Watchers, and the watched...:Naomi

I have sometimes been accused of being a book snob.  I would like to protest that that is only mostly true.  I do not insist on “highbrow” reading.  I do not read only Shakespeare, and theory, and dry textbooks.  I AM FUN, DAMMIT.  In fact, I dislike theory quite a lot (the theory-head is Hermia, weird little freak that she is).  And I do love Shakespeare, but I love him for his ridiculous plots and his bawdy jokes as much as for his poetry and his polish. 

But, lest I protest too much (Hamlet joke: nudge, nudge, wink, wink), let me continue.  I like all kinds of books.  I read horror, sci fi, fantasy, mysteries, even some non-fiction.  I have very few rules, but here they are:

1) The book must be well-written.  If the plot is good, I can forgive substandard prose, but if the plot and the prose are poor, I get cranky.

2) If the book has a genre precedent, it must be acknowledged, even if it’s then rejected.  For example, I think Twilight is awful.  Both because it violates Rule #1, and because it never adequately explains why Myers’ vampires don’t fit the vampire prototype.  Now don’t get me wrong, Gentle Readers.  Not all vampires need to be Dracula-esque.  Some of my favorite vampires are totally different types.  But the good books acknowledge the previous stereotypes, explain the unique twist given, and extrapolate from there.  A good book is aware of its place in literary history, even if the book only aspires to be a pot-boiler.  

3) If I am going to cry, I like to be warned.  I don’t need to know what horrible thing will happen, but I like to know that I need tissues.  And usually I like to read crying-books while wearing my contacts, so my glasses don’t get all foggy.  (So I’m a neat-freak.  So what?)

That’s pretty much it.  I will read just about anything.  So I find it amusing to be called a book snob.  Frankly, I’m a bit more of a book whore.  I’m rather indiscriminate with my favors, and I will do it anywhere.  *ahem*  Moving on…

This whole conversation (Monologue? Rant?) is preamble to one of my favorite books.  It’s a Dean Koontz thriller.  Dean-o usually falls into the grey area described in Rule #1 above.  His plots usually get me through the rough prose patches, but I have to read him sparingly.  He is, however, a fantastic airplane read.

But one of the “Masters of Modern Horror” owns, and loves, golden retrievers.  (awwwww.)  His golden retriever Trixie even wrote a few books before she passed away.  See her webpage here: http://www.deankoontz.com/trixie-about/   Yeah, yeah, yeah…corny.  I know.  Koontz’s A Big Little Life is still worth reading for all dog lovers, though (bring tissues). 

***

So, back to…Watchers.

There are two books being written here.  One is a dog book.  If you don’t like dogs, firstly you won’t care for this book.  Secondly, why are we friends, Gentle Reader?  I mean, really.  What do we have in common?  Anyway, the other book is a science fiction genetic-mutation-runs-amok story, which is one of my favorite sub-genres. The great thing about Watchers is that these two halves feel organic.  And not in a genetic-mutation sort of way. 

Amoral scientists who have been tempted by power, money, and fame have come together somewhere in California to make super-genetic-hybrid-spy-soldier (SGHSS) things.  Then, as these things tend to do, the SGHSSes get loose.  There are, of course, two of them.  The good one, who looks like a golden retriever, and the bad one, who eats people’s faces and looks like hellspawn.  The bad one is jealous of the good one (sibling rivalry with fangs), and hunts it.  It does eat people’s faces along the way: Jekyll & Hyde, with fur. 

But the good SGHSS adopts a person.  And since it is, physically, a dog, the SGHSS cannot speak.  Which is where the book gets really fun.  Our friend Dean writes dog behavior beautifully.  Anyone who has ever been owned by a dog knows that his or her dog is obviously super-smart.  Smarter than most people.  Certainly smarter than I am.  This SGHSS dog is the apex of my-dog-is-amazingly-smart.  Because, you know, it is.  Genetically modified and all.  There is some seriously good dog-owner wish-fulfillment going on in this book.  Plus, you know, faces being eaten.  And chase scenes. 

