Category Archive

So at my daughter’s new school, the kids are reading this book, Hoot by Carl Hiaasen. You may have heard of it. It was also a movie. I’ve never seen it; maybe you have. You may know of Carl Hiaasen, or even be a fan of his work–his usual genre is adult comic mystery. I’ve never read any of his books, though I’ve meant to. I’ve heard they’re clever. Hoot was his first book for the juvenile market. (He’s written another since then, Flush, about which I know nothing.) So yeah, the kids at Princess Zurg’s school have been reading it, and PZ has been none too thrilled about it. Actually, she’s been morally outraged.

Well, “outraged” is really too strong a word. She has concerns that the book is not appropriate for her because it has some bad words. Words like a slang term for flatulence that rhymes with “art” (most prominent). Words like “damn” and “hell.” Words like “ass.” Words like “dumbass.” You might think it odd that I’ll write out damn and hell and ass but I shrink at spelling ****. That’s because in our house we allow our children to say “damn” and “hell” so long as they’re using the words in the religious sense. We’ll even let them say “ass” if they’re using it in the donkey sense. (Especially if they’re reading the Bible–so, you know, religious usage. Last night we were reading the Book of Mormon together and I told them they could say “dumbass” so long as they pronounced it “dumb…ass.”) They are not allowed to say ****. Because we are not animals, okay? Good manners are important, and so far I’ve had no luck getting them to eat with utensils, so don’t begrudge me my small niceties. Please.

Anyway, PZ knows the aforementioned words are not being used in any religious sense in this book, Hoot, and thus these words are making her feel uncomfortable, like she’s doing something wrong, i.e. reading inappropriate material. She knows she’s not supposed to read inappropriate material. Well, Sugar Daddy and I have told her that these words, distasteful as they might be, are pretty mild by most obscenity standards, and she probably isn’t headed down the slippery slope to Pottymouthville just by reading this book, and she certainly isn’t committing sin; we think she should finish reading the book because it touches on some issues she might find interesting, and it would behoove her to get some practice ignoring minor irritations and focusing on the big picture, as it were. However, we’ve also said that if she keeps reading and the book is really, really making her feel bad, Western Civilization would probably survive if one less fourth-grader in the world was able to engage in thoughtful discourse about Carl Hiaasen’s Hoot; we’d talk it over with her teacher and find her another book to read. (We talked this over with her teacher, who is totally cool with this plan. She just wants the kids to read.)

So PZ is still reading the book, but she still complains about it. The other day she came home and was embarrassed because the book talked about “kissing someone’s butt.” And that’s just gross, right? Not to mention wrong, if you’re going to take a literal read of that expression, which PZ does, as she has led such a heretofore-sheltered life. At her old school, she was among children who tended to act younger than their age; here she is among children who tend to act older than their age, and that is the baseline for how the adults treat them. She is still trying to wrap her head around that.

Because I’d encouraged her to finish the book, I thought I should read it myself, so I could have more useful conversations about it with her. I found a copy at my local library branch–which was provident in itself, as my local library branch is teeny-tiny and mostly has copies of nuthin’–and I finished reading it this weekend. It’s a mildly entertaining book. I wasn’t bored by it. I didn’t find it riveting. I also didn’t find it terribly sophisticated, and I hesitate to posit that my standards were simply too high. I read at least seven of the Left Behind books, for crying out loud, not to mention The Nanny Diaries. But I don’t want to get off on a tangent. Hiaasen has probably forgotten more about plotting mysteries than I will ever know, so whatever–”whatever” as in, whatever failings I imagine the book to have from a literary standpoint, it’s still entertaining and it also raises some thought-provoking questions.

The story is about some kids who try to save an owl habitat from some corporate developers. The thought-provoking questions are “how far should you go for a cause you believe in?” and “is it okay to break the law if your cause is just?” and “which is more important in making a moral decision, your mind or your heart?” These are questions I want PZ to ask herself and to discuss with me. This is part of why I want my kids to read, so they will think about issues that might not enter their brains otherwise. Also, so that they’ll leave me alone so I can read. But that’s less pertinent to my story here.

Moving right along, I realize that this scenario is going to recur with greater repercussions as PZ gets older and she’s asked by her teachers to read books that contain far more offensive material than that found in Hoot. Yes, PZ is bound to lighten up a bit as years go by, but I wouldn’t bank on her lightening up that much. I mean, sure, that would be my dream–lighten up, sweetie!–but I’ve known plenty of people with sensitive natures that never have lightened up. Not by high school, not by college, not by ladies’ auxiliary book club night. I tried to start a book club for my ladies’ auxiliary several years ago, and one of our (very few) members had definite concerns about whether or not the books we read would be “up to Gospel standards,” whatever that means. Well, I think I know what she meant by that, but how on earth do you answer that when your first selection is Fear of Flying? (Just kidding, we never read that–though how awesome would that have been? Hee hee hee.)

When I was high school age, I went to church with kids who felt caught between their moral values and their school’s required reading. They found books like The Catcher in the Rye and Brave New World offensive and morally objectionable, and they didn’t see why they should have to read them. Well, on the one hand, there is not a shortage of good books written in English over the last 200 years, and probably there are enough without “objectionable” material to fill a class syllabus. I sure won’t try to argue that point. However, it’s not that simple. It’s pretty easy to lead a full life and even pass yourself off as an educated person without having read The Catcher in the Rye. Probably you could skip Brave New World also. But you’d be missing a lot more than you would by skipping Hoot. Amongst the orgies and the general debauchery there are larger themes–and moral arguments–being articulated. (The irony is that it always behooves religious zealots to read anti-Utopian novels, but it’s hard to get the full benefit when you’re fixated on the naughty parts.)

Then there’s Huckleberry Finn. No one I went to school with ever objected to Huckleberry Finn on moral grounds–not that these kids loved the n-word or even appreciated good literature, but the n-word just wasn’t a big enough deal for them to protest. But there are other students, elsewhere, for whom the n-word is a big deal, much bigger and more offensive than the F-word. While I’m sure there are all kinds of high school graduates–some of them honors students, alas–who have never actually read Huckleberry Finn, I don’t think that’s a good thing. One could argue that by skipping Huckleberry Finn you are missing out on more than you would miss by skipping The Catcher in the Rye, Brave New World, Catch-22, and Bless Me, Ultima–but the real point is the same old story: you’re missing the larger themes, the moral lessons, because you can’t get past certain words or the exposition of certain events.

So don’t get me wrong–I don’t argue that students should always have to read every book on every public school reading list. I imagine there will be books my daughter is uncomfortable with that maybe I don’t think are so vital to her education. But I’m now hyper-conscious of how subjective this is. How much is too much to miss? Myself, I don’t like missing anything. But PZ has different sensibilities than I have. I want to be sensitive to that, but at the same time I want her to challenge herself. (Also, have you read the Bible lately? It’s filthy! I don’t want to put her off religion any more than I already have.) So while it’s much too early to stress out over, I have to blog about something, and here it is (or was–I guess it’s mostly over now). How do you decide what’s too “inappropriate” and what’s appropriate enough?

