s a dumb rule. I think it’s a dumb rule, and yet ever since I learned it, I can’t help but be aware of it. I was aware of it that Senior-Something-Evening, when I was wearing the white shoes. I didn’t really want to wear the white shoes, because it was after Labor Day and this was Virginia and I didn’t want to look foolish, but they were the only shoes that went with my dress. I pretty much had two pairs of dress shoes–a black pair and a white pair, and the black pair would not have done, in my opinion. But perhaps I was wrong. I’m still second-guessing my decision after all these years.
Thing 2
I no longer own any white shoes. It’s not worth the angst. Also, they might be passe. Or so passe that they’re stylish again. I don’t know, but either way, I can’t deal.
Thing 3
As long as we’re on the topic of shoes, this is as good a time as any to tell you that although I don’t own many shoes, I really, really like shoes. I will pass by a shoe display just to see what’s there, even though I don’t need shoes and can’t really bring myself to purchase shoes that I don’t particularly need (because I’m a little cheap that way). But I appreciate stylish shoes. My daughter doesn’t like shopping with me because I am guaranteed at some point–or perhaps several points–to say, “Aren’t these shoes adorable???” And she’s like, “Whatever, Mom.”
What keeps me from being a shoe-a-holic is a) I’m kind of cheap and b) I always think, “What can I wear these shoes with, and where?” and c) I’m a size 9. If you’re a woman of large feet, you have also probably noticed that most of the cute shoes stop at size 7. Or, alternatively, that once you move past size 7, the shoes don’t look cute anymore. But I appreciate shoe style. I’m not an outgoing person at all–I’m the opposite of an outgoing person–but I have been known to exclaim to total strangers, “I love your shoes!” Because I love their shoes more than I love my dignity.
I took this picture because I knew I wouldn't buy them, but seriously, aren't they so crazy they're awesome? Now every time I see this picture on my phone, I have regrets. Especially since they were only $5. But where would I have worn them? Or where wouldn't I have worn them???
Thing 4
I am beginning to think this entire post could be about shoes, if I wanted it to be. I haven’t decided yet. But here’s another thing about me and shoes: My brain loves shoes. My feet insists that shoes be comfortable. Most of the time I wear sneakers, or “athletic shoes,” or whatever they’re called. I’ve decided that the best athletic shoes for my feet are Nikes. I don’t think I will buy any other kind from now on. I will endure discomfort for the sake of style on occasion. I wear heels even though they are no longer comfortable (either because I’ve gotten old or I spent too many years wearing flats because I didn’t want to tower over my 5’7″ husband) because they look so much better (especially on my large-ish feet). But one thing I will not wear is flip-flops. Not because I find them tacky, but because I find them uncomfortable. I can’t stand having things between my toes. (It’s the same reason I will never wear divided-toe socks.) And those flip-flop toe-thingies can be murder, depending on what they’re made out of. I honestly think you chronic flip-flop wearers must have callouses between your toes. I don’t know how you manage otherwise.
Thing 5
Last shoe-related thing, I promise (maybe): Just out of curiosity, how did you learn how to tie your shoes? Bunny-ear method, or squirrel-and-tree method? My dad taught me squirrel-and-tree in a single session, and I was shoelace-independent for life. My children couldn’t learn to tie their shoes for the life of them until someone (not me) taught them bunny-ear method, and then, voila. It was like when three separate members of my family tried to teach me to drive using a stick shift, but I could never do it–and then I got put behind the wheel of an automatic and I was like, “Really? Driving can be this easy? Why would anyone do it the other way???” I’m sure that’s what my kids were thinking about me and my esoteric shoe-tying ways. It wasn’t that I was prejudiced against the bunny-ear method; it just never occurred to me to use it because that’s not how I tie shoes (and once a child learned to do it for him or herself, I washed my brains of the whole affair). But after having three children fail to grasp the concept of squirrel and tree, I was determined to teach Girlfriend to tie her shoes the bunny-ear way. And guess what. SHE DOESN’T GET IT. Which leads me to believe it isn’t the method, it’s just me.
Thing 6
It would have been better–from an artistic point of view–if I’d just stuck with the shoe theme. But I realized that I actually don’t have anything else to say about shoes. Sure, later on this evening I’ll probably think of a couple more things and go, “Doh! Why couldn’t I have thought of that earlier? Seven Stylish Shoe Things would have been so much awesomer. But noooooo…” The only problem is that if I wait to think of another shoe thing, I’ll never think of it. So I have to just move on, even if it’s wrong. Which makes me think Thing 6 should be about my writing style.
I had a white-shoes-after-Labor-Day moment in that last paragraph. I said “go” when I meant “say.” I do that, and I know I’m doing it because I’m hyper-aware of all the rules I break. Sometimes I agonize over breaking them. Because I definitely know better. But I do it anyway, because to some extent, I do write the way I talk, and sometimes when I’m talking and I mean “I said…,” I’ll say, “I went…” or “I was all…”- Because sometimes I didn’t say–I went or I was all. You know? Sometimes I was even “like.” I’m not proud, but that’s how I do.
