Portrait of the Artist as Reflected in Portraits of Other People; Books 5 - 11.
In my life, the way I live it, I don't come into contact with new people very often. That's partly a collateral effect of how I choose to behave, and partly the direct goal. But no man is an island - try though he may - and so even I do occasionally encounter people I don't already know. I'd like to take a moment to introduce you to two of them.
First up, I went to the dentist two weeks ago because it suddenly occurred to my mother that I had not been in some time (it did not occur to her that I'm 25 and I have a job, so maybe it's not cool to make appointments for me with 20 minutes' notice). It was a last-minute affair, and thus I wasn't surprised to turn up the least desirable of all the hygienists, a man famous from encounters with other family members, although new to me.
This hygienist, you guys. The man is liquid awkward: awkward, because improperly socialized, and liquid, because he can do nothing without splashing some of the awkward on bystanders (like… a performing killer whale. Of awkward). Let me run a sample by you. I'd mentioned my mom a handful of times in my responses to his various questions (hygienists are famously unable to be still), so he asks me, "You know, your mom seems to be really active in your life. Is your dad not around?" Uh. Where would that EVER lead that's any of his damn business? And when I'd enlightened him on the causes of my father's recent inactivity, he followed up with 1) how old was Dad when he died; 2) how old is my mom; 3) would it bother me if she started dating and/or got remarried?
The fuck.
When he's not being shockingly inappropriate, he's just garden-variety Un.Comfortable, in part because mixed into his endless chatter are lots of self-deprecating references. I had to get an entire series of x-rays (eighteen months between appointments and NO CAVITIES, FOOL), and he ran his mouth the whole time. "Yeah, I bet you just couldn't wait to come in here today, could you? Everybody loves the dentist! And when you get back to work, you'll tell everybody, 'Man, that [Ted] was awful!'" But thank goodness for the negative self-talk, because if he were more polished, the serial-killer vibe would be overpowering. (Right now he's a squirm-inducing mess, mostly harmless.) Still, he has a collage of photographs (family, friends, maybe clients?) on the ceiling over the chair to give the patient something to look at, and it isn't that hard to imagine waking up to a similar setup down in his basement, except with four-point restraints on the chair and, say, a collection of scalps overhead.
Person #2 works in my office - and not just in my office, but in my office; i.e., in the same room. He also induces full-body shivers, and also not in a sexy way.1 The problem? He is me. From high school.
Illustrative Anecdote from The Past: at my crush's sixteenth birthday party, a couple of creative girls read the story they have written for him, in which he tries desperately to make it to class on time while all of his friends pester him during the break (ah, the trials of popularity). The gist of the story, beyond the general compliment it paid, is that everyone had an archetypal line to deliver, rather like a clip show. In my appearance, he said that he was tired, to which I replied, "Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow let half of our brains sleep while the other half took notes?" Meanwhile, in real life, I pipe up, "Hey, you know, dolphins actually do that!" The point of this anecdote is that 1) my friends had me PEGGED, and 2) I was an insecure, show-offy know-it-all.
Dammit, I said "was".
Anyway, in the ensuing decade I've made slow process in accepting that other people are not just struggling through life, parched for information that only my (15-, or 25-year-old) mind can deliver. When a thing is awesome, it should be said, but that doesn't mean I have to say it. And, in fact, no one is keeping score. Dude in my office has not realized these things. Dude in my office is far too excited to leap in, trivia guns blazing, as though a temporal anomaly has deposited him before the screaming, panty-flinging audience of a Teen Tournament "Jeopardy!" taping. Dude in my office is not fooling anyone.
Contrariwise, the new woman in the office is a fresh, hot delight, so much so that I've been able to enjoy her company despite the total freakiness that is pregnancy. A while back her baby was hiccupping, visibly, and that is so bizarre. But all is forgiven, not least because she lends me books - and while none of them is in this set of reviews, you still have to admit that was one crafty segue.
BAM!2
Book reviews again. I would love to share more fresh and amusing anecdotes with you, but the reality of it is, I go to work, and when I get home, sometimes I do something fun before I go to sleep. Sadly for you, often that fun thing is "read a book". That's how we wind up with so many reviews. It could be worse, though: I could talk about the other fun things. Like, sometimes I bake bread! Sometimes I weave! These are processes that involve my hands and test my ability to interpret instructions! Fascinating stuff.