Some of the book is silly.  There’s a girl-being-stalked subplot that is just shoved in there, but serves to get the romantic leads together.  Frankly, it’s superfluous.  Some of the plotting needs a nudge, and it is not beautifully written.  BUT THE DOG HAS A PEOPLE-BRAIN.  So it all works out. 

It's pretty tightly-plotted, and the faint of heart ought not to read it alone in the dark.  Read it amongst friends, in a brightly-lit coffee shop in the middle of a sunny afternoon.  You'll still bite your nails. 

And yes, it made me cry.  By the end I even cried for the bad SGHSS.  It is not his fault, after all, that the amoral scientists made him “wrong.”  And he’s still a puppy.  In spite of the face-eating. 

Here is the B&N link, but you can find it cheaply on any book site.  It was, after all, first published in 1987.  My paperback is beat all to hell, and I am actually considering finding a hardback edition that I don't have to hold together with rubber bands and spit.  Or you could vist your local library, otherwise known as my happy place.  

[NOTA BENE: Koontz also wrote The Darkest Evening of the Year, another book with golden retrievers.  It’s a total waste of time.]

BOOM. Love: Naomi

Have you ever fallen in love with someone’s bookshelves?

In the world of Book Geeks, Gentle Readers, bookshelves are very important.  When I enter your house, I will socialize.  I will small-talk.  But eventually you will leave to room to freshen your drink, or check on dinner, or powder your nose.  And I will find your bookshelves. 

And I will judge you.

It’s not pretty, but it’s true.  I will peruse your books, and I will make vast, sweeping generalizations about what sort of person you are.  Do your books all match, as though you bought them for décor alone?  Are your shelves full of self-help books and dieting tomes?  Do you own Twilight?  Judgment is swift and merciless. 

Then there are those moments when I realize that I am in the home of a fellow Book Geek.  Books are well-loved (read: beat to shit), with receipts and business cards acting as bookmarks.  If it’s the bookshelf of a teacher or a grad student, there might be multiple copies of one text, as though the owner can’t bear to lose one footnote of one edition.  Spines are cracked, perhaps a paperback is held together with a rubber band, dustcovers are tattered.  These books are loved.  The funny thing is, I don’t even have to like your taste in books to recognize a kindred spirit.  I can respect you as a Book Geek even if you are an 18^th-centuriest.  Or (gasp) an Americanist.

The very, very best moments are those when I recognize that you are a kindred spirit, a soul-twin.  Every book on the shelf is one I own…or one I’ve wanted to read.  At those moments, my heart swells and I get giddy.  You will return from your momentary absence and find me grinning like a fool, dancing on the balls of my feet, eager to ask you where you got this book or what you thought of that one.  I have accepted you into my bosom and even if you object, you are now my friend.  

This whole post began because I was thinking of an ex-boyfriend, and how our first dates were perfectly lovely, but I truly and deeply fell in love with him when I saw his bookshelves.  The collection was small, but well-curated.  A few beat-up Shakespeare plays, an as-yet unread Watchmen, a Donald Barthelme or two, Octavia Butler, Italo Calvino.  And then I saw it.  Lorrie Moore.

Lorrie Moore is a genius writer who has a wicked sense of humor and a wry way of seeing the world.  Her short stories are polished moonstones, easy to overlook in their deceptive simplicity, but rich with hidden colors and facets of light.  And then she smacks you over the head with a two-by-four of a line like “it came out wrong, like a lizard with a little hat on.”

BOOM

love

As this boyfriend is an ex-, Gentle Readers, you know we are no longer together.  He is now a writer himself, and will publish a book later this year (see link below).  I am insanely excited for him, and I will buy his book and I will urge everyone I know to buy it.  But sometimes it still bugs me that another woman is running her fingers across his bookshelf.  Such are the perils of love-by-literature.