I’m in the market for a good novel.  And by “good” I don’t necessarily mean Man Booker Prize good.  I mean “will this entertain me and keep me off the streets?” good.  Generally, I like to alternate between deep, profound books and pure swill.  Occasionally I go for the in-between.  So please recommend a book that you enjoyed.  Not one that you think I will like, because you don’t know what I like.  I’ll read anything.  I’ll read epic stories about dysfunctional immigrant families, spanning seven generations, borrowing heavily from the work of Ezra Pound.  I’ll read about Satanist sorority sisters and their sadistic sexual exploits.  Truly, I have no standards when it comes to the written word.  It’s a character flaw I like to pass off as eccentric charm.

So go ahead, recommend a book to me.  If it sucks and I hate it, I won’t hold it against you.  My husband told me to read Lord of the Rings, and we’re still married.  Of course, I never finished Lord of the Rings.  I won’t finish your book, either, if I hate it that much, but you shouldn’t take it personally.  Feel free to tell yourself that I’m really busy and my mind is going, and I just can’t appreciate good literature like some people can. 

There’s no prize, per se, for recommending a book that I end up loving.  Just the joy of knowing that you’ve enriched my life. 

No matter what book you recommend, each time I see that book I will think of you and I will either say, “I will always be grateful to so-and-so for recommending that book to me” or “Thanks to so-and-so, that’s four hundred pages of my life I’ll never get back again.”  Either way, you will live forever in my memory.  Who among you can resist immortality of that order?

I thought as much.

In this post I’ll be reviewing three books:  Rhett Butler’s People by Donald McCaig, My Grandfather’s Son by Clarence Thomas and Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.  A novel, a memoir and a right-wing screed–who says there’s no variety here?  Not you, not after today, you don’t!

I’m not one of those folks who thought GWTW needed a sequel, but I’m just enough of a sucker to take one when it’s offered.  I read the first authorized (by Margaret Mitchell’s estate) sequel, Scarlett, and it was…ah, how do I put it…dumb?  It was dumb.  It might have been a good story if it had been about some other characters–but then again, the fact that it was about Scarlett O’Hara was probably its only point of real interest, so never mind. 

McCaig’s book is not really a sequel so much as “the other side of the story.”  It begins with Rhett Butler’s childhood, recounts the main events of GWTW from Rhett’s point of view, and then offers us a more satisfying resolution to the Greatest Love Story Ever Told®–assuming that you want a resolution to that story.  I think I appreciated McCaig’s writing style more than I did Alexandra Ripley’s; the book reads more like an epic than a romance, and it covers more undiscovered character-development territory by getting into Rhett Butler’s head and not so much into Scarlett’s. 

I thought the early chapters about Rhett’s family background and formative years were very engaging.  One might be tempted to roll one’s eyes at the extent to which Rhett Butler has been made more palatable for 21st-century consumption–but then again, it’s not entirely unbelievable.  He was a man ahead of his time in the original story.  So whatever.  Rehabilitate away, Mr. McCaig! 

What was disappointing was the way so many of the pivotal events in GWTW are just glossed over or alluded to without commentary.  This is not a story that stands on its own; it relies a little too much sometimes on your knowledge about the original story.  You have to buy into the Rhett-Scarlett relationship at the outset because McCaig’s development thereof consists of a few very well-written paragraphs and a whole lot of nothing in between.  There are times when one would really like to be inside Rhett Butler’s head, but instead we are inside some other random character’s head, and Rhett is just as much a mystery as he ever was.  To his credit, McCaig takes great pains not to rewrite Mitchell’s scenes, but I suspect that if he’d been writing about his own characters, there might have been a little more substance to certain portions of the story.

That said, I liked the ending quite a bit.  Believable and not stupid, just the way I like it.

Anyway, I didn’t watch the hearings or follow them too closely because it all seemed so freaking trivial.  Little did I know that seventeen years later I would be riveted by the Clarence Thomas story, as told in this delightful memoir! 

Okay, “delightful” may not be the most accurate term, but it is engaging nonetheless.  You’re going to think “engaging” is the only word I have for books I like, but let’s face it, it may be the only requirement that I have.  The first part of the book is devoted to Thomas’s formative years.  He was born to a single mother in rural Georgia during the Jim Crow era.  His first several years were spent in abject poverty.  Eventually his mother sent Thomas and his brother to live with her parents, who raised the two boys to adulthood.

I believe the book jacket describes the memoir as “candid and revealing,” and it is that.  Several times while reading, I thought, “Gee, he’s being awfully candid here.”  Thomas is not afraid to reveal unflattering facts about himself.  He talks about his financial problems, his disillusionment (and eventual reconciliation) with Catholicism, his struggle with alcoholism, and his failed marriage.  He also talks about his strained relationship with the man who raised him, but the overall theme of the book is that his strict upbringing and the simple values–hard work, responsibility, optimism–instilled in his childhood shaped him into the man he is today.

The last portion of the book gives a detailed account of the confirmation hearings following his nomination to the Supreme Court.  He’s still sore about that one, in case you were wondering.  Some other reviewers (like how I lump myself in with real reviewers?) have pointedly said that Thomas does not come off as bitter.  I’d say he doesn’t come off as bitter, exactly–but he clearly harbors a lingering outrage.  Of course, he denies all of Hill’s accusations, as he always has.  He had described it as a ”high-tech lynching,” a term which at the time seemed to me a little over-the-top.  But looking at it from Thomas’s point of view here, I get it.  I get his years of frustration with society telling him what he, as a black man, was supposed to be and how he was supposed to think.  However, he seems very much at peace with himself now.  And who wouldn’t be, with a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court?  What’s the Man gonna do now, fire him?

Anyway, you shouldn’t think you know Clarence Thomas until you read this book.  Obviously, if you don’t want to know him, you’re under no obligation.  But you might want to get your hands on a copy just so you can check out his wicked ‘fro from the 1970’s.  Word.

In his meticulously researched and documented book, Goldberg shows how fascism arose from the same intellectual wellspring as American progressivism, i.e. the Progressive movement at the turn of the century, and how contemporary American liberalism can trace its roots directly back to its fascist origins. 

Yes, it is offensive—but only if you consider “fascist” a dirty word.  Prior to World War II fascism was just the latest and greatest Progressive trend.  Progressivism pretty much monopolized Western politics, and Mussolini’s fascism was hailed as a bold and largely successful progressive experiment.  “Totalitarianism” did not originate as a boot-on-the-face concept; Mussolini coined to word to express the value of a coherent, fully-integrated society which transcends the boundaries of public and private.  From the fascist perspective there is no aspect of the citizen’s life in which the state is not properly involved.  The point of government is to create a utopia for its people; the government is granted extensive powers for the sake of the greater good.

Fascism has a deserved reputation for militarism, which is another reason it tends to be associated with the right-wing these days.  But in fascism militarism is a means to a socialist end; it is all about mobilization.  Militarism is organized, and it provides a framework in which citizens are willing to sacrifice a few personal freedoms for the greater national good.  Fascists are on a never-ending quest for what William James called the “moral equivalent of war”—a cause great enough to convince people to put aside their petty individualism and personal liberties for the sake of peace, prosperity and security.  Think of the War on Poverty.  And yes, also the War on Drugs. 

