Okay. I've sipped a wee dram of scotch and am attempting to be zen-like about the latest upset in my life. If there's one thing I've learned from my mother, it's not to fret over things you can't change. Maybe it's sad or frustrating or any other number of things, but there's no reason to continue in a frenzy for days and weeks and months. Eventually, you just accept it and adapt your life accordingly.
We all learned that from my ma, and soon I'll go to bed and curl up under the blanket she gave me and that's what I wanted to say this morning - about my ma and blankets. Except I ran out of time, so I'll tell it now.
Last night I woke up in the wee hours. I've been doing that lately, the same time every night. About 4am, I think. And I wait for the radiator to kick on. There's a radiator right next to my bed, and the comforter I used to sleep under has a stain and is old and now lines the trunk of my car. (My ma gave me that comforter like 8 years ago or more.) I only have one soft yellow blanket over my sheets. My mother gave me that blanket, maybe 4 or 5 years ago.
So I woke up and I thought - why do I lay here and shiver every morning, waiting for the heat to kick on so I can press my feet to the warming steel? I have another blanket, the hideous yellow one. Fleece, with that eyesore pattern of cats-n-flowers on one side, taxicab yellow on the other. But it's warm. So incredibly soft and warm.
I rolled myself out of bed and reached up into the closet where I'd stowed the thing away. My ma made it for me - last Christmas? Maybe the Christmas before. It's so ugly, but I didn't say so. I could tell she thought it was the perfect pattern for me, and later my one sis-in-law said She's been so excited to give you that thing, she keeps saying how much Beth will love it, with the cats and flowers and I'm like...uhhh, okay, right - sure she will... So don't tell her you hate it, it'll break her heart.
But I never thought of telling her I hate it. I mean sure - it's utterly hideous. Honestly, it should have a warning label, that's how ugly it is. But I love my ma and I love that she made it for me and there is this thing - something like a splinter, little sliver of something lodged in my heart when it comes to the subject of my mother and blankets.
I don't own a single blanket that my mother didn't make or buy. I never have.
That's what I realized this morning when I pulled down The Hideous Fleece of Cats 'n Flowers: my mother has provided an overwhelming percentage of the warmth in my life. I'm right now wearing a fleece jacket she made for me. I have one, two, three sets of flannel sheets from her. Four sweaters. A brushed fleece pullover, and shapeless fleece pants. Two pair of long underwear. Even a pair of legwarmers. Earmuffs somewhere that I can't find. God knows what else.
My ma grew up in northern Kentucky. I have mentioned before that she and my father grew up dirt poor. The kind of poor that is so hard for most of us to imagine in this country at this date. The kind of poor that makes my depleted-for-two-weeks bank account a laughable inconvenience.
What I think of when I'm cold at night:
Once, she and her brother and sister and parents - they lived in an old abandoned schoolhouse. A one-room schoolhouse. Red brick and a school bell on top. Right close to the old railroad tracks, not far from the paper mill, close to where the road sloped down to the river bottomland. I don't know if they were paying rent to someone or squatting there or what. I don't know. All I remember is that they were poor and there was nowhere else they could afford to live.
My ma, my momma, that girl who grew up and became my mother -- she remembers cold winter nights, sleeping with her sister in the old abandoned schoolhouse. They lay on one mattress and pulled the other mattress over them. No blankets, at least not that she remembered. Every night of her life, she has slept with a glass of water near her. She coughs sometimes in the night and it wakes her up.
She used to wake up in the morning, winters at the schoolhouse, and find the glass of water turned to ice.
I think she can't get that picture of the glass of ice out of her mind, not for fifty or more years. If ever you're with my ma on a cold winter's day, shivering out in the cold, or maybe in the car while your waiting for the heat to really pump out - she'll say as she said when I was a babygirl, all the time, Not much longer and we can get home and thaw out. We'll always be warm at home, we just have to get there. We'll thaw in front of the heater vents, the heat's just waiting for us.
She has always said it with a measure of pride. But I am old enough now to hear the desperation that drives it.
Have I mentioned yet that I love my mother? I love my mother.
Her sister, my favorite aunt, tells me she doesn't remember it the same. It was cold, she says, but they snuggled together and the mattress over them kept them cozy and in the morning, the wood stove was lit. My aunt says maybe there was ice over the surface of the waterglass sometimes, but certainly there couldn't have been a solid glass of ice. So I think of it somewhere in between - a kind of slushy. Which is still, to me, a horrible horrible thing.