Juliet Barker, Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England (2005). Now here's a book that really draws attention to the sad plight of the subtitle-addicted historian. Barker says "Agincourt," and thus far we're with her: she has a nice account of the build-up to and events of St. Crispian's Day. "Henry V" is a little obvious but still accurate. Likewise, I'll grant her "and the Battle": definitely one of those. "That Made England" is nonsense, however. There are two or three pages at the end that argue that, you know, things might have been different if England had lost. Considering the back-and-forth of the Hundred Years' War, though, and the continued existence of France despite Crécy and Poitiers, I have a hard time believing that England would have imploded if this one battle had gone the other way. Fun book, but Bring Your Own Argument.
Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead (2006). So, so close to stunning. If Brockmeier had only stopped in time, I would be foisting this book upon all of you. Unfortunately, there's a superfluous half of a plotline in here, which mucks up a gorgeous, delicate idea with a splatter of partly digested Statement. Seriously, there is a red (and white) herring in this book that does not a damn thing except stink. Industry is bad! But technically blameless in this particular instance! Corporate types are evil! For no damn reason, and actually nothing will come of it, plot-wise! You should read this book anyway. Only, prepare yourself for regret.
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962). Finally, right? I knocked this one out on International Women's Day, on the theory that there's no better day to read a Russianized salute to sex crimes. On the language front, it's quite interesting to think about publishing a book that relies so heavily on words only a handful of readers would know, and even weirder to imagine how the translated editions must work. Over on the plot side, the remastered version I read includes an extra chapter cut in the original publication. Burgess defends the inclusion in his introduction, but I can see where the original editor was coming from. I can accept the change in tone, which is what Burgess cites; on the other hand, I'm pretty sure the final chapter says that every generation of young men goes through a rape-y phase. Can't quite get behind that one.
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game (1991). Also finally, and also with the weird final chapter. And also with the unconvincing introduction, come to think of it. I like the scope of this story a lot, although for my own peace of mind I have to assume that a lot of loosely incorporated stuff gets tied in more tightly in the sequel. However, Card is never going to convince me that this level of interpersonal intelligence is a normal part of growing up gifted, no matter what letters from thirteen-year-olds he quotes in his opening apologia. Super-analytical six-year-old boys are not known for being empaths, so much as being autistic. It isn't that big a complaint, honestly, but since he chose to address it in the introduction, I have to point it out.
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). YES. If you have been looking for a book you can pack up and move bodily into, knowing that the author will not let you down or screw things up, you… have probably already read this book like everyone else, but I hope you recognized what you had at the time. For such a story I can overlook what flaws there be, and how wonderful that Chabon didn't scum everything over with self-consciousness. There's a golem in here, and two or four escape artists and (speaking of Brockmeier) a strangely pointless sit in a frozen wasteland, and yet it isn't distractingly precious or artificial. All that, and the first two paragraphs of Chapter 18, Part V, balance personal tragedy and total hilarity for the virtuoso3 span of six sentences. Six! It's such a feat, I want to type the whole thing in for you to read.
Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings, Revised Edition (1984). You may have noticed that all the fiction books are written by authors A-C. Know that I recently got a library card, and the branch closest to me is pitifully small and minimally stocked with reading materials. Therefore I'm working my way alphabetically through the fiction section rather than checking out books I'd already planned to read, for the very good reason that most of those books are not readily available. In the history section, meanwhile, I just started on the far left and scanned for anything of interest. I've been to some countries with a Viking tradition, I know nothing about the Vikings, so I checked out this book. I had my usual early-medieval-history difficulties with it: so little is known about any one person, and all the people for whom there are blurbs have the same names. Regardless, I think I retained a bit, and I'll take any opportunity to look at the art of this period.4
Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (1966). Shades of Barker here, except that I'm not sure this book had a thesis at all. It exists to provide an idea of What Was Going On in Europe over a quarter century, and in that capacity it can be broken down into its chapters if you want to read a little something about turn-of-the-century socialism or the British aristocracy or what-have-you. Personally, I didn't get a sense of building up to any particular point. Arguably, that's an accomplishment: if the whole book had been pointing forward to the war, well, it would have been nasty and ahistorical and tautological and a bunch of other grad-school words, wouldn't it? As it was, when the war broke out I was almost surprised, having more or less forgotten that's where we were headed. In any case, it's Tuchman, so you know it was a smooth read.