Herein please find a link to said ex-boyfriend's book, available for pre-order.  (Anonymity is hereby temporarily suspended for purposes of supporting talented young author):

 ***

Also, Lorrie Moore's "You're Ugly, Too" 

[NOTA BENE: Ann Fadiman’s Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader has a brilliant chapter on combining libraries.  When two Book Geeks marry, whose dog-eared copy of House of Leaves do you keep?  Whose marginalia is more important?  Her recounting of the negotiations is wonderful, and very, very funny.  Read the below excerpt, Gentle Readers, and get hooked!] 

 http://www.worldcat.org/wcpa/servlet/DCARead?standardNo=0374527229&standardNoType=1&excerpt=true

Hagiograffiti: Naomi

The other night, I used the word “hagiography” in a sentence, and everyone looked at me as if I had sprouted an extra head.  Apparently, knowing that a hagiography is a book of saints’ lives is not common knowledge.  Who knew?  My mother, whom I adore, misheard me, and asked what on earth hagiograffiti meant. 

Ever since, I have had these delightful mental images of the possibilities.  Puns like Saint Lucy is watching adorning dilapidated buildings (Lucy’s eyes were cut out).  Saint Juliana’s dragon stylized on an overpass.  Saint Agatha against breast cancer tagged on a subway car (Dear Aggie had her ta-tas cut off). If Andre the Giant’s face can become a street-art phenom, I don’t see why we can’t class up the joint a little with some hagiograffiti. 

And in the roundabout, scattershot way that my brain functions, I began to consider the merits of hagiography haiku.  I think I started playing with the sound of hagiography, and it became haiku-ography, but the “hagio” stayed in there…but I can’t swear to it.  I’ve tried to retrace my mental steps; I got lost.  Newly fascinated with the idea of hagiographical haiku, I did a web search which yielded this gem, from The Diary of a Wimpy Catholic (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/diaryofawimpycatholic/2011/08/haiku-to-the-saints/):

To Francis de Sales

Of all Saints Francis,
You’re by far the most obscure.
Does that piss you off?

And I discovered a new game!  In honor of my alma mater, Old St. Lawrence:

St. Lawrence, grilling,

Lightly tells his tormenters

“Turn me over, fool!”

This could keep me entertained for days.  And no, I’m not even Catholic.  I just have a ridiculous vocabulary and a love for word games.  Anybody else want to play?

Laugher -Hermia

It is apparently a habit of mine that I do not belly laugh often. I'll giggle, smile big and do the silent shoulder raise, or (perhaps the most annoying) sweetly say, "How funny!" thus implying that whatever I'm meant to be laughing at isn't funny at all. Southerners are the EPITOME of passive-aggressive bitchiness. 

Because I'm a twelve year old boy (Figuratively not literally), the only thing that really makes me belly laugh is physical humor. Turn on America's Funniest Home Videos, wait 'til someone falls down, and watch me slowly suffocate myself by laughing until I cry. 

Generally, I do not read books that could be considered "funny." Dark, yes. Twisty for sure. Confusing, smart, literary, etc. These are adjectives which I love. Funny, though? It's rare. I'm funny enough without help. 

Naomi gave me a book called Let's Pretend This Never Happened (A Mostly True Memoir) a long time ago. I avoided it. Why, you might ask? Generally I'll read anything anyone hands me, but especially Naomi....but this had a taxidermied (GR, GOOGLE, It's a word...get over it!) mouse on the cover. I suppose I should back up. 

 The author of Let's Pretend is Jenny Lawson. She is a Texan (LIKE ME), she is socially awkward (LIKE ME) and she is funny as all get out (LIKE ME). Therefore, I am in love with her and want to be her best friend. She doesn't have much of a choice in the matter. 

The book is about her life in Texas, and boy oh boy did it resonate. I laughed, readers. I laughed so hard that I couldn't breathe and people were concerned for my health (mental and physical). I laughed so hard that other people laughed with me nervously, just in case I was laughing at them. I cried while attempting to explain and read out loud. This book is responsible for any abdominal muscles I currently have. 