Something that is more analogous to the white-shoes-Labor-Day thing, though, is when I split my infinitives. Until my British Lit 201 professor brought it to my attention, I had no idea you weren’t supposed to split infinitives. Really. And like the white shoes rule, I thought it was really stupid. I still think it’s stupid. But from that point onward, I have not been able to split an infinitive without being hyper-aware of it. I end sentences with prepositions with impunity, but the split infinitive–it’s a much lesser offense and yet I’m very self-conscious about it. I do it all the time, sure, but self-consciously. And not ironically. I think it’s because it was such a rude awakening to discover that I didn’t actually know all the arcane rules of English grammar. It was humiliating, just like when I was in my friend’s dorm room and suddenly my whole life of wearing shoes between the months of September and April flashed before my eyes.
Thing 7
People who know me before they read me tell me I write just like I talk. But people who read me before they meet me are usually disappointed. What’s that about? I dunno. But it’s a thing.
Last night I read Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why. I didn’t like it. Here are fewer-than-thirteen reasons why.
1. For those of you unfamiliar with this popular YA novel, it is about a girl named Hannah who commits suicide, but before she dies she records six-and-a-half audio cassette tapes explaining her “thirteen reasons why” she did it–or rather, describing thirteen incidents with thirteen different people that led up to her committing suicide. The book is alternately narrated by Hannah’s audiotaped voice and Clay, one of the thirteen people on the tapes, who is listening to Hannah’s audio tapes. Does this make sense? I feel like I’m making it more complicated than it is. The premise is not so complicated: You’re reading the words of Clay, who is listening to the words of Hannah. So you alternate between Hannah’s narrative and Clay’s reactions to what he’s hearing. The concept is simple enough; the execution is somewhat flawed because it’s not like there’s a section where Hannah speaks and then a section where Clay speaks, but there’s a constant back and forth between the two. My sister enjoyed the audiobook version of this novel, and I imagine that the audiobook version is superior if only because it is much easier to determine who is talking when, if the different characters’ words are spoken by different actors: Boy Voice, Girl Voice, Boy Voice again, etc.–what could be clearer? In the text version it’s Italics, Not Italics, Italics, Not Italics–who’s the Italics again? Wait, was that one thing in Italics or Not Italics? Italics. Not Italics. It’s more complicated than it sounds, or maybe it’s because I’m coming down with something and my brain is foggy, but I found the narration very confusing for that reason.
2. Confusing narration is not a deal-breaker for me–I just finished my seventh Toni Morrison novel, and it took much longer than a single evening to read, but I plugged away at it, by golly, because I’m that way–but in addition to being insufficiently differentiated in their respective fonts, the characters in TRW were not particularly fleshed out. Again, this is where an audiobook version would be really helpful, since actors would be dramatizing everything and making it all…dramatic…you know, making the characters seem more like real people. Reading the plain old slanty-letters/non-slanty-letters version, I never felt like I really knew these characters, much less cared about them, which brings me to Another Reason Why.
3. Hannah’s story is very sad. It’s sad because some kids were mean to her, and she ended up killing herself. Suicides are almost always inherently sad, or sad by default. At the same time, because she never seemed like a real person–i.e. I never really understood where she was coming from or what made her tick–her suffering didn’t seem all that real to me either. Now that’s just cold, isn’t it? She killed herself and I’m like, “Meh.” No, it was actually more like this: Some kids did some mean stuff sometimes, but I did not have a picture of what her daily life was like, at school or at home (there was some technically-non-zero amount of information on her home life, but it was not useful), so although she explained how Incident 1 led to Incident 2 which led to Incident 3 and so on, and certainly all of these incidents sucked, I did not get a sense of their cumulative effect on her life or her psyche. She told me she was overwhelmed and hopeless, but I didn’t really believe her, even though she was clearly dead now because of it.
4. But here’s the real thing: Her suicide was a calculated means of revenge against everyone who had wronged her. I can see how such a plot would energize and motivate a person, but it still came off as exquisitely cruel. And yes, I realize I’m talking about a dead girl (albeit a fictional one) who was the victim of bullying. But it seemed like she gave at least as good as she got. She would lay traps for people, including, in the end, one completely innocent person she used to render her suicide Totally Justified. All of which made me think, “Really, Hannah? Why don’t you just grow up?” But of course, she can’t. She’s dead now. And it’s all everyone else’s fault.
Honestly, it kind of bothered me. I know how the adolescent mind works. I have an excruciatingly vivid memory of my own adolescence. Adolescence sucks. Feeling like you’d be better off dead, likewise, sucks. I understand all that, so I feel like I should be more sympathetic. But I’m just not, and it bothers me.
