Behindsies

Forgot to mention that I will be reading Puff by Bob Flaherty and catching up on other reading material, including six New Yorkers (I am so behind! This is not including this week's which I assume I'll get tomorrow) and the last edition of Kitchen Sink (tear).

The Sad State of Foster Homes and my Working Life

For once I haven’t started a new book without writing the review of the just-finished book yet. Amazing.

White Oleander – Janet Fitch
Again, I wish I had read the book before I saw the movie, because the book was so amazing! Although if I had read the book before seeing the movie, I would have been really pissed about the movie and hated it. Meanwhile, I mildly like this movie, because in my mind they are two different things. Mostly because the only thing I got out of the movie was depressed, and while the book was depressing, it didn’t consume you like the movie did. There were other lessons to be learned.

For instance: you grow from the people you meet along the road of life. How touchy-feely of me, I know, but I actually think it’s true. Negative or positive, you learn something from pretty much everyone you encounter. I would give examples, but I’m way too classy of a person, so let’s just leave it at that.

Also: people are selfish. This is quite obvious, I know. But when you look at the actions of others you might not right away recognize them as selfish. I can only guess that the reason that most of the foster families that took Astrid in were doing so because they were selfish (wanting a live-in slave, wanting assistance with their thrift-store-ish business, wanting to receive tax relief, wanting company so as to not go insane). Otherwise, I have no idea why any of them, with the exception of Claire, the woman who wanted company, would want to take in foster children because they seemed to hate kids and be constantly annoyed by their foster children. Which makes me sad about the current network for foster children. I know it’s a huge problem in this country, especially since a lot of the families that actually do adopt children adopt from other countries so they can have the cute babies, but seriously, people. There are 118,000 kids in this country that are in foster care waiting to be adopted. 118,000! I understand that there are kids in other countries that need to be adopted, but it seems that people just forget that there are kids right around the corner from you that need help too. If I wanted kids, I would most definitely adopt them, and probably from this country.

This number is also a direct result of people not knowing proper birth control methods. On the drive down to North Carolina two weeks ago, I passed a billboard for abstinence. A billboard! Needless to say, I flipped out, while driving. I was speechless. Abstinence is a great practice to teach the kids and all, but it shouldn’t be their main form of birth control. Are you kidding me, southerners? I don’t even believe I should have to explain this. And I won’t, because I assume anyone reading this has enough brains to understand why it doesn’t work. After that billboard, we promptly passed by a Phillip Morris building in the shape of cigarettes and I knew we were taking a time warp. And oh was I right…

…because when we stopped for lunch at Aunt Sarah’s Family Restaurant (doesn’t it sound so awesome!) and had the first of our few delicious and cheap southern lunches, the server brings over the check, slides it across the table right to Nick and says, “Here you are, sir.” Nick found this hilarious, I found it repulsive. So I go to pay the check while Nick is in the bathroom, and the server rings me up, and as she’s taking the check and cash from me she says, “How did you get this?! I gave it to him!” Granted, I think she was just being a little too cute for my taste, but lady, this will not fly. Then we get to Raleigh…

…and find this really awesome southern cafeteria-like restaurant that was a god-send because I was about to pass out from hunger. We get in there, and this man takes us to our seat, where he proceeds to pull out the chair. Which is just unacceptable. But to make it even more hilarious than me not wanting that chair is that Nick is walking in front of me and goes to the chair that the man pulled out. So the man goes to the other chair and pulls it out for me and pushes it under as I sit. Ugh. So formal and unnecessary.

So I got a little off topic, but who cares? I enjoyed this one. You should pick it up from your local library. In the even that you live in LBC (Lower Bucks County), you can use Lindsay’s Library.

The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman

I don’t need to say a lot about this book except for it’s really helpful if you want to start being a freelance technical communicator. It was recommended to me by someone who took this survey I was administering for my independent study (which is done next week, thank god, I can return to normalcy) who said it was really informative and really to the point. Was it ever. It was step-by-step, everything you need to think about and consider when becoming freelance. Actually freelance anything could use it, you should just ignore the specific examples of gigs he gets.

I was reading this book on the back end of my vacation and it made me really depressed to go back to work: 8-5, boring office job where I get to do an exciting project for like an hour a day if I’m lucky. Also I hate the commute. I’ve had an exciting bonus the past few days, though: I’ve been working from home while the union moves our boxes back into our newly renovated office. My commute has consisted of walking the two whole feet from my bed to my computer. I’ve had a stress-free Friday and Monday, and will have a stress-free Tuesday. Ahhh I can’t wait until I can freelance write and bake full time. Those will be the days.