You nearly got a bonus review here of "Avenue Q," which was playing at the Fox Theater this weekend. I saw the schedule and was interested, though not galvanized; that got me as far as pricing the tickets. Here's the thing: if I'd bought the most expensive ticket, the associated Ticketmaster fees would have totaled TWENTY PERCENT of the ticket price. At least two of those were flat fees, not scalable, so we can only assume that the cheapest ticket would have been drowning under at least thirty percent in add-ons. If you have to be evil, you know, do it - I won't ask whether you're feeling your monopolistic oats or just in the thrall of Satan - but I don't recommend breaking down the fees into lots of little provocative pieces ("convenience charge," "processing fee"). That only makes people angry. Slap on your $15, call it a fuel surcharge, and move on.
1. Causing full-body shivers in a sexy way: Christopher Plummer as Baron von Trapp. I'm thrilled to report that Nina fully agrees with me on this point, which totally proves I'm not a freak. The scene in which he tugs on white gloves prior to ensnaring Maria with a torrid folk dance more than makes up for the presence of (gah) child actors.
2. Did anyone else watch the new "Futurama" episodes? One of the many strange things about not being in school any longer is that I cannot discuss television events with my 'peer group', which is watching "Dancing with the Stars".
Also, let me hijack this footnote to express my deep disappointment with the outcome of "Project Runway." I can see why internationally famed Transvestite/Grapefruit Smuggler V. Beckham would be delighted with Christian's collection, but by the fifth subtle gradation in the dress uniform of the Posh Motorcycle Cop Office Corps, a Crayola-bright satin dress was looking pretty good to me.
3. I know, but http://thesaurus.reference.com swears it's both a noun and an adjective.
4. On Tangential to the subject of Vikings, let me share with you the only joke I heard while I was in Iceland. We took a bus tour out to Gulfloss and the geysers and such, which was not measurably enriched by completely flat, pre-written narration. Surveying the great expanse of blasted heath, made scratchy here and there by the scrub trees that survived hundreds of years of ship-building and firewood-harvesting, our robot-guide said,
"What should you do if you get lost in the woods in Iceland?
Stand up."
And you thought the harsh weather and forbidding landscape would have driven all that bubbling Scandinavian humor right out of them!
First up, I went to the dentist two weeks ago because it suddenly occurred to my mother that I had not been in some time (it did not occur to her that I'm 25 and I have a job, so maybe it's not cool to make appointments for me with 20 minutes' notice). It was a last-minute affair, and thus I wasn't surprised to turn up the least desirable of all the hygienists, a man famous from encounters with other family members, although new to me.
This hygienist, you guys. The man is liquid awkward: awkward, because improperly socialized, and liquid, because he can do nothing without splashing some of the awkward on bystanders (like… a performing killer whale. Of awkward). Let me run a sample by you. I'd mentioned my mom a handful of times in my responses to his various questions (hygienists are famously unable to be still), so he asks me, "You know, your mom seems to be really active in your life. Is your dad not around?" Uh. Where would that EVER lead that's any of his damn business? And when I'd enlightened him on the causes of my father's recent inactivity, he followed up with 1) how old was Dad when he died; 2) how old is my mom; 3) would it bother me if she started dating and/or got remarried?
The fuck.
When he's not being shockingly inappropriate, he's just garden-variety Un.Comfortable, in part because mixed into his endless chatter are lots of self-deprecating references. I had to get an entire series of x-rays (eighteen months between appointments and NO CAVITIES, FOOL), and he ran his mouth the whole time. "Yeah, I bet you just couldn't wait to come in here today, could you? Everybody loves the dentist! And when you get back to work, you'll tell everybody, 'Man, that [Ted] was awful!'" But thank goodness for the negative self-talk, because if he were more polished, the serial-killer vibe would be overpowering. (Right now he's a squirm-inducing mess, mostly harmless.) Still, he has a collage of photographs (family, friends, maybe clients?) on the ceiling over the chair to give the patient something to look at, and it isn't that hard to imagine waking up to a similar setup down in his basement, except with four-point restraints on the chair and, say, a collection of scalps overhead.
Person #2 works in my office - and not just in my office, but in my office; i.e., in the same room. He also induces full-body shivers, and also not in a sexy way.1 The problem? He is me. From high school.