If there’s a more incendiary book cover out there than that of Liberal Fascism, I’m not sure what it would be.  But this smiley-face with the Hitler mustache is also brilliant—because believe it or not, Goldberg’s point is not that today’s progressives are evil crackpots pushing us down the slippery slope to concentration camps and other assorted horrors–on the contrary, this kinder, gentler fascism has become mainstream American politics as we know it–but unless we understand how fascism informs our current political climate, we will not know how to prevent excesses (much less be vigilant in doing so).  We are all fascists now, insofar as we embrace progressivism.  (Among Republicans, this is called “compassionate conservatism.”)  And it’s not necessarily an entirely bad thing—so long as we’re aware of it.  So we don’t, you know, go all 1984 like fascists are wont to do. 

The striking thing about fascism is that it does not claim to be revolutionary in the sense that communism does.  It aims to find a “middle way” or “third way,” between right and left, stressing national unity over political debate.  Unity is very important to fascism, for obvious reasons.  It seeks to “get beyond politics as usual” and get results that will make meaningful differences in people’s lives.  Sound familiar?  Take-home message:  if you’re going to be paranoid about fascism coming to America, keep your eyes on the mushy middle.  America is said to be deeply divided these days, and division can be frustrating and tiresome, but this book suggests (to me) that so long as we are divided, we are probably also free.  Put that in your Medicare Part D and smoke it. 

Other interesting-tidbits-a propos-of-nothing that can be gleaned from this book:  Mussolini thought Hitler was kind of a loser; Margaret Sanger hated abortion; and Jonah Goldberg shops at New Seasons market.  Who knew?

Technically, Banned Books Week was last month, but I’m still catching up here.  My house was on fire last month, for Pete’s sake.

This is the ALA’s list of the 100 Most Challenged Books of 1990-2000.  Click on the linkies to see the most challenged books of 2006 and the most challenged books of the twenty-first century (so far).  (Hat tip:  Ziff of Zelophehad’s Daughters.)  I decided to see how many of these infamous books I had read.  At the bottom I’ll paste the lists and bold the titles of those tomes I have graced with my reading pleasure (or something like that). 

BUT FIRST!!!  Some random notes because otherwise this is a pretty weak entry:

• The most challenged book of 2006 was And Tango Makes Three, which is apparently a children’s book about a couple of gay penguins who adopt a chick.  I don’t mean to be offensive, but doesn’t this sound like a joke?  If I wanted to make a joke about an offensive kids’ book, I’d definitely use penguins.  Penguins are just inherently funny.

• Some regulars on the Challenged Books List are missing this year.  Apparently there is enough gay penguin sex flying around out there that there is less time and energy left to get upset about the N-word in Huckleberry Finn.  Maybe that’s a good thing.

• The top three reasons for challenging material are 1) sexual explicitness, 2) offensive language and 3) unsuitability for age group.  You can see (below) that I haven’t read any of the books with the word “sex” in the title.  I have, however, read a lot of stuff that was unsuitable for my age group.

• The book that jumps out at me is Bridge to Terabithia.  I imagine that gets challenged for age-unsuitability, in the event that it is part of a grade-school curriculum.  I can’t imagine anyone would object to having it on a shelf in a grade school.  But then, I can’t quite wrap my head around the idea that it would be unsuitable for a grade-school curriculum.  If they’re old enough to read the words, they can probably handle what the words say.  But what do I know, my entire sex education consisted of about thirty pages in The Thorn Birds (totally unsuitable for a twelve-year-old, in case you were wondering).

• I read The Catcher in the Rye my senior year of high school.  It wasn’t part of the curriculum at my high school, but the ninth-graders at a neighboring high school had to read it, and parents were upset aplenty.  So, feeling left out of the controversy, I decided to pick up a copy.  I remember getting to the end and thinking, “Is that it?”  I mean, it’s a good book, but I was expecting something a lot more scandalous.  (Reminds me of that old Simpsons episode when Bart, Milhouse and Nelson walk out of the movie house where Naked Lunch is playing and Nelson says, “There were two things wrong with that title!”) 

• My mother thought Judy Blume was a scandal.  So did I, in the third grade, which is why I read her.  I actually read part of Forever in, like, seventh grade–but it was too gross.  (The Thorn Birds was better.)

• A taste of irony:  I was actually going to have Princess Zurg read Anastasia Krupnik because I remembered enjoying it so much at her age.  Then I glanced through it again and saw that it had the s*** word in it, and I changed my mind.  Mainly because PZ is such a prude.  Part of me is hoping she’ll outgrow that, but part of me isn’t.

• My mother told me that she tried to read Slaughterhouse 5 once, but she was so disgusted by it that she actually threw it in the garbage.  Not only did she throw it in the garbage, but she wrapped it in a plain brown wrapper before putting it in the garbage so that the garbage man wouldn’t know she was reading such a disgusting book.  This from a woman who regularly came home from the library with psycho-killer paperbacks, the kind with blood dripping off the titles.  Well, whatever.  When I finally read it, in my mother’s home no less, I had a similar reaction as with The Catcher in the Rye.  I didn’t get what all the fuss was over.

• Flannery O’Connor said that if you took out the rape, To Kill a Mockingbird would be a very fine children’s book.  Apparently she didn’t see what all the fuss was over, either.

• Brave New World was the only scandalous book I had to read at school.  A lot of the kids I went to seminary with objected to reading that book.  They thought it was really immoral.  In other words, they totally missed the point of the book (gee, Madhousewife, book snob much? snort)–which I guess is usually the case with books that are prone to being challenged.  With the possible exception of Where’s Waldo.

• I would never have guessed that Ordinary People would be causing such a stir so many years after its initial publication.  Where is this book being challenged?  Idaho?  (Not that Idaho is behind the times or anything…just wondering.  Yeah, I’m one to talk about “behind the times,” Miss Three Weeks Late for Banned Books Week.  Just get off my back, okay?)

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy’s Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It’s Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna (What the hell???)
20. Earth’s Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What’s Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where’s Waldo? by Martin Hanford (I’m glad someone’s trying to purge our school libraries of this book.  It’s a scourge on our educational system.)
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

So–31 out of 100.  I have indeed led a sheltered life.  What’s your purity score?

P.S.  Feel free to recommend a scandalous book of your own choosing.  No literary merit required!

For some reason only the ones column will show up on those numbers above.  WordPress is funny about the cutting and pasting.  Trust me, I do know how to count.

When Bridge to Terabithia came out a few months ago, Sugar Daddy wanted to take Princess Zurg and Mister Bubby to go see it.  (The Onion must have given it a thumbs up.)  I asked him if he’d ever read the book.  He hadn’t.  I hadn’t either, but I knew it had a major plot point that was usually described as “tragic.”  I didn’t think it was a good idea to take the kids until we knew what we were getting them into–especially Princess Zurg, who has a low tolerance for tragedy.  SD didn’t really share my view, but he humored me for about a week and then we compromised:  he and Mister Bubby went alone.  (Mister Bubby, after all, had already seen Revenge of the Sith–minus the parts he covered his eyes for–so what harm was a little tragedy going to do him?)  They both enjoyed the movie very much, and MB was not at all traumatized by the tragic parts.