But my aunt and gramma also said. Last time I visited. They said. (I am hesitating, because I don't know how to say it right and am half-ashamed of what I think and just a bit tipsy because that single wee dram got lonely and so I've allowed another to join it.) They said - what did they say? That riding home on the Greyhound bus from her time at Navy boot camp - she was a nurse in the Navy, my ma, just for a short time. She was riding home and as they drove through some city, they saw tenements. My ma pointed out the window at the clotheslines strung over fire escapes and said to her seatmate: That's the way I grew up, except not in an apartment.
When they related this to me, my gramma and aunt were scornful. They were presenting it as a way in which my ma was being a snob. Why, we didn't live like that, like those unfortunate people, said my gramma. And my aunt continued with. We hung our clothes up outside to dry, but that didn't make us like them. We took care of ourselves just fine. To hear your momma talk, you'd think we were poor.
And I couldn't say the thought that came to my mind: That if you live in an abandoned schoolhouse and can't heat the bedroom through the night; or move from this place to that and never own a damn thing that's really yours; or you can't afford to have your daughter's eyes checked and she finds out at age 18 (when the Navy examines her eyes and issues her first pair of glasses) that yes - the leaves on the trees are individual things and not just a green blur to everyone; and if half the time you don't have a bank account because you don't have money to put in one; and your daughter grows up to give her own doing-fine daughter (who sleeps next to a radiator) unsolicited piles of wool and fleece and flannel -- all of that. I wanted to say that even if you're okay with it and it never struck you as odd and y'all came out of it fine and some people had it worse and all that matters in the end is that you loved each other and did the best you could and lived good lives? You were still poor. Horribly, awfully poor. And horribly, awfully cold. Just like all those people in the tenement my eighteen-year-old mother pointed at. You had it no better and no worse - you just had a good attitude about it. Your daughter wanted more, and better, and to never ever ever be cold again.
I will give my own daughter brand-name cereal. And she'll learn how to use a knife and fork from me, instead of being corrected by neighbors. She'd get to go shopping for some new clothes sometimes, and not have only hand-me-downs from brothers and neighbors. I'll throw her a birthday party or two. With presents. Real live birthday presents. And I'd let her grandmother make a thousand blankets for her, enough to fill every closet and dresser and chest that I can cram into the place.
So that's what I think of when anyone calls me brave or strong. Because I never shivered a night through, ever, my whole life. My (brave, strong, hardworking) ma never let me. My ma probably has nightmares where she tries to keep me warm.
And that's what I was thinking at about 5:00 this morning while my shivering melted away under the ugly double layer of cats-n-flowers print meets taxicab yellow that lay over the soft butter-colored blanket that covered me where I lay in my shapeless fleece pants here in this big cold city. And it's what I'll be thinking now as I wipe silly sentimental tears away from my face and go crawl under that pile of warmth my mother made sure that I have.
Nighty night.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Saturday, November 19, 2005
Perfect Day:
- Ann Sather breakfast, involving warm cinnamon rolls and and a loverly round omelette and good strong coffee.
- Walking off said breakfast with a random stroll around Wrigleyville, meandering yammerings with Paul.
- Sitting around my apartment, pot of tea, The Shins playing, talktalktalk as we play with the cat and discuss books and writing and my brother calls to ask if I'm doing Thxgiving there and Karen (hi, Karen) calls for a quick chat and yay she's off to school soon, and more talktalktalking with Paul as the last of the sunlight disappears.
- Dinner at Iberico, involving the queso de cabra, tortilla espanol, the champignones, and patatas bravas, yummmm. And sangria. God, that place is great.
- Enjoying that dinner with Dpeep (and his partner), who announced that he's leaving my former hideous workplace and moving to NY. Laugh, laugh, laughing with him and reminiscing, stories all around the table from our respective jobs, so much laughter and liveliness, some of my favorite people sharing a table with me, and Dpeep oohs over the bag that Dawn bought me (seriously, he squealed, which I knew he would).
- The sight of the jetlag visibly slamming into Paul at about 8pm and realizing that it's probably close to a perfect kind of day for him, too. And it's okay to part ways so early in the evening - because he'll be here tomorrow too. Miracle of miracles.
- Sipping scotch as I gab with Snookie for about 2 hours on the phone about everything and nothing and all the time I'm thinking: Great food, great Paul, great Dpeep, great Karen, great Snookie, great conversation, great day in every way and how oh how did I get so very lucky to have a day so full of the people and things I love so well?
- Blogging my perfect day, filled with this far too rare sort of soul-glow, and Thunder putting her paws on my knee now and the beseeching meow she gives to indicate that the best way to end a best day is to curl up in clean sheets and sleep like one who is justifiably contented with a rather blessed and fantastic life, complete with fantastic friends in a fantastic city with unfuckingbelievably great fall weather and the greatest damn red coat you ever saw.To say nothing of my hair.
