Book Snob

“Read the best books first, or you may not have a chance to read them at all.” Henry David Thoreau

(A bit of humility before I go into why I’m so good at reading and you’re not: I spent half an hour searching for the above quote. I could remember the jist, but not the actual words or the author. Then I noticed that it is literally the first thing I ever posted on this blog.)

This about sums it up. Via Perez Hilton.

I’m a book snob. I’ve been feeling extra snobby lately, and I blame Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s all I hear about on forums, Facebook, and Twitter. But wait – isn’t it a fan fiction of a young adult novel, not to mention very poorly written and edited? Okay, it’s racy, but so are lots of novels, from romance to erotica. That’s nothing new. So, what gives? And why does it bother me?

“Fifty Shades Fever” feels like the culmanation of a bigger trend towards adults reading “young adult” and/or just plain *bad* novels. And I do not mean “so bad it’s good.” I lurk in a few book challenge discussions online (people trying to read 25 or 50 books in one year), and lots of them are reading chick lit after chick lit book. Why bother? What’s the point of a challenge if it’s not challenging?

I realize that these feelings make me a snob of the worse kind. Why do I care what people read?  Who am I to decide what’s worthy of a reader’s time? But… I can’t help myself! As the Thoreau quote suggests, there are SO MANY good books. More than anyone will ever read. I’ve been working at the 1,001 books list for FIVE YEARS and I’ve read 10% of it. And I started at around 5%. I get that people are looking for a fun read or escapism, but it’s unfathomable, and even offensive, that people spend so much time reading terrible books!

The bad book by which all other bad books will be judged.

Of course, like most snobs, I think it’s okay to go slumming as long as it’s done ironically. Some work colleagues are running a fantastic bad book club. I was lucky enough to sit in on a discussion of “Flowers in the Attic”, that classic and horribly overwrought  ode to family dysfunction (and incest.) But, most of us read it for the first time as children, not adults. (Which, upon reflection, is pretty messed up – due to all that incest!)

It will probably surprise no one that I’m also a music snob, and in a former (pre-kids) life a clothes and bag snob. What can I say? I appreciate quality. And I’m judging you. Sorry. But, if you must read bad books, at least William Faulkner’s got your back:

“Read, read, read. Read everything — trash, classics, good and bad, and see how they do it. Just like a carpenter who works as an apprentice and studies the master. Read!”

What do you think? Do you consider yourself a book snob? Why are people freaking out about Fifty Shades and the like?

Don’t Wanna Be A 19th Century Russian Idiot

The Idiot is #861 on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die.

First things first. I know that I never post regularly, but this time I have an excuse. An adorable excuse!

Baby Henry

Henry Keith Frey, born February 15th 2012.

With my first son, I didn’t read one word (other than baby books, which, yuck, that’s a whole other post) from about eight months pregnant to six months post partum. I also suffered from a severe case of mom brain. I used to think the whole baby brain/mom brain concept was sexist, but having experienced it, I can say that it’s true – pregnancy and child birth makes you dumber. That’s why I was so determined to reach 100 books, and to make #100 a doozy, before baby #2. I was afraid that this time, it would be worse. I might never read from the list again. I might have to start reading chick lit. Or The Hunger Games. Or 50 Shades of Grey. *shudder*

After triumphing over The Magic Mountain, I put the list aside, and ended up reading some great books (Half Blood Blues, Slammerkin, The Lover’s Dictionary) and some so-so books (The Virgin Cure, The Happiness Hypothesis, Juliet Naked, The Help). (Psst: Hover over titles for mini-reviews.) All this while in the end stages of pregnancy or with a very demanding newborn. And all thanks to TECHNOLOGY!

Henry and The Idiot

Not a great shot, but I will not risk him waking up to take another. That’s “The Idiot” on my Kobo. Trust me.

And I don’t even like my Kobo. The buttons are clunky, it’s slow to load, it’s a base model with no wireless and no touchscreen, and the free books don’t work. It doesn’t have the look and feel and smell of a real book. It makes Jonathan Frazen cranky. BUT I CAN READ WITH ONE HAND. And that has made all the difference in the world.

FYI, if you use Spark Notes, be prepared for spoilers. Yes, it’s still a spoiler even if it was written 150 years ago!