Meanwhile, I read the book–which is beautiful, by the way.  (I’m from the school of thought that says you should read the book before you watch the movie.  My father is from the school of thought that says, “The book is always better than the movie, so why not see the movie first and save the best for last?”  SD is from the school of thought that says, “What difference does it make?”  Which is the main reason why our children almost always see the movie first.  The good news is that my children are usually still interested in reading the book, too.  They must get that from their grandfather.)  It’s a wonderful story, but after reading it I was really, really glad I talked SD out of taking PZ.  For those of you unfamiliar with the plot, let’s just say that an hour with a thesaurus could not yield a more appropriate term than “tragic.”  I  was traumatized, and I saw it coming a mile away.  I’m perversely fond of sad stories, but PZ, as I’ve already said, has no such perversion.  She is not only not fond of sad stories, but she hates, hates, hates sad stories.  She’s from the school of thought that says real life is sad enough–why would you need your entertainment to depress you further?

We’ve been through this before.  She knows that we dislike Disney’s version of The Little Mermaid because, frankly, they ruined it.  Three hours with a thesaurus could probably not provide me with enough words to convey how egregiously Disney bastardized that fairy tale.  Someone is going to hell for that one, if there’s any literary justice in the universe.  Anyway, I misspoke earlier when I said she knows we dislike it.  She knows that we hate it and that we refuse to buy it because it has that insipid happy ending instead of the original (and perfect-the-way-it-was) sad one.  No offense to us, but she thinks that’s screwy, and she doesn’t mind telling us.  (And telling us.  And telling us.)  Why would we like a sad story better than a happy story?  It makes no sense.  We’ve tried to explain it by telling her that the moral of a story is as important as the plot.  The original “Little Mermaid” teaches you that true love requires great sacrifice, that there’s nobility in such sacrifices, and that it is more important to do right than to be happy.  The Disney movie teaches you that if you disobey your father and run away from home, all your dreams will eventually come true.  (And what dubious excuses for dreams are these–having your body mutilated by black magic in order to please some man?  Hmph!  I digress.) 

So we’d been through it with The Little Mermaid.  We went through it with “The Little Tin Soldier.”  For a while we thought we’d gotten through with “The Little Tin Soldier.”  She was intrigued by the sad version of that story (as opposed to the triumphant swill on display in Fantasia 2000), and she seemed to enjoy reading the book well enough.  She didn’t freak out at Charlotte’s Web.  She certainly took the opening of Finding Nemo in stride.  Well, anyway, SD thought that, viewed in the right environment, under the right circumstances, with us there to talk to her about it afterwards, PZ could appreciate Bridge to Terabithia.  I figured he was probably right.  After all, she’s matured a lot in the last couple of years.  And it would be great if she learned to appreciate stories with sad elements and even sad endings, because otherwise she’d be missing out on a lot of great literature.  And as every English major knows, that would be the real tragedy.  (Of course, every English major knows you also don’t get children to appreciate literature by showing them the movie before you’ve made them read the book.  But why don’t you get off my back already?)

So last night we all watched Bridge to Terabithia (”we all” meaning SD, PZ, MB and I).  SD had informed PZ that there was a very sad part, but that the ending was happy.  We watched the movie.  PZ was enjoying it.  The tragic plot point happened.  PZ seemed okay.  //SPOILER ALERT:  If you haven’t read the book and don’t wish to have the tragedy revealed, you should not read the rest of this blog.  Maybe you should just go and read the book and come back later.//  Then the rest of the movie played out.  And the credits rolled.

And that’s when PZ burst into tears and was inconsolable for the next half hour or so. 

“You call THAT a happy ending???” she wailed. 

Yes, it was very, very sad, we told her.  We understood.  But as sad as that was, look at all the good things that came out of it.  You see how Jess took all of that sadness inside him and used it to create something beautiful?  Do you see how Leslie helped to make him a better friend, a better artist, a better brother, all those things?

“Yes, I know, I know, but–SO WHAT?!”

Ah, indeed.  So what?  She has a point.  Tragedy really does suck.

I must say, it was hard not to feel guilty with my nine-year-old bawling her eyes out and saying things like, “Why?  She was so young!  It’s so unfair!  I’m afraid I’ll never be happy again!  Go away!  I want to be by myself!” 

The good news is that SD was able to cheer her up with an encore screening of Bumbo Two on YouTube.

But all those things aside, SD still thinks it was a good idea to expand PZ’s appreciation of the arts.  After all, what is Bridge to Terabithia without the tragedy?  A book not worth making into a movie.  (Not that that would stop anyone, of course.)  As distressed as I was upon learning character-in-question’s fate, as much as I didn’t want it to happen, I knew that was what made the story significant and meaningful, as opposed to a series of mildly entertaining vignettes.  Not that there’s anything wrong with mildly entertaining vignettes (although I prefer enormously entertaining, personally).  PZ would have thought the story was perfectly lovely without the tragedy.  She really just doesn’t require superfluous conflict in her life, even of the fictional variety.  Perhaps it’s a question of maturity, but I don’t know.  Plenty of adults don’t like stories with sad endings and have no desire to immerse themselves in a fantasy world only to have their hearts ripped out and stomped on, regardless of how nice the moral is.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been on Amazon.com reading customer reviews, and in the middle all these four- and five-star reviews, there’s always a handful of one-star reviews that take the author to task for writing such a depressing book.  “It was a good story, but TOO SAD.”  “My husband recommended this book to me and when I finished reading it, I had to throw it at him.”  “DO NOT READ THIS BOOK UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE DEPRESSED.”  That kind of thing.  The uncharitable take on those reviews is that anyone who would give a book one star solely because she (sorry, but it’s almost never a he) felt sad after reading it is not much more mature than my nine-year-old.  But charitably speaking, it takes all kinds to make a world, and if you prefer happy endings to sad ones, so what?  Life’s too short not to read what you like (provided you’ve graduated from high school, of course).

And now, for extra credit, class:

What is the saddest book you’ve ever read?  The saddest good book?  The best sad book?  And most importantly, have you ever read a book that was so sad that you regretted reading it, or at least felt compelled to throw it at the person who told you to read it? 

Despite the fact that my family gave me a ton of wonderful books for Christmas, I have been in the mood to read pulp fiction instead.  I might be depressed.  I might be lazy.  I might just not be as interleckshul as I make out to be.  A couple weeks ago I read The Right Hand of Evil by John Saul.  I didn’t like it.  I have a hard time with these demon-possession books.  It might be my stubborn theology rearing its fuddy-duddy head, but what is there to find compelling about characters with no free will?  I especially don’t like it when a house is possessed, because who cares if a house is evil?  So long as you’re not living in it, I mean.

Last week I read Wives and Sisters by Natalie R. Collins.  Natalie R. Collins’ first book was Sister Wife, which was about Mormon polygamists.  I’ve never read that one.  Wives and Sisters is about Mormons but not polygamists.  It was okay.  I really liked the main character, and the story line was interesting, but the book is populated largely with Mormons who seem to be an unholy breed of characters from Deliverance and The Stepford Wives.  Maybe that’s how things are in Utah, but maybe that just shows that Utahns aren’t worth writing about.  I dunno.  Natalie Collins is a former Mormon living in Utah, so I defer to her expertise.  I only have to quibble with one part of the story that I found completely unrealistic.