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Well I got lotsa sleep last night, yay. Then I got up and went to work and thought to myself how nice and refreshed and awake and ready for the day I was. And then at about 10:00am, I thought omigod I am so tirrrrrrrrrrred. The pace is grueling. I was there until 8:00pm and before everyone starts gasping and being like "but that's like your last job and it nearly killed you, you have to work reasonable hours, remember?!!" Let me just say that (a) the workload, though heavy, is less complex and WAY less stressful, and (b) my performance now will determine Personal Monetary Gains next year. Plus, the hurryhurryhurry thing kinda suits me. I'm sorta having fun. It's interesting, anyway, and not all that painful.
Incidentally, if you can find Hope and Tim's soup at your grocery store (usually in the refrigerated deli case), it is worth every penny and then some. I am completely addicted to the Cream of Mushroom. I keep wanting to try other flavors, but I can't resist getting the mushroom. It's so freaking good. Have turned some others on to it, and they too are addicted - to various flavors, not just the mushroom. It's my new favrite thing to rave about. Mangia, people. Mangia! (I also love that you just pop the lid and microwave it, because as we all know, I hate cleaning the dishes.)
So Dawn reminded me that I never said what I was thinking of as I watched the bellydancing. It was a story idea. I was watching her teacher - who is really, really, really good and I don't know nuttin about bellydancing but you'd have to be blind not to see she's brilliant at it - and thinking that bellydance is very much made exclusively for the female body. Not that men are necessarily incapable of the movements, but that the whole thing is conceived for and perfectly executed by the female anatomy. It's built around it. Tailor-made. Which is way cool.
And then I imagined [cue movie preview announcer voice] the story of a young man, determined to enter the mysterious world of the bellydance. They try to keep him out. A man can't bellydance! they tell him over and over again. [cut to shots of doors slamming in his face, dark-eyed old ladies laughing and shooing him away from their famous bellydancing studios, one woman wisely intones: it will make you a girl] They think he's a joke. But they don't realize - it's about the dance, man. But no one will teach him.
Until he finds One Woman who will teach him her art [she's not the love interest, but cut to quickly interspersed shots of her teaching him, all demanding and strict and as he fails and fails her voice-over saying like It is work, the bellydance! Women know work. They work their fingers bloody as the men sip their coffee and gossip. What do YOU know about work, boy? Eh? Show me! Et cetera]
His family disowns him. O the shame of having this... this... bellydancer, spits his father. [wearing only his undershirt, he shouts A bellydancer is no son of mine! and then our hero is wandering in the street - the camera angle from behind shows him in silhouette against the darkening sky, but a tiny ray of light catches the metal of the finger-cymbals that dangle from his sad little pack of belongings (his mother surreptitiously pressed a little food and money into his hand) and we hear them jingle softly.]
But he works and works and it only takes believing in yourself and he endures the ridicule of friends and strangers [sad dramatic music gives way to the uplifting orchestral arrangement] and Finds Romance Which Proves He's Not Gay [cut to dark-haired, veiled beauty who smiles coyly at him] and works like a dog - no, says the hardened old teacher with a smile, like a woman - and makes it all the way to the Tri-State Bellydancing Championship!
And the preview ends with a shot of him backstage, the curtain before him, his music cued up, the token girlfriend holding his hand with the univeral I Believe In You look on her face, and he takes a breath, sweeps the veil up and over his shoulder to expose his belly (setting the bead-n-medallion fringe of his headdress gently jangling), and steps out onto the stage, defiant!
Close up on his face for just an instant, then the screen goes black and the words
Bellyboy
Spring 2006
rise up on the screen.
And then we hear from the darkened audience a voice in the back calling "You suck!"
Or maybe "Freebird!" but I can never decide which would be funnier.
And that's what I thought of during the bellydance recital.
Nighty-night.
Incidentally, if you can find Hope and Tim's soup at your grocery store (usually in the refrigerated deli case), it is worth every penny and then some. I am completely addicted to the Cream of Mushroom. I keep wanting to try other flavors, but I can't resist getting the mushroom. It's so freaking good. Have turned some others on to it, and they too are addicted - to various flavors, not just the mushroom. It's my new favrite thing to rave about. Mangia, people. Mangia! (I also love that you just pop the lid and microwave it, because as we all know, I hate cleaning the dishes.)
So Dawn reminded me that I never said what I was thinking of as I watched the bellydancing. It was a story idea. I was watching her teacher - who is really, really, really good and I don't know nuttin about bellydancing but you'd have to be blind not to see she's brilliant at it - and thinking that bellydance is very much made exclusively for the female body. Not that men are necessarily incapable of the movements, but that the whole thing is conceived for and perfectly executed by the female anatomy. It's built around it. Tailor-made. Which is way cool.