Illustrative Anecdote from The Past: at my crush's sixteenth birthday party, a couple of creative girls read the story they have written for him, in which he tries desperately to make it to class on time while all of his friends pester him during the break (ah, the trials of popularity). The gist of the story, beyond the general compliment it paid, is that everyone had an archetypal line to deliver, rather like a clip show. In my appearance, he said that he was tired, to which I replied, "Wouldn't it be great if we could somehow let half of our brains sleep while the other half took notes?" Meanwhile, in real life, I pipe up, "Hey, you know, dolphins actually do that!" The point of this anecdote is that 1) my friends had me PEGGED, and 2) I was an insecure, show-offy know-it-all.
Dammit, I said "was".
Anyway, in the ensuing decade I've made slow process in accepting that other people are not just struggling through life, parched for information that only my (15-, or 25-year-old) mind can deliver. When a thing is awesome, it should be said, but that doesn't mean I have to say it. And, in fact, no one is keeping score. Dude in my office has not realized these things. Dude in my office is far too excited to leap in, trivia guns blazing, as though a temporal anomaly has deposited him before the screaming, panty-flinging audience of a Teen Tournament "Jeopardy!" taping. Dude in my office is not fooling anyone.
Contrariwise, the new woman in the office is a fresh, hot delight, so much so that I've been able to enjoy her company despite the total freakiness that is pregnancy. A while back her baby was hiccupping, visibly, and that is so bizarre. But all is forgiven, not least because she lends me books - and while none of them is in this set of reviews, you still have to admit that was one crafty segue.
BAM!2
Book reviews again. I would love to share more fresh and amusing anecdotes with you, but the reality of it is, I go to work, and when I get home, sometimes I do something fun before I go to sleep. Sadly for you, often that fun thing is "read a book". That's how we wind up with so many reviews. It could be worse, though: I could talk about the other fun things. Like, sometimes I bake bread! Sometimes I weave! These are processes that involve my hands and test my ability to interpret instructions! Fascinating stuff.
Juliet Barker, Agincourt: Henry V and the Battle That Made England (2005). Now here's a book that really draws attention to the sad plight of the subtitle-addicted historian. Barker says "Agincourt," and thus far we're with her: she has a nice account of the build-up to and events of St. Crispian's Day. "Henry V" is a little obvious but still accurate. Likewise, I'll grant her "and the Battle": definitely one of those. "That Made England" is nonsense, however. There are two or three pages at the end that argue that, you know, things might have been different if England had lost. Considering the back-and-forth of the Hundred Years' War, though, and the continued existence of France despite Crécy and Poitiers, I have a hard time believing that England would have imploded if this one battle had gone the other way. Fun book, but Bring Your Own Argument.
Kevin Brockmeier, The Brief History of the Dead (2006). So, so close to stunning. If Brockmeier had only stopped in time, I would be foisting this book upon all of you. Unfortunately, there's a superfluous half of a plotline in here, which mucks up a gorgeous, delicate idea with a splatter of partly digested Statement. Seriously, there is a red (and white) herring in this book that does not a damn thing except stink. Industry is bad! But technically blameless in this particular instance! Corporate types are evil! For no damn reason, and actually nothing will come of it, plot-wise! You should read this book anyway. Only, prepare yourself for regret.
Anthony Burgess, A Clockwork Orange (1962). Finally, right? I knocked this one out on International Women's Day, on the theory that there's no better day to read a Russianized salute to sex crimes. On the language front, it's quite interesting to think about publishing a book that relies so heavily on words only a handful of readers would know, and even weirder to imagine how the translated editions must work. Over on the plot side, the remastered version I read includes an extra chapter cut in the original publication. Burgess defends the inclusion in his introduction, but I can see where the original editor was coming from. I can accept the change in tone, which is what Burgess cites; on the other hand, I'm pretty sure the final chapter says that every generation of young men goes through a rape-y phase. Can't quite get behind that one.
Orson Scott Card, Ender's Game (1991). Also finally, and also with the weird final chapter. And also with the unconvincing introduction, come to think of it. I like the scope of this story a lot, although for my own peace of mind I have to assume that a lot of loosely incorporated stuff gets tied in more tightly in the sequel. However, Card is never going to convince me that this level of interpersonal intelligence is a normal part of growing up gifted, no matter what letters from thirteen-year-olds he quotes in his opening apologia. Super-analytical six-year-old boys are not known for being empaths, so much as being autistic. It isn't that big a complaint, honestly, but since he chose to address it in the introduction, I have to point it out.