Some kids are getting baptized at the church.  One kid starts yelling that he doesn’t want to get baptized and tries to run away.  His father forces him under the water as the bemused bishop looks on.  The kid is still yelling and screaming, so he swallows a bunch of water when he gets dunked, and when he comes back up, he vomits in the baptismal font.  It’s totally gross.  They pull the curtain around the font, the congregants occupy themselves with gossip and speculation, and ten minutes later they open the curtain and the font is filled with fresh water and everyone gets baptized per the original schedule. 

I’m sorry, but I’ve been a Mormon all my life, and something like this would never happen.  It would take WAY longer than ten minutes to drain, clean and refill a baptismal font.  Who is Natalie Collins trying to kid here?

Right now I am reading To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman, and it is very interesting, though not quite as pulpy as I was hoping for.  On the plus side, no one has gotten possessed by the devil thusfar. 

Thank you all for your Bible translation recommendations.  The results were so overwhelming that I’ve decided not to read the Bible after all.  Ha ha!  Well, I am rethinking reading the whole thing this year.  What I really want to do is read the Old Testament, because I know I haven’t read all of it, but then, I think most of what I haven’t read is in the Psalms, and the thought of reading all the Psalms just makes me…bleary-eyed.  Okay, so I’m bleary-eyed most of the time, anyway.  Let’s say it makes me less enthusiastic about the project.  All that poetry, you know.  So high-brow.

Gemaecca suggested the Skeptics’ Annotated Version of the Bible (somewhat facetiously, I assume, since an emoticon was present).  That actually intrigued me, initially, so I looked up the SAV, and eh, I was not that impressed.  I mean, I guess I’m enough of a skeptic already that I don’t really need someone to point out to me where the Bible contradicts itself or where I ought to be offended.  Also, its take on Isaiah was very superficial, which didn’t bode well for interesting reading.  It’s actually kind of sad that people go to the trouble of reading a really long book with the express purpose of not getting a single thing out of it.  I’m not talking about a spiritual revelation, just…well, anything.  I mean, that’s 2,000 pages of your life you’ll never get back again.

Gemaecca had a “(slightly)” more serious suggestion, which was to read the Upanishads or the Koran or “something by Dawkins.”  I assume that by “Dawkins,” she meant Richard Dawkins, the famous ethologist and evolutionary biologist.  I’ve actually read what I think is my share of Dawkins.  That is to say, I looked up which of his books I might want to read, and the one that appealed to me the most was The Blind Watchmaker, and then I realized that one of the reasons it may have appealed to me most was that I’ve already read it.  Hee. 

So that left me with the Upanishads or the Koran.  Or, shall we say, Qu’ran.  Which is it?  Who knows?  I decided to look at each text online, just to get an idea of what each was like, i.e. which would be more exciting, or perhaps, less boring.  First, I’d just like to say that the Bible may not be all that and a bag of chips, but you gotta hand it to the Jews–Genesis chapter one, verse one:  God creates the heavens and the earth.  And bang!  You’re off and running–there’s night, there’s day, there’s water and not water, there’s animals and humans and before you know it people are already killing each other.  It isn’t until somewhere in Exodus or Leviticus that things start to get tedious. 

These other holy books are less attention-grabbing.  The Upanishads was a little off-putting, with all the Om and the Om, but once I got a page or two in, I could see how one might find it thought-provoking.  The Qu’ran didn’t grab me at all.  I mean, it seemed like it would be interesting–part one:  The Cow, part sixteen:  The Bee–but I read part one, and it seemed to take forever to get to the cow part, and even then, I didn’t really get it.  I confess, I did not have the patience to read all of part one, but then, it’s difficult for me to do this kind of reading on a computer screen.  Maybe in real life it would be different.

But then, I understand that if the Qu’ran isn’t in Arabic, it isn’t the Qu’ran.  And I definitely don’t have the patience to learn Arabic this year. 

How important is it for me to know what’s in the Qu’ran?  Some say it’s very important, for the sake of understanding our “enemies,” i.e. Islamic terrorists.  I think I have the Islamic terrorists’ number, and I’m actually more interested in understanding nice Muslims, so there goes that argument.  On a side note, I didn’t (and don’t) give a flying falafel whether Keith Ellison took his swearing-in oath on the Qu’ran or on anything.  I tried to care, for Dennis Prager’s sake, but I just couldn’t.  I think that every so often Dennis gets kerfuffled over nothing.  But I digress.  Where was I?  Oh, the Qu’ran.  I can’t think of a compelling reason to read it just now.  (There is a Skeptics’ Annotated Version of it, as well as a Skeptics’ Annotated Version of the Book of Mormon, but if they can’t take Isaiah seriously, what will they do with the Cow?)

Not that I can think of a compelling reason to read the Upanishads, but if I decide to go with a holy book, I guess the Upanishads it is.  I will definitely need it annotated, though.  (Unfortunately, the Skeptics don’t have a version yet.  Maybe they couldn’t understand it either.)  It will be slow-going, I think, as it has one feature I find off-putting in any book:  words I don’t know how to pronounce and therefore can’t keep straight.

Perhaps I am still looking for suggestions of books that are not necessarily “life-changing,” but any book that influenced your thinking in some significant way.  That isn’t 2,000 pages and/or written in Arabic or some other language I don’t read.  Tall order?  I suppose.

Well, some of you.  I’m looking for a specific kind of bookworm, namely one who can recommend books for my eight-year-old, Princess Zurg.  She’s not easy to shop for.  She loves girly-girl stuff, but she doesn’t like stuff that’s too sad, and she’s way too young for those tween-angst novels marketed to the middle-school crowd.  (Since when are seventh- and eighth-graders “tweens,” anyway?)

She’s recently enjoyed Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White and All about Sam by Lois Lowry.  (I know Charlotte’s Web is sad, but she’d already seen the movie–Bad Mad!  Do you call yourself an English major?  You’re a disgrace!  You’re not fit to wear the uniform!–so she was prepared for the sadness.)  Anyway, I’m trying to give you a sense of her reading level as much as her taste.  I’m trying to get her to read more chapter books, but she likes books to have some illustrations because she gets overwhelmed by all the text.  I haven’t been able to interest her in Beverly Cleary.  I thought she might be interested in the Little House books, but they didn’t turn her on either.  (Reading them again myself, I confess I found them less thrilling than I remember.) 

Anyway, I find that I can hardly remember most of the books that I read at her age, probably because I just read too darn many of them.  I read everything.  The ones I liked and the ones I thought were only so-so all blend together in my mind.  Plus, my taste is not hers.  What is her taste?  I don’t know.  But if it involves fairies or magic or flushing things down the toilet, she’ll probably get on board.

I have officially created a new genre for juvenile lit:  The Fairy Who Got Flushed Down the Toilet, coming soon to a library near you.

Bottom line:  I’m out of ideas.  I was wondering if you had some.

So I heard there was a recent kerfuffle over President Bush “allegedly” reading Albert Camus’s The Stranger whilst on his vacation.  More accurately, I read a lot of opinion columns about how the President couldn’t possibly have read this book, and didn’t his aides realize how silly it was for him to claim that he had?  And everyone was all atitter and chuckling over the very idea and it was a whimsical snarkfest for the whole family.