And then I imagined [cue movie preview announcer voice] the story of a young man, determined to enter the mysterious world of the bellydance. They try to keep him out. A man can't bellydance! they tell him over and over again. [cut to shots of doors slamming in his face, dark-eyed old ladies laughing and shooing him away from their famous bellydancing studios, one woman wisely intones: it will make you a girl] They think he's a joke. But they don't realize - it's about the dance, man. But no one will teach him.
Until he finds One Woman who will teach him her art [she's not the love interest, but cut to quickly interspersed shots of her teaching him, all demanding and strict and as he fails and fails her voice-over saying like It is work, the bellydance! Women know work. They work their fingers bloody as the men sip their coffee and gossip. What do YOU know about work, boy? Eh? Show me! Et cetera]
His family disowns him. O the shame of having this... this... bellydancer, spits his father. [wearing only his undershirt, he shouts A bellydancer is no son of mine! and then our hero is wandering in the street - the camera angle from behind shows him in silhouette against the darkening sky, but a tiny ray of light catches the metal of the finger-cymbals that dangle from his sad little pack of belongings (his mother surreptitiously pressed a little food and money into his hand) and we hear them jingle softly.]
But he works and works and it only takes believing in yourself and he endures the ridicule of friends and strangers [sad dramatic music gives way to the uplifting orchestral arrangement] and Finds Romance Which Proves He's Not Gay [cut to dark-haired, veiled beauty who smiles coyly at him] and works like a dog - no, says the hardened old teacher with a smile, like a woman - and makes it all the way to the Tri-State Bellydancing Championship!
And the preview ends with a shot of him backstage, the curtain before him, his music cued up, the token girlfriend holding his hand with the univeral I Believe In You look on her face, and he takes a breath, sweeps the veil up and over his shoulder to expose his belly (setting the bead-n-medallion fringe of his headdress gently jangling), and steps out onto the stage, defiant!
Close up on his face for just an instant, then the screen goes black and the words
Bellyboy
Spring 2006
And then we hear from the darkened audience a voice in the back calling "You suck!"
Or maybe "Freebird!" but I can never decide which would be funnier.
And that's what I thought of during the bellydance recital.
Nighty-night.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Celebrate Smart Bitches Day with jmc and BSC and mee!
Dream Hunter
Alternate title: Djumpin' Djellabas!
So for the life of me, I have never been able to understand why many people don't love this book. It's one of the less popular Kinsales, and ne do I naught know why. But I've been thinking about it and I believe I have it figured out. And this is really true of most (if not all) Kinsale novels: You can't go into it like you go into other romance novels. You just can't. You need a different mindset, a different approach.
Let's see if I can explain this, because this book is especially easy to dislike if you pick it up thinking "oh yay, new romance novel, let's dig in, ooh desert hijinks!" Because though that seems appropriate enough, it shows that there are things we expect in romance -- and we SHOULD expect some very specific things. This is genre, after all, and by definition there are very precise expectations. And the one place where everyone seems to stop liking this novel is when the story moves out of the Middle East and into England, whch I think shows us that the expectations were dictated by setting.
Gaah, I am so tired and this book deserves so much attention and analysis and I don't have it in me, so I apologize now.
Okay, the basic set-up is this: Lord Winter (first name is Arden, and I love that) is the only child of Overprotective Nobleman Father and Cold Bitch Mamà. He's a very isolated and alone man, never feeling like he's fit in anywhere. And so he loves to run away. Always has, since he was a wee babby. At the beginning of the book, he (an adult at this point) runs away from the parents who hound him relentlessly to give up his silly gallivanting and produce an heir; he runs all the way to Arabia. (Shuddup, I can't remember where. And the tale ranges all over the region, so frankly I'd love it if the book had come with a map. In its absence, I will be geographically vague.)
He dons a djellaba (yallah!) and heads off in search of some legendary Arabian mare - a quest that he knows is silly but it gives him an excuse to wander around in the desert. His first stop is the home of Lady Hester Stanhope and let me tell you a little sumpin: every time I start to think that this beginning plot is far-fetched, I remember that Hester Stanhope was a real person. Lord Winter shows up just in time for her funeral, and this book is about the romance between him and her fictional illegitimate daughter, Zenia. Yes, Zenia. Short for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. But, as Zenia says of Lady Hester, "She thought I was too missish to be a namesake for Zenobia."