There is NO WAY I would be reading a heavy, thick book like Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot in traditional form. The only time I get “to myself” is while nursing (if you classify having another human being attached to you as time to yourself) and now I can read!

Until I started The Idiot, I was pretty smug about the mom brain thing – not this time, reading will keep my mind sharp. But the Russian names and complex plotting and character development are throwing me a bit. I’m having a hard time keeping the characters and their motivations straight. So now, I’ve got my Kobo in one hand, and SparkNotes on my phone so I can refer to the character list and read plot summaries. I’m not proud that I need this much help, but, I’m working on the list… on very limited sleep… and feeling pretty good about it.

I need to finish before I can fully comment, but, I’m finding similar themes as in The Magic Mountain – a naive young man meets and unconventional woman; corruption through drinking and disease; you know, light stuff. But more important that the ins and outs of this book – I won’t be an “idiot” on this maternity leave. I’m excited to get through even more great books in between Curious George and Little Critter’s adventures.

“A fool with a heart and no sense is just as unhappy as a fool with sense and no heart.”

One Hundred

The Magic Mountain is #706 on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and #9 on the Novel 100.

They made a movie! In Germany, I guess.

Finishing Thomas Mann’s “The Magic Mountain” means that I have read 10% of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Okay, 9.99%. Still. I’ve read 100 of the best books ever written. According to some people, anyway!

I’ve been choosing short books for months now to help me reach my goal, so this 850 page clunker was daunting. It took me nearly two months to read, and I was glossing over some of the boring parts.

Yes, even great books have boring parts. My sister just finished “The Count of Monte Cristo” and now claims that every book written before 1940 has a bunch of boring , wordy crap in the middle. It does feel that way sometimes.

“The Magic Mountain” has a series of philosophical debates between two supporting characters. It was reminiscent of the asides in Atlas Shrugged. This is not a good thing. They come out of nowhere and leave you thinking “What?? What about the characters, what’s happening to them?”

The introduction (by one of my favourite authors ever, A.S. Byatt) addresses these issues.  What happens to the characters isn’t really the point. This book is about personal discovery, it’s about Europe, it’s about time and space and sickness and health and on and on. I would have loved to write an essay on this book, you could pick any topic you wanted!

I *wanted* more of the love story, but the female lead sort of fades away near the end of the book. Apparently Thomas Mann himself said that you must read this book twice to truly understand it. I’m not sure if I’ll take him up on that.

For now, my big push for 100 of the 1001 books is done. Baby #2 is due in about two weeks, so the coming months are going to be about survival, in general, and in reading. I’m stepping away from goals and plans and will consider ANY reading to be great success. After baby #1, I didn’t read for six months. I’m hoping to keep reading and keep my sanity this time.

While I sit at home on sick leave, I’m reading another book about Germans, Half Blood Blues. I’ll get back to the list sometime, but till then, I’m reading what I want! FREEDOM!

I’ve leave you with some dirty talk, Thomas Mann style:

“The body, love, death, are simply one and the same. Because the body is sickness and depravity, it is what produces death, yes, both of them, love and death, are carnal, and that is the source of their great terror and magic… Consider the marvelous symmetry of the human frame, the shoulders and the ribs arranged in pairs, and the navel set amid the supply belly, and the dark sexual organs between the thighs… Let me take in the exhalation of your pores, and brush the down – oh, my human image made of water and protein, destined for the contours of the grave, let me perish, my lips against yours!”

It’s Good to Have Goals

Reading is bed is dangerous. I called this blog “Reading in Bed” after an Emily Haines song, and also because I do 99% of my reading in bed. Most nights I read in bed until my eyes begin to cross and words start to blur.

The danger is that I forget at least the last page or two of what I’ve read, and, that I never blog about my reading because I lose consciousness immediately after I’m done. I often think to myself “oo! Must blog about this book/chapter/passage/line” but when I wake up, the motivation is gone.

So, I haven’t been blogging, but I have been reading. I am on #94 in my quest to read 100 of the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die before the end of the year.  And I’m really excited about what I’m reading now (The Grapes of Wrath) and what I’m going to be reading soon:

Reading and To Read

Good reads coming up!

I’m going to be really proud of myself if I reach 100 books by the end of the year. When I set my goal I didn’t count on getting pregnant, with the attendant exhaustion and stupidity. I didn’t count on us moving and all the craziness that will (hopefully) ensue. It’s going to be a tough go but maybe I can save my hormone-addled brain with a few- say, six- good books.