I didn’t think it was so hard to believe that President Bush would have read The Stranger.  I mean, it’s short, and there aren’t that many big words in it.  I know the President is supposed to be a DumbGuy™, but the task in question is just not all that difficult.  Of course, there’s a difference between reading The Stranger and understanding The Stranger.  I figured that if people were incredulous, they must have questioned him about it–you know, one of those think-fast-who’s-the-prime-minister-of-Bangladesh type of press conferences–and he must have said something lame like, “Uhhhh…there’s this French guy, see, and uhhhh….well, the thing is, he kills this Arab, and it’s like…well, gosh, hell if I know what it was all about.  What is this, some kind of pop quiz?”  Then he said “nucular,” just to annoy them.  I searched for some actual news coverage to support this theory, but all I could find was fake interviews by snarky left-wing bloggers.  They looked kind of funny, but I didn’t have time to read them all because, you know, I have my own snarky right-wing blogging to do.

So I read The Stranger many, many moons ago–maybe 144 moons or so ago, since I think I was in college at the time.  Fortunately, it wasn’t for a class, because if someone had quizzed me on it, I might have said something like, “Um…French guy.  Doesn’t like his mom?  Goes swimming, makes love, kills an Arab, not necessarily in that order?  Oh, yeah, and the sun is really bright and it’s hot.  Very uncomfortable.  Ummm…yeah.” 

The Stranger didn’t really do it for me, in case you couldn’t tell.  And it wasn’t that I didn’t “get” Camus.  I think I got him about as well as the next reasonably intelligent person.  I just didn’t care for the story.  One of the snarky editorials I read this weekend said President Bush should have picked a different Camus book to pretend to have read, but I disagreed.  I think The Stranger is a fine Camus book to pretend to have read.  If the President had asked me to recommend a Camus book to actually read, though, I’d have steered him toward The Plague or The Fall.  Just because those are the ones I liked, and I feel like the President and I have a certain simpatico and all, so we’d probably have the same taste in existentialist novels, wouldn’t you think?

But since it had been so many years since I’d read The Stranger, it occurred to me that maybe I hadn’t ever given it a fair shake.  I was young at the time, and I hadn’t experienced much of the world.  Perhaps now that I was older I could appreciate it better. 

So yesterday I re-read The Stranger.  Didn’t take very long.  It’s short, and there aren’t many big words.  Part I is very much as I remembered, except it turns out that the narrator (the French guy) liked his mother just fine–he just wasn’t, you know, all worked up about her dying.  It was just so darn hot, you see, and the sun was bright and the whole funeral procession was just so tiresome.  He does go swimming, make love and kill an Arab, in exactly that order.  At this point my husband has quit reading in disgust because he thinks I’ve ruined the book for him, even though he had no intention of ever reading it himself.  You might also think I’ve ruined it, but you’re wrong because that’s not the end of the story.  There’s also Part II, which I guess didn’t stick with me the first time around because I was so bored to tears by Part I that it overshadowed the rest of my experience.  (You would think any narrative with both Arab-killing and lovemaking, not to mention swimming, would be reasonably exciting, but that’s where you’d be wrong.  I heard it’s better in the original French, but I don’t understand French, so that didn’t help me.) 

Anyway, Part II is the interesting part of the book.  Sure, it’s “philosophical” and junk, but it’s not that hard to grasp.  I think even a DumbGuy™ could get the flavor of it, if he really applied himself.  And I don’t think the President is dumb, so to me it’s perfectly plausible that he’s both read The Stranger and that he understood it just fine, and if he chooses to quote Camus out of context, well, that’s just what Presidents do.

Then again, I never believed that Dan Quayle was Stoopid™.  My father has a Ph.D. in organic chemistry, but I’m not sure he could spell potato either, and he’s from Idaho. 

And now for the fun part.  Tell me about the books you’ve pretended to to have read.

For this entry you should picture me in a smoking jacket, sitting in a plush armchair and wielding a phony British accent.

A Jealous God:  Science’s Crusade against Religion by Pamela R. Winnick

This is the sort book I would not ordinarily pick up, let alone read.  I’m a religiously observant person, but I’ve never considered science antithetical to or hostile toward religion.  My father is a scientist.  I married a scientist.  So I’ve had the opportunity to know many scientists, and of the scientists I’ve known, most have been religious.  So the sub-title of this book would have seemed to me incendiary and a touch over the top.  I read it because I heard an interview with the author, who is not herself a religious person, and I was intrigued.  It’s a fascinating book about how an anti-religious sensibility has stifled ethical debate within the scientific community and on public policy.  The chapters on evolution are interesting, but far more disturbing are the chapters on abortion and stem-cell research.  Winnick harps a little too much on the eugenics movement, I think, but some of the anecdotal evidence on fetal and embryonic research is astonishing and creepy.  Journalistic exposes should always be taken with a grain of salt, in my opinion–it’s so easy to complicated issues and circumstances look worse than they are–but she makes several legitimate points.  I wish other people would read the book so I could find out what they think.  Yes, that is a hint.

Character Is Destiny:  Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember by John McCain with Mark Salter

This is a Profiles In Courage-type book, and it’s fantastic for two reasons.  The first is that the stories are really cool.  The second is that it doesn’t make out any of the profiled individuals out to be saints.  It acknowledges their flaws and less-honorable actions (where applicable), but focuses on how each person exemplifies a single character trait worthy of emulation.  A diversity of people are represented:  Abraham Lincoln, Tecumseh, Victor Frankl, Charles Darwin, a Christian guard at the North Vietnamese camp where McCain was a POW, and many more.  I enjoyed reading it, but will probably wait to introduce it to my kids until they’re a tad older.  It’s appropriate for ages ten (maybe younger, if your child is a mature reader) and up.

Happiness Is a Serious Problem:  A Human Nature Repair Manual by Dennis Prager

This is a quick, provocative read.  Prager’s premise is that everyone has the moral obligation to be happy.  Some people are naturally more cheerful than others, but even the naturally grumpy have the capacity to be happier than they are.  The deed shapes the heart more than the heart shapes the deed.  I totally believe that, so I was a sucker for this book.  The first half covers common obstacles to happiness, and the second covers ways to increase happiness in life.  Non-religious readers will probably take issue with a couple of his points about religion’s part in happiness, but overall I think this is a valuable book for both religious and secular thinkers.

Manhunt:  The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer by James L. Swanson

Most of you know how this story ends, so if you’re like my husband and don’t like your plot twists spoiled, don’t bother reading this book.  (Sorry, honey.  You know I’m still feeling guilty for ruining that other true story for you.)  The rest of you should enjoy it, especially if you’re interested in history.  For want of a more clever phrase, it makes the history come alive.  Oh, yes, it does.

A Code of Jewish Ethics: Volume I:  You Shall Be Holy by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin

So I’m not Jewish.  You got me there.  But Judaism is the faith tradition that appeals to me most intellectually.  It’s a good thing I can’t seem to give up on Jesus, though, because if I had to stop eating cheeseburgers, I would be really sad.  But that’s neither here nor there.  This book is thick.  It’s really like an encyclopedia of Jewish ethics.  And yet I read it straight through because I am just that much of a philosophy geek.  Maybe I secretly want to be Jewish.  Maybe it’s not a secret.  Whatever the case, if you are interested in moral philosophy, want to understand how Jewish thought has shaped Western Civilization, or think you could stand some help in the ethics department, this is a useful book–and far more readable than an ordinary encyclopedia.  For one thing, it’s chock full of anecdotes.  I love anecdotes.  It’s also interesting to note where Jewish ethics differ from Christian ethics, in subtle yet significant ways.