And there you have Zenia in a nutshell - not that she's missish at all (as Arden retorts, "I'll wager she never saw you drag a camel up a sand dune" - and yes, I know these convos by heart because I LOVE THIS BOOK) - but more that everything comes back to the endless weight of being "raised" by Hester Stanhope. Because that old girl eventually went completely nutters, and that's what ruled Zenia's life. Zenia wanted to know her father and wear shoes and see a place where there was more green than sand. But her mother called that weak and wanted her daughter to be a wild child of the desert.
I'm spending all this time on How the Characters Are because that's what this book is about. And that's what I mean about many readers approaching it wrong. The first hundred pages is all adventure! Camels and sheiks and djellabas and running from bandits and the red sands of the Nefud and djellabas and uprisings and adders and djellabas the Queen of the Englezys is wearing a djellaba and OMG THEY WERE JUST SENTENCED TO DEATH and excitement excitement!
And then, with excellent (plotting) reasons, it stops.
And readers get all bored and disappointed.
And I can't get it, because this book is about these two people - not about Exciting Desert Adventures. Arden LOVES the excitement; Zenia hates it. She's desperate to get to England and meet the man who's her father, and to leave the desert and that whole life behind. Her desire to be an English lady isn't some starry-eyed dream so much as it's a desperate desire to be normal. Her mother screamed at her, terrorized her, made her live with the Bedouins for years, and never dressed her in anything but the rags of a beggar boy. So I was really happy to see her get to England. It goes like: they're in the desert, get caught up in crazy warring el-Saud faction politics, get condemned to death, imprisoned together, nookie, unexpected escape, and then he dies and she makes it out (barely) to England.
Of course, when she gets there, she finds out she's pregnant. Maybe another reason people tune out at that point because let's face it: kids in romance novels? HATE THEM. I hate them so much that I put two in my first novel. And then I killed em both! Mwa-ha. Romance novel children are a blight upon the genre, that's my stance, and they should all catch the plague while still in swaddling. Better if they never show up at all.
Okay, but listen: this is the exception to that. The kid is a toddler in this book (because we jump like 2 years) and it's not annoying! I know, I know - you don't believe me. But it's true. And no, I'm not just saying that because the kid's name is Beth. One thing I really love is that Zenia is very protective of her daughter and it's not in that typical romance heroine way. She isn't set up as the one exception to the mothering rule of the day, spending all her time with the kid though most other mothers are happy to leave the kid for months with the nanny. Zenia loves her daughter because that's the only thing that has ever been hers - she loves her in an almost obsessive way. She loves her child greedily, with an intensity and desperation that makes you want to say, as Arden (hey, of course he's not really dead, I mean c'mon) says to her --- Zenia? Chill. Seriously, babe, you have gotta calm down.
But it's all so cool because it's entirely in keeping with her character and her background. Like I said - keep your eyes on the characters and their development - on the people, not on the setting and the action that starts everything out - and there is absolutely no way you can be disappointed in this story. Or okay I guess you COULD be, but I don't wanna know about it.
I think what's so unique about it is that it's very much about parenting. Don't get me wrong - there's nookie and lovetalk and it's romance, of course, but I mean so many of the themes are mother-daughter and father-son and the ways that people screw up with their kids and the ways things that you do to your kids - how you can't ever really fix some things that happen so young. Parents are so very absent in romance novels - they're either dead (heroines are almost always conveniently motherless or orphaned entirely) or barely there. But this might be the most psychological of Kinsale's novels, exploring characters who are so marked by their parents' personalities that they can't escape that childhood influence. Right up to the end, it's not love or commitment that Zenia is running away from - it's the emotional inheritance from her mother. And Arden's determination to not run away again, as he always has, means that he must come to terms with his father in some way. I mean for the love of ganesh, who'd ever think that a guy trying to pay attention to his father's boring lectures about which field is in hay and what fence needs repairing could be romantic? But it is romantic because he's not going on some expedition to the Antarctic and he's not going to explore Argentina, he's going to stay right here and learn the stupid bounds and corners because he doesn't want to lose his wife and kid.
It's kinda a long story as to how Learning the Bounds and Corners = Love, but just trust me on that one.
So in sum-
Hero: Tortured, though only mildly so (on the real-life scale, it's pretty haunted/tortured; on the Kinsale Scale Of Tortured, it's mild). And definitely in a state of Extreme Sexual Frustration. He's confident and daring, but unsure and little-boy-ish. He's awkward and has a great sense of humor, a perfect amount of cynicism. He's the only Kinsale hero that I actually want to sleep with. Not fall in love with and get married and have babies (that's Ruck), or crazy hot dirty-girl nookie that could make you go blind and ask for more (that's Faelan) or any other number of things, but I just want to take him as a lover. "Oh," they'd whisper as I pass. "That's Beth Kingston. She's taken Lord Winter as her lover. Amazing, that luminous quality to her complexion lately."