My favorite parts included a squirrel puppet, cow artificial insemination, discussion of Hill Country scorpions and other wildlife, random conversations at parties and just other general awesomeness. I have a feeling if I wrote a book (Instead of just reading them), it would sound suspiciously like this and I might get sued. 

I don't think this is a book that will only be funny if you're from Texas. My laughter was knowing laughter.  [HAHAHAHA, chupacabras...] If you're not from Texas, it will probably be a mixture of nervous laughter (when she discusses taxidermy and gun cabinets) and laughter at us. I'm okay with that.  

Honestly, it's just  good to know that one misfit is making it in Texas. You go, Jenny. Good for you, girl. 

Her blog: http://thebloggess.com/

Awesome, random podcast I found with Jenny, WILL WHEATON, PATRICK ROTHFUSS, and John Scalzi. Geek with me. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=dFO50chkSDg

On the List: Naomi

If you love books like crazy, and if you adore libraries, you probably understand that restricted libraries are like speakeasies for geeks.  Regular libraries are cool.  Anyone can enter, borrow a book, and share ideas.  Amazing! 

But restricted libraries are full of books that just some people can read.  Now, Gentle Readers, I do not believe that knowledge should be restricted to the few.  I think that the trend of digitizing manuscripts is fantastic.  Anyone from anywhere can now see texts that were previously only available to certain scholars.  Huzzah for dissemination of the written word!   

But being able to enter a restricted library and look at special copies of books that most people can never see (because they’re too delicate, too fragile, or too obscure) is wicked awesome.  How do I explain why my egalitarian heart beats just a little bit faster when I have a reading pass for special collections somewhere?  It’s like you’re being let in on a secret.  Like you’ll discover something just by turning the pages that most people will never touch.  Like the smell of the book alone will make you smarter. 

It’s a totally geeky high.  Add in a bag check to guard against contraband, white gloves, a weighted fabric snake, and a foam book support, and I am in heaven!  But what really cinches it is that you need a special library card.  You need an ID.  You need to be on the list. 

For some, this thrill becomes passé.  If you work in special collections, I’m sure it’s quite normal.  But I am a Book Geek with Capital Letters and I am still Quite Excited when I get Reading Passes.  But it’s true, Gentle Readers: a girl never forgets her first time. 

***

The British Library is a wonderful place in a terrible building, like a beautiful soul trapped in the Elephant Man’s body.  One of my friends once described the “new” BL (since 1997) as looking like an industrial Chinese restaurant.  He is spot on.  The BL used to be housed in the British Museum, and had a gorgeous reading room.  I’m sure that housing the books was a total nightmare, and the air must have been terrible for the books, but it was pretty.  Now, not so much.  

The website claims that any UK citizen “with a permanent address who wishes to carry out research can apply for a Reader Pass.”  When I was living in London, I had to have a British sponsor (being an uncouth American).  I was doing a research project on the golden age of British children’s literature, and I was up to my eyeballs in Shakespeare papers.   A Reader’s Pass seemed like a good idea, but frankly, I didn’t quite know what I was getting into.

Downstairs is the library exhibition hall, the café, the giftshop.  In order to access anything in the stacks, I had to flash my Reader’s Pass four times.  1) to get off the escalator on the second floor.  2) to enter the Reading Room of my choice.  3) to order up a book on the computer.  4) to collect the book. 

I cannot begin to tell you how amazing it was to be (an uncouth American.  An undergrad.) able to flash that Reading Pass and swan on by the guard to the Reading Rooms.  A speakeasy for geeks, people.  Secret knowledge.  Many are called but few are chosen.  Name of the Rose stuff, I tell you.

What did I do there, you may ask?  I can’t tell you.  You’re not on the list. 

Hell. Innermost circle - Hermia

[Note to readers: I wrote this months ago, and am not in this situation any longer. However, one of my good friends is. This is for her.]