Before you start getting too worried, let me reassure you that all of this is not over a mere YA novel. It’s more complicated than that. Because I have been the mother of a troubled adolescent girl for a few years now, and let me tell you, THAT sucks. It sucks to have this excruciatingly vivid memory of how much adolescence sucks and how much clinical depression sucks (that last part is not so much a memory, but I remember having clinical depression at that age, too, and it SUCKS), and to know that there is nothing in your power to change that for your child. You can listen, you can make (lame) suggestions (and know that they’re lame), you can take them to therapy and buy them pharmaceutical support, but the bottom line is that the will to live and the will to keep trying is all on them, not you. Your adult perspective is all well and good for you, but it’s useless to them. They have to get their own. And in the meantime you feel frustrated and helpless, and that makes you angry. And sometimes just plain annoyed.
That’s how you find yourself thinking things like, “Gah, just grow up already!”
Please.
So I read this article this morning about a school board member who took versions of his state’s standardized math and reading tests and had a rude awakening.
“I won’t beat around the bush,” he wrote in an email. “The math section had 60 questions. I knew the answers to none of them, but managed to guess ten out of the 60 correctly. On the reading test, I got 62% . In our system, that’s a “D”, and would get me a mandatory assignment to a double block of reading instruction.
He continued, “It seems to me something is seriously wrong. I have a bachelor of science degree, two masters degrees, and 15 credit hours toward a doctorate.
“I help oversee an organization with 22,000 employees and a $3 billion operations and capital budget, and am able to make sense of complex data related to those responsibilities.
“I have a wide circle of friends in various professions. Since taking the test, I’ve detailed its contents as best I can to many of them, particularly the math section, which does more than its share of shoving students in our system out of school and on to the street. Not a single one of them said that the math I described was necessary in their profession.”
Now, I’ll tell you from the outset that I’m not a fan of these standardized tests, and I don’t like all the emphasis that is placed upon them, and if I were making a list of “Bad Things That Came out of the George W. Bush Administration,” No Child Left Behind would probably crack my top two. (I mean, don’t get me wrong; ordinarily, if teachers’ unions oppose something, I’m inclined to think it must be a good idea. Just not in this case. There are ways of assessing whether or not teachers are competent and doing a good job. None of these assessments can be performed long-distance by Washington bureaucrats.) So that’s where I’m coming from. But this article left me just a tad befuddled. We’re talking about an educated adult–two master’s degrees–with a successful business career, and he couldn’t pass a math test designed for a tenth grader. And he just barely passed the reading test. And the clear implication is that these tests must be unreasonably difficult or require highly specialized knowledge. This, forgive me, just doesn’t make any sense.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible that these tests are unreasonably difficult or require highly specialized knowledge. It just seems very unlikely. Because tenth graders take them, yes? And at least a handful must do well, and another handful must not embarrass themselves, either–or no one in this cat’s school district would be graduating or going to college. Of course, when you’re in high school, studying this stuff every day, the material will be fresh in your head. I would expect a smart high schooler to do better than the average adult. I might even expect an average high schooler to do better than the average adult. But I would still expect an educated adult with two master’s degrees and a successful business career to do better than a high schooler who hadn’t paid attention in class since they stopped putting stickers on his worksheets.
I mean, I’ve been out of school for a long time. I know that I’ve forgotten quite a bit of the math I learned in the past. I would not be able to pass a calculus test without some serious review. My trigonometry is equally sketchy. But if you’d asked me before I’d read this article if I thought I could pass a math test designed for tenth graders–not ace, mind you, but pass–I would have said, “Absolutely.” And if you’d asked me if I could do better than 62% on a reading test designed for tenth graders, I would have been insulted. I mean, I read every day. That part of the brain still knows what it’s doing. Of course I could do better than 62%. What is that, a joke?
So yes, this article left me befuddled because I can only come up with the following explanations for why this gentleman did so poorly on the standardized tests that he took:
1. The tenth grade math test is all advanced math. The tenth grade reading test is based largely on selections of William Faulkner’s prose.
2. The tenth grade tests are comprised primarily of trick questions.
3. The adult in question faked his way through graduate school–twice!–and only thinks he understands the complex data he’s confronted with at his job (really, his assistant is doing all the work).
4. The adult in question was drunk the morning he took his tests.
5. I’m not nearly as bright as I think I am.
I think these are all pretty far-fetched conclusions (yes, even #5), so naturally, I’m dissatisfied. I will not be able to understand this story at all until I find out what exactly is on these tests. I do find it interesting that no matter which link you follow in this article–and I followed link after link which led to other links which led to other links–you only get more articles about how bogus these tests are, but no information on what actually happens during one of these tests–nothing that would give me some clue as to why a reasonably well-educated adult wouldn’t know any of the answers on the math test and couldn’t muster more than 62% on the reading test. (A reading test.) It just does. not. make. sense.