Heroine: Haunted and intense and a ton of readers hate her because she is, I think, the most imperfect of all the Kinsale heroines. Her imperfections aren't charming or easily understood or admirable: Melanthe's bitchy coldness in FMLH is a necessary work of art, for instance, and Leigh's bitchiness (why isn’t there a better word than "bitchiness"?) in TPM is heartbreaking when you realize the pain that caused it. But Zenia's imperfections are difficult for a lot of readers to identify (and therefore sympathize) with. I love it, because it's definitely the most real heroine I've read in Romance, and one of the most real women I've read in any genre.
Story: A life-or-death adventure and intense romance in about 100 pages -- which to me proves that there is a place in this world for the short-form romance novel -- and then a tense psychological struggle for the last 300 pages. Expect that, and you won't be disappointed. If you want tales from the harem, go elsewhere.
Kid: Not annoying, miraculously enough.
What I don't love: The ending. I mean, I love the very very end, but not the thing just before the end. Ya know - typical crisis moment! how will he get her back! cue dramatic music! That part? Hate how it's resolved. Although it's pretty funny and if I start accusing it of being far-fetched, I remember that Hester Stanhope was a real person.
Favorite little things: I love that he gets the measles. I love the whole portion in the desert, but mostly when they journey across the red sands and are running out of water and trying to get to Jubbeh and there's a hole in his sock (gah, that detail is brill), just three or four pages so absolutely perfectly written. I love that the kid is cute but never cutesy. I love that Arden actually misses Selim, and resents Zenia for Selim's nonexistence. I love when he tries to woo her and the bit with the white rose and frikken Lady Caroline. I love the nookie in the chair because it's just so hot and on so many levels. I love that he actually gets the horse, and then the big achievement is like nothing, like ashes in his mouth, making those wasted months of his life even more wasted and completely unreal. I love that Zenia wants shoes, and that she hears her mother's screeching voice in her head and then in her own mouth, and that she orders a dinner tray to wolf down in private every night because she's so ashamed.
And duh - I love the whole girl-dressed-as-boy schtick.
I also love this one other funny personal Snookie-Beth-djellabah moment thing about it, but I have to sleep now and will blog it some other time. For now, I only say to Laura (who is out of town and prolly not gonna read this for forever): Thank you, el-Muhafeh, for yet another fantastic book. Really. Every time I read it, I get something else out of it, and I'm constantly surprised at the complexity of the characters, how they are written with such truth and understanding. The people who don't like it are, I think, the ones who expected and wanted the story to go somewhere it just didn't go. And couldn't go, not in order to explore the themes that are explored here in this quiet personal drama. I think maybe they're the same people who really love Sieze the Fire, which ranges far and wide and never lets up on the adventure and big drama. Meanwhile, Sieze the Fire has always been one of my least favorites.
So I guess a lot of times, it really does come down to whether you're a plot-reader or a character-reader, which one of those things means more. Character means more to me, which is why this book is on my Best Of Kinsale list.
Okay, even though I could talk about this book forever, I do have to sleep.
Dream Hunter
Alternate title: Djumpin' Djellabas!
So for the life of me, I have never been able to understand why many people don't love this book. It's one of the less popular Kinsales, and ne do I naught know why. But I've been thinking about it and I believe I have it figured out. And this is really true of most (if not all) Kinsale novels: You can't go into it like you go into other romance novels. You just can't. You need a different mindset, a different approach.
Let's see if I can explain this, because this book is especially easy to dislike if you pick it up thinking "oh yay, new romance novel, let's dig in, ooh desert hijinks!" Because though that seems appropriate enough, it shows that there are things we expect in romance -- and we SHOULD expect some very specific things. This is genre, after all, and by definition there are very precise expectations. And the one place where everyone seems to stop liking this novel is when the story moves out of the Middle East and into England, whch I think shows us that the expectations were dictated by setting.
Gaah, I am so tired and this book deserves so much attention and analysis and I don't have it in me, so I apologize now.
Okay, the basic set-up is this: Lord Winter (first name is Arden, and I love that) is the only child of Overprotective Nobleman Father and Cold Bitch Mamà. He's a very isolated and alone man, never feeling like he's fit in anywhere. And so he loves to run away. Always has, since he was a wee babby. At the beginning of the book, he (an adult at this point) runs away from the parents who hound him relentlessly to give up his silly gallivanting and produce an heir; he runs all the way to Arabia. (Shuddup, I can't remember where. And the tale ranges all over the region, so frankly I'd love it if the book had come with a map. In its absence, I will be geographically vague.)