America: The Last Best Hope (Volume I):  From the Age of Discovery to a World at War by William J. Bennett

My husband will testify that I could not put this book down.  It nearly ruined our marriage.  (From his perspective, anyway.  He actually hid it from me at one point, which I thought was more detrimental to the marriage than the other, but I guess that’s all moot now.)  I even enjoyed the dull parts.  (Like Chester Arthur’s presidency–who knew there was anything remotely interesting there?)  Obviously, Bennett is pro-America, but he doesn’t gloss over or excuse the shameful aspects of America’s past.  He does put them in perspective, without mitigating the evil thereof, in my opinion.  But then, I’m pro-America, too.  Don’t let the British accent fool you.  While reading this book, I was particularly struck by how young this country is and how much has been achieved in such a short time.  After reading this and Manhunt, I am also in a bit of mourning over Lincoln’s death.  It staggers the mind to think of the course the country might have taken with his continued leadership.

And now I shall read a novel.  Gentle readers, adieu.

Newt Gingrich on NPR's "This I Believe":

"I believe that the world is inherently a very dangerous place, and that things that are now very good can go bad very quickly."

Wow.  Can someone say "nattering nabob of negativity"?  That's why this cat will never be President.  What a bummer, dude!

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Has anyone else noticed that Band-Aid has started using some adhesive that sticks like Krazy Glue to every surface but skin?  Whenever one of these bandages comes off my kid, it becomes a permanent part of the decor.  Though I suppose if it stuck to skin the way it sticks to linoleum, I'd have to take my child for some outpatient surgery every time a boo-boo healed. 

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For some reason Mister Bubby has taken to calling me "Mimi."

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We had a birthday party for MB's Kenzie doll last night.  MB says we need to have another birthday party for his clone trooper night after next.  Princess Zurg said, "But didn't we just have a birthday party for Clone?"  I then had to explain that clones have an accelerated growth rate and therefore have birthdays more often than the rest of us.  Then I thought, "What the freak did I just say?"

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Princess Zurg's new hip phrase:  "That's so glam!"

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The Best Mouse Cookie by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond, as read by Giraffemom and Elvis

Elvis:  I want Mouse Cookie!  Mouse Cookie!

Giraffemom:  Okay!  Mouse Cookie.  "The Best Mouse Cookie.  Mouse has everything he needs to make cookies.  He adds flour, salt, and a little music."

E:  What's dat?

GM:  That's sugar.

E:  Dat's SALT!

GM:  OKAY, that's salt.

E:  DAT'S sugar.

GM:  Of course.

E:  What's he saying?

GM:  He's singing.  He's adding music.

E:  He singing "Nevah-ending Stowy."

GM:  Ah.  Sure looks like it, eh?

E:  Turn da page.

GM:  "Mouse thinks baking is easy…sometimes.  The bigger the drop the louder the plop.  Now Mouse needs a little rest.  He makes himself comfortable…a little too comfortable!  Oh, well, Mouse doesn't mind starting over."

E (grabbing frantically at the page):  I gonna get dose cookies!

GM:  Are you going to eat them?

E:  No eat dem.  Dey GWOSS!

GM:  Yes, they're all burnt.  Let's turn the page.  "There's no such thing as too many cookies.  But the best cookie is the one you share with a friend.  Just ask Mouse."

E:  He ate ALL da cookies.

GM:  Yes.

E:  Dose good cookies.

GM:  Yes.

E:  He so tired.  He go to sleep.

GM:  Good idea.

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It's 70 degrees here in
Portland.  August is finally back to normal!  Woo-hoo!

Saturday

We went to the Big Satan's Annual Company Picnic, which had a pirate theme this year.  This pleased Mister Bubby, who's a little obsessed with pirates right now, and it also pleased Princess Zurg, who for some reason has become obsessed with the Iago character from Aladdin, and since where there are pirates, there are parrots, there were many Iagos present for her enjoyment.  (PZ's new joke:  "What's Iago's favorite kind of cheese?  Asiago!")  And it pleased Elvis, because Elvis is easily pleased.  It also gave Sugar Daddy the opportunity to re-tell his favorite pirate joke.  ("If you're a pirate, why is there a steering wheel in your pants?"  "Arrr!  It's driving me nuts!") 

I spent about half the time we were there either standing in line for the bathroom (four showers, two changing stalls, one working toilet) or the pony rides (four ponies, 437 pony-loving children).  The other half I spent thinking, "It is so effing hot I'm going to die if I don't find some shade.  I need shade!  I'm a native Oregonian, I don't do sunshine!"  Anyway, there were a lot of those blow-up bouncy play structure thingies–what do you call those, they're inflatable, kids climb in and jump up and down–okay, it's not coming to me.  Anyway, there were a lot of those.  Also a rock-climbing wall and one of those rings where you can put on these foam Sumo wrestler suits and fight like idiots.  I was disappointed that they didn't have the Velcro Wall this year, but SD made me promise that next year, when I was no longer pregnant, I would put on the gigantic foam boxing gloves and let him kick the crap out of me.  Or something like that.

There was also a DJ, who played a variety of music, including, at one point, portions of a live album by Donna Summer–very festive.  During one trek to the bathroom, PZ asked me, "Why does this song keep singing 'Bad Girls'?" 

"Because they're talkin' 'bout bad, bad girls."

"How bad?  Really bad?"

"Pretty bad." 

"Like girls who tease?"

"You might say that."

Toot-toot!  Hey!  Beep-beep!

The food was only so-so.

Sunday

The children were extraordinarily well-behaved in church yesterday.  During Sunday School the adults had a lesson about marriage.  Three couples spoke–one newlywed, another married 21 years, and the third married 38 years.  One wife (married 21 years) said that people often make the comment that she and her husband never fight.  "It isn't that we never disagree," she said, "but it just isn't worth getting into an argument over all these little things."

SD turned to me and muttered, "That sounds stupid, like something you'd say."  And then we couldn't stop giggling.

There's a reason why no one asks us to teach Sunday School.

SD finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Sunday evening.  I asked him what he thought, and he said, "Eh, I just wish Hermione and Ron would get it on already."

"I know what you mean."

"But the sex scene with Ginny Weasley was a little over the top."

"Those things usually are."

We're hoping for something a little more tasteful in Book 7.

 Today was a pretty good day because I spent much of it away from home–or more specifically, away from my children.  Ordinarily I think Sugar Daddy being out of town is not such a big deal–I mean, how much is he around anyway?  But 192 hours straight of just me and the little bundles of joy has taken its toll.  I could feel it yesterday–knowing that SD would not be returning for at least another 36 hours, I really couldn't face another full day of full-time parenting.  Because the more I'm with them, the more I'm convinced that I'm the worst mother who ever lived.  Those ladies who say working at an outside job makes them better mothers are speaking the gospel truth.  I think just about any woman would be a better mother if she spent less time with her kids.  Some people run marathons and finish with a respectable rank.  The rest of us just focus on finishing.  With frequent stops to catch our breath and clutch at our aching sides.  Wondering if someone will notice us and we'll end up as some inspirational story in Chicken Soup for the Underachiever's Soul. 