A Spot of Blah and In the Belly of the Bored

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

As I mentioned before, this was not nearly as good as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, but I suppose it’s not entirely fair to compare the two as a review of the one. But I will do so anyway, briefly. Everything that made The Curious Incident great is missing from A Spot: voice, pace, even its genre. Even if all of these things were exactly the same, I would still have a problem with this book because it was utterly and boringly (in parts) predictable.

And when your plot is predictable, things can’t be made better by good voice and pace. They just can’t. So I’m sorry, Mark Haddon. I know you’re probably just glad that you even wrote a second book after the success of your first one, so at least it’s out of the way and you can get back on track with your regular awesomeness. Or maybe The Curious Incident was a one hit wonder in the adult literature world. If this turns out to be the case, I hope you know that I will be very sad about it. But I will be investing in all of your children’s books for my sister’s children (given that I won’t be having any of my own and I doubt Beans really needs me to read him children’s books).

(As a quick side note, I just found out that The Curious Incident will be adapted into a movie by Steve Kloves (will be writing and directing). I’m not sure how I feel about this since I really like two of his Harry Potters and I didn’t really like the other two. Hrm. I learned this from Mark Haddon’s website, but since it’s not on imdb I’m not sure who I believe. I won’t get my hopes up just yet.)

When I say the plot is predictable, I generalize, because it’s more than the plot: it’s also the characters. Every single one of them: Jamie, Katie, Jean, George, David, Tony, and Ray. And possibly Jacob, even though he plays a very minor roll. From the moment the book begins and we learn the smallest bit of information about them, you know where the story is going to go. I will remain general in case you actually want to read this book. Just warning that the only way this will work is if you have had random pieces of your brain removed so you can’t see how obviously the book is laid out within the first few chapters.

Still, A Spot was mildly enjoyable. (Do I convince you? I’m not sure I convince myself.) Parts were funny and on the whole it wasn’t so horrible/boring/plain that I didn’t think it was worth finishing. Also there was a part that was superbly written and left me cringing and feeling physically ill (as was the exact point) while on the train ride home one afternoon that I’m pretty sure the people surrounding me thought I was going to poop my pants. What I was missing was the need to stay up all night to read it and finish it so I could find out what was going on (ahh more reminiscing about The Curious Incident, I apologize). Mark, that’s what I need in your next book. I haven’t given up on you. Yet.

In the Belly of the Beast by Jack Henry Abbott

As you already know, I didn’t finish this whopping 150 page book. Sorry. Really, I am, because I wanted to enjoy and finish this book, but things just didn’t happen that way. Mostly because, unlike in 1981 when this book was published, we have all seen Shawshank and therefore know and understand the ways of prison. What we haven’t learned from Shawshank has been picked up from various other sources, such as TV cop/law dramas and Dateline features (not that I watch either of these, I’m just guessing. I honestly don’t know where I get my prison information, but an educated guess would be these two).

What was great about this book was how good of a writer Jack Abbott was (just found out that he was released from prison and then promptly killed someone over a fight about a bathroom. This is infuriating. And wtf, Susan Sarandon? She named her son after him! I can’t believe this madness) considering he only had formal education until 6th grade, when he started going in and out of detention centers and then later to prison. At some point while he was in jail, he decided to start reading and educated himself with books sent from the outside world and somehow formed a really strong vocabulary, voice, and writing style.

While in jail, Abbott had major disciplinary problems, which is annoying until you start to understand his argument about growing up in juvenile detention centers instead of the free world. You actually never grow up and mature because you are constantly treated like a child.

Some sections were really interesting, others were more like I know, I know. Actually, the good sections were things we already know, but the way he wrote about them was so captivating that I’d be so into the book I would almost miss my station (this hasn’t happened yet, but I’m waiting for that sad, sad day).

How intriguing and interesting this may sound, it was very repetitive and little too heavy on the philosophy/politics for my attention span right now. So I stopped around page 50. Perhaps I will pick up the Norman Mailer that was being written during their correspondence.