I've been reading a lot of dystopian literature. It's really becoming a problem. You see, I work in an office environment that is more toxic than Chernobyl. It's the type of place where they not only monitor your emails and phone calls, but have cameras installed, and a strict Anti-Fun policy.... I'm not sure that they don't monitor the number of times I go to the bathroom. The majority of the people are simply awful human beings with barely two brain cells to rub together to generate intelligent thought. The problem lies in my need to read dystopian lit. You see, I become a bit testy when I feel I am encountering the "man." And, Dear Reader... I work for him. While on a day to day basis, I am Hermione Granger, content with my books and cleverness, at work I suddenly turn into Katniss. I want to whip out a bow and arrow and show them that I am not a piece in their games. However, that type of rebellion is frowned upon in polite society. I'm Robin Hood. I'm Tris. I'm Joseph Effin' k. Actually, The Trial is just as apt a reference point for insanity as Katniss. I never quite know what's going on, never feel like I have all the details. I work for a combination of the Red Queen, Mad Hatter, and the Judge from the trial. Send me another coupon, boss. I'll shove it up your ass.

The truth is, Reader, I'm having some trouble harnessing my aggressive dystopian take-down-the-system-ism. I make small changes, little clues that scream "I was here! I matter!" But it's not enough. My cubical walls are closing in, and even if I pull a Peter-man and dismantle my cube I still won't be able to see the outdoors... No windows, you see. So, every night, I curl up in bed with a beer and a book... Generally dystopian and always rebellious, because let's be honest... Life is one effed-up book which will never be published and I'm refusing to follow the plotline. And at work? When I get the memo about the new memos? I curl my lip and think "like a dog!"

Head in the Clouds: Naomi

Hermia & I went to see Cloud Atlas at the cinema.  Like, the NIGHT it came out.  (We’re that awesome.)  It was a very interesting experience, largely because she & I had very different relationships to the GENIUS David Mitchell book when we saw the film. 

I read Cloud Atlas two years ago, when a good friend of mine picked it for Book Club.  This Book Club, Gentle Readers, gets to be capitalized because we actually talked about the books at Book Club.  The rules of Book Club were the opposite of Fight Club: you always talk about Book Club!  Of course, now everyone in Book Club has moved away, and I have no more Book Club.  But I have Gentle Readers.  So things all worked out…

Back to the narrative: I read Cloud Atlas, and loved it, and have been SUPER FREAKING EXCITED about the movie for ages.  But it’s been two years since my reading.  So the book has that delightful, warm’n’fuzzy sensation of being loved while not being particularly well-remembered.  Hermia had just finished it, practically the day we saw the movie.  She was a bit more critical, as things were somewhat more sharply-edged in her mind. 

With the exception of the horrendously bad Asian make-up (did we HAVE to give everyone piss-poor Asiaticism? They all looked like Charleton Heston pretending to be Mexican in Touch of Evil.  It was offensive!), I thought that the movie was an overall success.  It was crazy ambitious.  Like, balls-to-the-wall, WTF, unfilmable ambitious.  It is not flawless; it is not perfect.  But the film did two things:

1) It made me feel, as I left the theatre, just as I had felt when I finished the book.  The book hangover and the movie hangover were JUST the same.  I was thoughtfully pleased, unsure of what had just happened, and damn sure I wanted to do it again. 

2) It made me want to re-read the book.  When I first finished Cloud Atlas two years ago, I was unsure as to whether I would ever re-read it.  Now I HAD TO. 

Gentle Readers, it’s even better the second time around!  This time I was not focused so very tightly on what happened.  I was able to unfocus my mental eye enough to take in the whole picture, to let the book happen to me, instead of barreling through the plot to see what happened next.  It was the Magic Eye version of reading.  I saw so many more layers, and so many colors of connection, than the first time I read Mitchell.  It was a bit like reading Shakespeare, for me.  No, I am not making Mitchell into the Bard: don’t get your panties all in a twist!  I am merely saying that when one reads Shakespeare for the second or third (or fifty-seventh) time, one lets go of plot and enjoys the language, the structure, the craft of it.  …There may have been a happy sigh, and some unobserved clutching of said book to my bosom. 

Cloud Atlas @ Barnes & Noble