He dons a djellaba (yallah!) and heads off in search of some legendary Arabian mare - a quest that he knows is silly but it gives him an excuse to wander around in the desert. His first stop is the home of Lady Hester Stanhope and let me tell you a little sumpin: every time I start to think that this beginning plot is far-fetched, I remember that Hester Stanhope was a real person. Lord Winter shows up just in time for her funeral, and this book is about the romance between him and her fictional illegitimate daughter, Zenia. Yes, Zenia. Short for Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra. But, as Zenia says of Lady Hester, "She thought I was too missish to be a namesake for Zenobia."
And there you have Zenia in a nutshell - not that she's missish at all (as Arden retorts, "I'll wager she never saw you drag a camel up a sand dune" - and yes, I know these convos by heart because I LOVE THIS BOOK) - but more that everything comes back to the endless weight of being "raised" by Hester Stanhope. Because that old girl eventually went completely nutters, and that's what ruled Zenia's life. Zenia wanted to know her father and wear shoes and see a place where there was more green than sand. But her mother called that weak and wanted her daughter to be a wild child of the desert.
I'm spending all this time on How the Characters Are because that's what this book is about. And that's what I mean about many readers approaching it wrong. The first hundred pages is all adventure! Camels and sheiks and djellabas and running from bandits and the red sands of the Nefud and djellabas and uprisings and adders and djellabas the Queen of the Englezys is wearing a djellaba and OMG THEY WERE JUST SENTENCED TO DEATH and excitement excitement!
And then, with excellent (plotting) reasons, it stops.
And readers get all bored and disappointed.
And I can't get it, because this book is about these two people - not about Exciting Desert Adventures. Arden LOVES the excitement; Zenia hates it. She's desperate to get to England and meet the man who's her father, and to leave the desert and that whole life behind. Her desire to be an English lady isn't some starry-eyed dream so much as it's a desperate desire to be normal. Her mother screamed at her, terrorized her, made her live with the Bedouins for years, and never dressed her in anything but the rags of a beggar boy. So I was really happy to see her get to England. It goes like: they're in the desert, get caught up in crazy warring el-Saud faction politics, get condemned to death, imprisoned together, nookie, unexpected escape, and then he dies and she makes it out (barely) to England.
Of course, when she gets there, she finds out she's pregnant. Maybe another reason people tune out at that point because let's face it: kids in romance novels? HATE THEM. I hate them so much that I put two in my first novel. And then I killed em both! Mwa-ha. Romance novel children are a blight upon the genre, that's my stance, and they should all catch the plague while still in swaddling. Better if they never show up at all.
Okay, but listen: this is the exception to that. The kid is a toddler in this book (because we jump like 2 years) and it's not annoying! I know, I know - you don't believe me. But it's true. And no, I'm not just saying that because the kid's name is Beth. One thing I really love is that Zenia is very protective of her daughter and it's not in that typical romance heroine way. She isn't set up as the one exception to the mothering rule of the day, spending all her time with the kid though most other mothers are happy to leave the kid for months with the nanny. Zenia loves her daughter because that's the only thing that has ever been hers - she loves her in an almost obsessive way. She loves her child greedily, with an intensity and desperation that makes you want to say, as Arden (hey, of course he's not really dead, I mean c'mon) says to her --- Zenia? Chill. Seriously, babe, you have gotta calm down.
But it's all so cool because it's entirely in keeping with her character and her background. Like I said - keep your eyes on the characters and their development - on the people, not on the setting and the action that starts everything out - and there is absolutely no way you can be disappointed in this story. Or okay I guess you COULD be, but I don't wanna know about it.
I think what's so unique about it is that it's very much about parenting. Don't get me wrong - there's nookie and lovetalk and it's romance, of course, but I mean so many of the themes are mother-daughter and father-son and the ways that people screw up with their kids and the ways things that you do to your kids - how you can't ever really fix some things that happen so young. Parents are so very absent in romance novels - they're either dead (heroines are almost always conveniently motherless or orphaned entirely) or barely there. But this might be the most psychological of Kinsale's novels, exploring characters who are so marked by their parents' personalities that they can't escape that childhood influence. Right up to the end, it's not love or commitment that Zenia is running away from - it's the emotional inheritance from her mother. And Arden's determination to not run away again, as he always has, means that he must come to terms with his father in some way. I mean for the love of ganesh, who'd ever think that a guy trying to pay attention to his father's boring lectures about which field is in hay and what fence needs repairing could be romantic? But it is romantic because he's not going on some expedition to the Antarctic and he's not going to explore Argentina, he's going to stay right here and learn the stupid bounds and corners because he doesn't want to lose his wife and kid.