The Merchant of Venice: Quick Summary

Guys: Life sucks. I’m going to die. So it goes.
Girls: Um let’s just trick everyone and save our dumb husbands
Everyone: Jews are evil

The only other thing I have to say about this book is that I read a 1903 edition, and it is staying on my bedside table even though I’m finished because we’re trying to sell the house and I think it makes me look smart.

Merchant of Venice 1903 Edition

Old-Timey!

Ma

Room is an “it book” at the moment. Everyone I know is reading it, just finished reading it, or wants to read it. It’s an easy sell – a sensational, ripped-from-the-headlines situation, great pacing, compelling characters, all wrapped up in a quick and easy-to-read package.

The basic, spoiler-free premise: Five year old Jack is our narrator, and his is the only perspective we are privy to. His “Ma” has been locked up in a small room for about seven years by the mysterious “Old Nick”. Jack has spent his entire life in “Room” and doesn’t know that there is a world on the other side of the walls, or that there is anything there is anything unique about his situation.

The book is all ostensibly all about Jack, but for me it is all about Ma.

On a superficial level, when my son is getting on my last nerve, I think about Ma and realize I don’t have it so bad. I go to work during the week. I go to yoga classes some evenings. I have date nights with my husband. I have a support network of friends, family and daycare workers I can lean on. Ma has none of these things. She has been in the same room as her son for five years. This truly makes me shudder when I think about it too hard!

On a deeper level, Ma challenges the martyr-mommy archetype. There’s an pervasive notion out there that moms should put their family’s needs ahead of their own, at all times, and anything less is failure.

Spoilers follow…

Continue reading →

Emo Quotes

“There is no trap so deadly as the trap you set for yourself”
Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye

The Long Goodbye is full of fantastic one-liners. This is my favourite so far. I love this because it’s completely spot on for the character, yet it’s something I could have written in my diary as a fifteen-year old. You know, had I been a brilliant writer.

Freedom! Horrible, Horrible Freedom!

The Corrections is #43 in the 2007 edition of The 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Freedom is not on the list yet, but odds are it will be.

Freedom was only $10 on the Kobo, a steal compared to buying a hardcover and much faster than waiting for a hold at the library. But it’s really hard to blog about a book read on Kobo. I can’t flip back and find plot points and quotes. It’s been weeks since I finished and my memory is abysmal. I couldn’t remember the word “norm” tonight. And then I lost my keys. So, bear with me.

I am not nearly as impressed with Freedom as I feel I ought to be. I felt the same way about The Corrections (hardcover sitting on my bookshelf; Wee Book Inn score). Jonathan Franzen is a great writer, but I can just feel how hard he’s trying to say something smart/ironic/witty/whatever. I keep thinking, “oh, I see what you’re doing there”.

Jonathan Frazen on The Simpsons

I am, however, impressed by any writer that guest stars on The Simpsons.

I wish the whole book was about Patty, a natural urban mama before it was cool to be one, and Richard, the hipster musician she loves and can’t have. Franzen uses their story to explore different meanings of “freedom” – from worry, from commitment, from love – and the whole thing is just drop dead romantic. He writes an album for her. Enough said!

But there’s a LONG interlude  about her husband’s environmental crusade and affair with his young assistant. The environmental crusade becomes a bit of a soapbox for the childfree movement. I felt like I was reading Atlas Shrugged; I couldn’t tell if we were still on the story, or if I was now just reading someone’s political views (Franzen’s? He is childfree, but by default; it’s his wife who didn’t want kids). While this was all rather interesting, it was jarring and out of place. Or maybe, being a breeder and all, I don’t wanna think about how my precious babies will destroy the planet and just wanna read about loooove.

Weeks later, I’m struggling to remember everything important about this book, but the characters, particularly Patty, have stuck with me.  I’m not as impressed as I ought to be, but I’m very impressed when  a childfree guy like Jonathan Franzen creates such a real and complex character who happens to be a stay-at-home-mom.

“She had all day every day to figure out some decent and satisfying way to live, and yet all she ever seemed to get for all her choices and all her freedom was more miserable. The autobiographer is almost forced to the conclusion that she pitied herself for being so free.”