Anyway, I'm not a mystical type of person, but I got this strong impression that I needed to go to the temple.  At first I thought, well, okay, that's cool, SD will be home Thursday and we can get a sitter and go out this weekend–then my impression interrupted and said, "No, Mad, you're not getting it–you need to go by yourself and you need to go tomorrow, so get on the stick."  So I did, and I arranged to leave the kids with a long-suffering friend while I spent four hours by myself doing something I couldn't possibly feel guilty about.  (Except that I almost fell asleep a couple times during the temple session, but I feel confident that I can be forgiven for that.)  It was just so blissful to be someplace still.  If I'd been a little more ambitious and a little less exhausted, I might have been able to meditate or something, but instead I settled for drowning myself in peace and quiet.  It was hard to leave, and not just because those chairs in the Celestial Room are so comfy.  I really should do this more often. 

A miracle occurred recently–well, several miracles, actually.  We had a playdate at the park yesterday and were only 20 minutes late instead of 45 minutes.  In fact, we actually got there before our dates did.  This never happens.  Also, I said I'd drop my kids off at 9:30 this morning, and I was there at 9:35.  I don't think I can impress upon you how triumphant I felt.  Almost as triumphant as I did last Saturday when I returned all of my library books on time and had actually read all of them.  Usually when I go to the library I check out lots of books because I don't know when I'll have the chance to go back again.  I usually pick a mix of trash books and respectable books and end up reading the trash and not quite getting to the smart, cultured stuff.  Which makes me feel like such a fraud.  Then I shrug and say, Oh, well, I am a fraud, at least I'm self-aware.  That's my rationalization for all kinds of demerits, in case you were wondering.  It would be terrible if I had all these character flaws but was persevering in complete ignorance.  I think.

But anyway, my successful reading of all library books inspired me to read all these books I've bought and never managed to read, so I've neglected the house terribly and entertained myself rather well over the last fortnight or so.  Here's what I read:

Just Desserts by Patti Massman–This was my trash book for this go-round because as a general rule I like novels about fat ladies who get revenge.  I don't know why because I'm not really a fat lady myself.  Not yet, anyway.  Heh.  Okay, where was I?  Oh, yes.  This is probably the worst book I have ever finished reading.  Not that I didn't enjoy it on some level (why else would I have finished it?), but it really was just terribly written.  Atrocious, really.  I mean, I've read some books that were not as well-written as they probably should have been, but this one actually made me think every few pages, "This is crap.  I mean, it's really crap."  I felt stupider afterward.  Not recommended.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson–I've always been very fond of Shirley Jackson, and I'm not sure I can explain exactly why, except that I find her existence inspiring.  She was a housewife who wrote books–how cool is that, eh?  And her stories are about stuff that seems innocuous on the surface but is really quite sinister.  Anyway, I'd never read this novel, which reads a lot like a M. Night Shyamalan movie, in which you start out knowing there's something fishy going on but don't know quite what it is; eventually you figure out what it is, but you keep reading to find out what happens.  Old-fashioned and good.

Red Water by Judith Freeman–This book is narrated by three wives of John D. Lee, early Mormon settler and mass murderer.  The writing is lovely, and I was fascinated by the first half of the book, narrated by Emma, his English bride.  Her voice is very engaging.  The other wives are kind of a drag.  Unfortunately, you have to read their stories to get some sense of completion, even if it's less than thrilling.  So the book sort of fizzled out for me, but hey, I read it and I didn't feel stupid afterward.  That was a bonus.

The Giant's House by Elizabeth McCracken–An unlikely romance between a cynical librarian and the tallest boy in the world.  I hate to use the word poignant, but I will because it's late and I'm not a friggin' thesaurus.  Wry and poignant.  Very enjoyable.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd–I really enjoyed this book while I was reading it, and I don't know if my sense of disappointment at the end was really just disappointment because I was finished reading something I was enjoying.  I remember coming to the end of Janet Fitch's White Oleander and thinking, "That was like a well-written, R-rated After-School Special."  The Secret Life of Bees is not like that.  I think I will end up reading it again someday. 

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro–SD introduced me to Ishiguro when first we were wed, and I've since read all of his novels, all of which are fantastic, but I think this may be my favorite, next to Remains of the Day.  It broke my heart.

In other news, I did get the pilot light on my hot-water heater re-lit, so I am showering again.  Which is almost always a good thing.

Anothermad tagged me, so I must respond: 

1.  Total number of books I own?

I don't know.  Hundreds.  Probably not quite a thousand.  Too many.  Too many.  Most of them are in boxes right now.  We need new bookcases.

2.  The last book I bought?

I bought three right before my vacation:  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, Blind Alley by Iris Johansen, and Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles.

3.  The last book I read?  

Did I read any of those books on my plane ride?  Of course not!  On the eastbound flight I read the book Sugar Daddy gave me for my birthday, The Jane Austen Book Club.  On the westbound flight I read the book my Front Royal friend bought for me,

Mystic
River, I started to read Blind Alley, which was a fine diversion on a plane ride, when I had nothing better to do, but since hitting the ground, I have been strangely uncompelled to finish it.  It reads kind of like an episode of the X-Files, but without the smoldering sexual tension between Mulder and Scully, eh, who cares?

4.  Five books that mean a lot to me: 

Little Women, Louisa May Alcott  I've read this book approximately 47 times.  I think that's a realistic estimate.  I think I probably love it because I relate so well to Jo, but every time I read it I pray that it will end differently.  It never does.  Books are funny that way.

Life of Pi, Yann Martel  I heart this book.  Heart heart heart it.

The Power and the Glory, Graham Greene  Politics and religion, together where they belong (in fiction).

Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor  This feels a little like cheating, but technically it is a book, so it's okay.  Flannery O'Connor is my idol.

The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand  I first read this book in high school, and I couldn't put it down.  Well, I could, but I didn't want to.  It's the fastest 700 pages I've ever read.  Although I consider
Rand's philosophy totally immoral at its core, I have to admit that she's a brilliant, fascinating psycho.  (And my inner libertarian has to admire her eloquent defense of capitalism, even though the philosophical path she takes is not exactly my own.)  I like this book better than Atlas Shrugged because it has a better ending.  Also, the obligatory treatise on Objectivism is only 40 pages long instead of 65. 

So I've read three of the five library books that have to be returned by Nov. 16.  Actually, I've only read two and a half.  Someone To Hold, which I had not planned on reading at all, turned out to be an LDS romance novel.  When I discovered this, I thought, crap, this has got to be bad enough to hold some entertainment value.  But I was wrong.  What should one expect from a hybrid of the two most nauseating genres out there?  Someone has to fall in love, and someone has to convert.  I gave up on the plot about 40 pages in and just flipped through to the end.  (They fell in love and some strangers they met during the aftermath of 9/11 got converted.)  I admit that I felt a little dirty afterward.  Had to pick up some Sartre to cleanse the palate.  Just kidding.  I probably read that brochure the Jehovah's Witnesses left me the week before.&n