Michael Chabon, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). YES. If you have been looking for a book you can pack up and move bodily into, knowing that the author will not let you down or screw things up, you… have probably already read this book like everyone else, but I hope you recognized what you had at the time. For such a story I can overlook what flaws there be, and how wonderful that Chabon didn't scum everything over with self-consciousness. There's a golem in here, and two or four escape artists and (speaking of Brockmeier) a strangely pointless sit in a frozen wasteland, and yet it isn't distractingly precious or artificial. All that, and the first two paragraphs of Chapter 18, Part V, balance personal tragedy and total hilarity for the virtuoso3 span of six sentences. Six! It's such a feat, I want to type the whole thing in for you to read.
Gwyn Jones, A History of the Vikings, Revised Edition (1984). You may have noticed that all the fiction books are written by authors A-C. Know that I recently got a library card, and the branch closest to me is pitifully small and minimally stocked with reading materials. Therefore I'm working my way alphabetically through the fiction section rather than checking out books I'd already planned to read, for the very good reason that most of those books are not readily available. In the history section, meanwhile, I just started on the far left and scanned for anything of interest. I've been to some countries with a Viking tradition, I know nothing about the Vikings, so I checked out this book. I had my usual early-medieval-history difficulties with it: so little is known about any one person, and all the people for whom there are blurbs have the same names. Regardless, I think I retained a bit, and I'll take any opportunity to look at the art of this period.4
Barbara Tuchman, The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914 (1966). Shades of Barker here, except that I'm not sure this book had a thesis at all. It exists to provide an idea of What Was Going On in Europe over a quarter century, and in that capacity it can be broken down into its chapters if you want to read a little something about turn-of-the-century socialism or the British aristocracy or what-have-you. Personally, I didn't get a sense of building up to any particular point. Arguably, that's an accomplishment: if the whole book had been pointing forward to the war, well, it would have been nasty and ahistorical and tautological and a bunch of other grad-school words, wouldn't it? As it was, when the war broke out I was almost surprised, having more or less forgotten that's where we were headed. In any case, it's Tuchman, so you know it was a smooth read.
You nearly got a bonus review here of "Avenue Q," which was playing at the Fox Theater this weekend. I saw the schedule and was interested, though not galvanized; that got me as far as pricing the tickets. Here's the thing: if I'd bought the most expensive ticket, the associated Ticketmaster fees would have totaled TWENTY PERCENT of the ticket price. At least two of those were flat fees, not scalable, so we can only assume that the cheapest ticket would have been drowning under at least thirty percent in add-ons. If you have to be evil, you know, do it - I won't ask whether you're feeling your monopolistic oats or just in the thrall of Satan - but I don't recommend breaking down the fees into lots of little provocative pieces ("convenience charge," "processing fee"). That only makes people angry. Slap on your $15, call it a fuel surcharge, and move on.
1. Causing full-body shivers in a sexy way: Christopher Plummer as Baron von Trapp. I'm thrilled to report that Nina fully agrees with me on this point, which totally proves I'm not a freak. The scene in which he tugs on white gloves prior to ensnaring Maria with a torrid folk dance more than makes up for the presence of (gah) child actors.
2. Did anyone else watch the new "Futurama" episodes? One of the many strange things about not being in school any longer is that I cannot discuss television events with my 'peer group', which is watching "Dancing with the Stars".
Also, let me hijack this footnote to express my deep disappointment with the outcome of "Project Runway." I can see why internationally famed Transvestite/Grapefruit Smuggler V. Beckham would be delighted with Christian's collection, but by the fifth subtle gradation in the dress uniform of the Posh Motorcycle Cop Office Corps, a Crayola-bright satin dress was looking pretty good to me.
3. I know, but http://thesaurus.reference.com swears it's both a noun and an adjective.
4. On Tangential to the subject of Vikings, let me share with you the only joke I heard while I was in Iceland. We took a bus tour out to Gulfloss and the geysers and such, which was not measurably enriched by completely flat, pre-written narration. Surveying the great expanse of blasted heath, made scratchy here and there by the scrub trees that survived hundreds of years of ship-building and firewood-harvesting, our robot-guide said,
"What should you do if you get lost in the woods in Iceland?
Stand up."
And you thought the harsh weather and forbidding landscape would have driven all that bubbling Scandinavian humor right out of them!