Later in the article, the adult-in-question says, “It might be argued that I’ve been out of school too long, that if I’d actually been in the 10th grade prior to taking the test, the material would have been fresh. But doesn’t that miss the point? A test that can determine a student’s future life chances should surely relate in some practical way to the requirements of life. I can’t see how that could possibly be true of the test I took.”
He continues: “It makes no sense to me that a test with the potential for shaping a student’s entire future has so little apparent relevance to adult, real-world functioning. Who decided the kind of questions and their level of difficulty? Using what criteria? To whom did they have to defend their decisions? As subject-matter specialists, how qualified were they to make general judgments about the needs of this state’s children in a future they can’t possibly predict? Who set the pass-fail “cut score”? How?”
This is an interesting point. I’m the first person to argue that everyone who is not mentally incompetent should learn algebra. (Well, maybe not the first, but at least the second or third.) But I’m also the first to concede that you may lead a productive life even if you can’t remember how to determine the slope of a line. So let’s say we shouldn’t test tenth graders on whatever esoteric material is covered in this state test, but only on stuff that “relates in some practical way to the requirements of life.” What exactly would that stuff be? I assume it’s stuff that the state doesn’t currently require them to learn, since we’ve just established that these standardized tests are total BS.
If you were charged with writing the state test for tenth graders–the test that, unless I’m mistaken, is supposed to assess a student’s academic competence and/or possibly their career/college readiness–what would you be sure to include on it? Is it important that an adult should also be able to pass it?
So I haven’t really had anything to talk about lately, in case you were wondering, but I’m making an effort to be more sociable. Earlier I called a friend and went out to lunch with my husband, and now here I am on the internet, talking to you all. I’m like a butterfly! (The social kind!)
You know what I should be doing right now? Practicing my clogging. Our group is supposed to perform at a retirement home on Dec. 17. As of now I know exactly one routine (mostly), and they are trying to teach me another one that other people already know but I, the greenie, do not. I don’t like referring to myself as a “greenie.” I like it better than “newbie,” though, so I’m going to stick with it. The trouble is that I’m so tired. So, so tired. I want to tell you something about clogging: it is a little more aerobic than tapping. I mean, tapping is certainly aerobic, assuming you’re doing it right, but clogging seems to be inherently more hoppy-and-jumpy, which makes it super-exhausting. I force myself to go to clogging every Monday even though I can barely keep my eyes open, and then about halfway through the class I feel like I’m going to pass out. I have not yet actually passed out. But I haven’t been dancing very well either.
I also haven’t found clogging shoes yet. This is the funny thing: There are very limited opportunities for tap-dancing adults in the Portland metro area, but the Portland metro area is lousy with places to buy tap shoes. By contrast, there are many opportunities for clogging adults in the Portland metro area, but if you want to buy clogging shoes, you need to watch for a pair to come up on eBay. It doesn’t make any sense. But there it is.
I don’t feel remotely confident about my ability to learn these routines before Dec. 17. Especially if I’m just sitting on my fat can writing dumb blog posts about how I don’t feel like dancing. OH YES, YOU THOUGHT THE IRONY WAS LOST ON ME BUT YOU WERE WRONG.
Technically, the friend I called earlier is not a close friend. I was just offering to watch her kid for her. But that’s a thing. It’s sort of social.
It’s time to start Christmas shopping. Sugar Daddy and I went to the Hot Topic after lunch to find stuff for Princess Zurg. I always feel like an idiot shopping in the Hot Topic. I know it’s for posers and crap, but that’s not the point. The point is that I’m so aware of the fact that I’m someone’s mom shopping for dark-edgy-cool stuff for her kid. It’s just so dorky. I mean, I am a dork, and most of the time I think I’m okay with it, until I walk into the Hot Topic. Then I just feel like announcing to everyone that I know I’m a dork, I’m just shopping here ironically.
I tried to order SD’s Christmas present when I got home, but I couldn’t find his wish list on the Amazon. I tried his e-mail address (at least what I assumed his Amazon-related e-mail address was) and got nothing. I tried his name and got maybe seven “Sugar Daddy”s, none of whom was him. I’m just assuming none of them was him because one of them had an October birthday and the others all had stuff on their wish lists like Ocean’s Thirteen and The Best of Chris Farley and Master the EMT Basic Exam. I should just get him one of those things. They all sound pretty good, right?
Well, I have about fifteen minutes before it’s time to get Girlfriend from school. Make that thirteen minutes. That’s almost time enough to put on my tap shoes and practice clogging for five minutes and then change back into my regular shoes and get in the car. Or it would have been, if I hadn’t spent the last sixty seconds typing that sentence. Damn my procrastinating heart! Gentle readers, adieu.
Recent Comments