Up Next/Currently: White Oleander by Janet Fitch and The Well-Fed Writer by Peter Bowerman

Effing Hilarious

So I guess you should know that I finished A Spot of Bother (OK, not NEARLY as good as the dog book, which I admit, I am obsessed with) and gave up on In the Belly of the Beast about halfway through, not because it wasn't written well but because it was quite repetitive. (If you must know, I am about 150 pages into White Oleander after starting it yesterday and I am loving it.) But, oh look, I'm going on vacation again and therefore have not had time to write up reviews on them yet. I have had to spend my time logging survey results (btw, if you are a freelance Technical Communicator, please take my survey! Please?) and taking pictures for photography class. I don't know if I have a weird sense of humor, but small statues of animals are really hilarious to me. Esp evil bunny. Every time I think of evil bunny I laugh (this includes while in class when someone is presenting their pictures of garden statues and it reminds me of evil bunny. This = awkward). Anyway, this hilarious doggers statue was propping open a door in New Hope on Sunday:
















Uhh, need I say more? Besides my camera kicks ass. Which you'll see by the stunning (every time I say stunning in all seriousness it still sounds sarcastic. Bah!) colors in this one:
















And here's another one just for funsies (see Superbad now):
















Perhaps I will write the reviews when I return. I guess I have to if I ever want to cash in my full button for my personal pan. Also, this guy came to speak in class tonight and he was pretty effing hilarious.

Interesting

So my new computer at work apparently does not want to let me post my blogs. Fine. Be that way. I am fine with using my own spare time to post blogs so the one person who reads this can learn what I think about books (thanks, Nick!).

Anywho, I actually wrote about the following before last weekend's wedding but struggled to post it until now. I am now more than halfway done the next book, so that post should be coming shortly. I won't keep you in suspence any longer.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

Well, this was a long time coming. (Editor's note: And now even longer. Thanks, IBM!) Thankfully, I was successful at finishing this on vacation (I actually finished it on Saturday night (July 20th), which, while not technically “on vacation,” it was still during my vacation weekend, so I say that counts). And I apologize if I implied that I was not enjoying reading it by saying I was “trudging through it,” it was just a slow read. For two reasons: it was 630 pages long, which, off the top of my head, I think is the longest book I have ever read (never read any part of the Bible (KJ version: 796 pages), War and Peace (1500 pages) or any of the Harry Potters (even though they only average to about 500 pages each). I believe up until now, the longest I had read was The Grapes of Wrath (464 pages) and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (528 pages). I won’t count The Golden Notebook (672 pages), because while I rather enjoyed it and hope to read it in full one day, I was forced to skip to different passages to adhere to the reading schedule as outlined by my British Lit professor. So it’s still not entirely my fault). Secondly, the font was about 8 points, and taking that and 630 pages into consideration, that is a lot of text. I didn’t mean trudging, I meant very slowly reading while enjoying.

Anyway, yes, I did enjoy The Amazing Adventures, and I’m slightly surprised about it. Mostly because I am not a huge fan of comic books or graphic novels, and that is what the story is based around: two cousins who start a comic book during the heyday of Superman. But it was also about the Holocaust, growing up, living, and one day realizing you have become something and you’re not really sure how. Which, I think, is one of the most terrifying things about life. Because who wants to take a ten year detour to become the person who you want to be. I know I don’t. Although I guess that is what being a teenager is, of sorts.

After 630 pages I thought I would have a lot to say about this book, but actually, I don’t. I was impressed by how much detail and back story is involved in books of this length. And while not much happened in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, a whole lot happens in The Amazing Adventures, so much that between chapters there are sometimes gaps in time to fast forward so we can get to what happened and not be bothered by how it happened. Which doesn’t sound like a good writing strategy, but it actually is, in this case. At times when I was reading this book I would think about something and then remember, oh right, that happened in this book. I felt like I was reading it for a year. A month can feel like a year sometimes. And I think that’s all I have to say about that. I won’t miss lugging this book to and from work every day, I will say that much.

Up next: A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon

I chose this because, as many of you know, my sister is getting married on Saturday (Editor's Note: already happened, sorry you missed the party, it was fun. Check out the pics), which will mark the end of the wedding planning year. I had been planning to read this book during the wedding week (look how nicely the timing worked out!) because it involves a wedding. Although, it involves an unwanted wedding, which, thankfully, is not the case for my sister and our family (I just set the record for grammatically correct placed commas in a sentence). I do, however, look forward to the return of me time and peace and no more long lists of things that I must remind myself to do. If I survive the next few days, that is. (Editor's Note: I did. Aren't you proud?)