It's kinda a long story as to how Learning the Bounds and Corners = Love, but just trust me on that one.
So in sum-
Hero: Tortured, though only mildly so (on the real-life scale, it's pretty haunted/tortured; on the Kinsale Scale Of Tortured, it's mild). And definitely in a state of Extreme Sexual Frustration. He's confident and daring, but unsure and little-boy-ish. He's awkward and has a great sense of humor, a perfect amount of cynicism. He's the only Kinsale hero that I actually want to sleep with. Not fall in love with and get married and have babies (that's Ruck), or crazy hot dirty-girl nookie that could make you go blind and ask for more (that's Faelan) or any other number of things, but I just want to take him as a lover. "Oh," they'd whisper as I pass. "That's Beth Kingston. She's taken Lord Winter as her lover. Amazing, that luminous quality to her complexion lately."
Heroine: Haunted and intense and a ton of readers hate her because she is, I think, the most imperfect of all the Kinsale heroines. Her imperfections aren't charming or easily understood or admirable: Melanthe's bitchy coldness in FMLH is a necessary work of art, for instance, and Leigh's bitchiness (why isn’t there a better word than "bitchiness"?) in TPM is heartbreaking when you realize the pain that caused it. But Zenia's imperfections are difficult for a lot of readers to identify (and therefore sympathize) with. I love it, because it's definitely the most real heroine I've read in Romance, and one of the most real women I've read in any genre.
Story: A life-or-death adventure and intense romance in about 100 pages -- which to me proves that there is a place in this world for the short-form romance novel -- and then a tense psychological struggle for the last 300 pages. Expect that, and you won't be disappointed. If you want tales from the harem, go elsewhere.
Kid: Not annoying, miraculously enough.
What I don't love: The ending. I mean, I love the very very end, but not the thing just before the end. Ya know - typical crisis moment! how will he get her back! cue dramatic music! That part? Hate how it's resolved. Although it's pretty funny and if I start accusing it of being far-fetched, I remember that Hester Stanhope was a real person.
Favorite little things: I love that he gets the measles. I love the whole portion in the desert, but mostly when they journey across the red sands and are running out of water and trying to get to Jubbeh and there's a hole in his sock (gah, that detail is brill), just three or four pages so absolutely perfectly written. I love that the kid is cute but never cutesy. I love that Arden actually misses Selim, and resents Zenia for Selim's nonexistence. I love when he tries to woo her and the bit with the white rose and frikken Lady Caroline. I love the nookie in the chair because it's just so hot and on so many levels. I love that he actually gets the horse, and then the big achievement is like nothing, like ashes in his mouth, making those wasted months of his life even more wasted and completely unreal. I love that Zenia wants shoes, and that she hears her mother's screeching voice in her head and then in her own mouth, and that she orders a dinner tray to wolf down in private every night because she's so ashamed.
And duh - I love the whole girl-dressed-as-boy schtick.
I also love this one other funny personal Snookie-Beth-djellabah moment thing about it, but I have to sleep now and will blog it some other time. For now, I only say to Laura (who is out of town and prolly not gonna read this for forever): Thank you, el-Muhafeh, for yet another fantastic book. Really. Every time I read it, I get something else out of it, and I'm constantly surprised at the complexity of the characters, how they are written with such truth and understanding. The people who don't like it are, I think, the ones who expected and wanted the story to go somewhere it just didn't go. And couldn't go, not in order to explore the themes that are explored here in this quiet personal drama. I think maybe they're the same people who really love Sieze the Fire, which ranges far and wide and never lets up on the adventure and big drama. Meanwhile, Sieze the Fire has always been one of my least favorites.
So I guess a lot of times, it really does come down to whether you're a plot-reader or a character-reader, which one of those things means more. Character means more to me, which is why this book is on my Best Of Kinsale list.
Okay, even though I could talk about this book forever, I do have to sleep.
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Belated SBD
And may it be the first in a series of Why I Heart Laura Kinsale's Writing And Why It's Better Than All the Rest The Genre Has To Offer And NO That's Not Up For Debate Because This Is My Blog And I'm Right And Anyone Who Doesn't See That She's The Best Is Nothing But A Puling Peasant And I Even Thought This About Her Writing Like Ten Years Ago Before We Were Friends Or She Knew Me From Adam, So Believe Me, This Is Not Sucking Up Because She'd Be The First To Tell You That I
Jaysus, that title is getting long. You get the point.
The Authoress Herseluen has requested talk about one of the lesser-praised tomes. Candy has stuffed the ballot box and just like wrecked my scientifical process - but I am charmed by her enthusiasm. So as a compromise, I honor both their wishes and prepare to say good things about
The Hidden Heart.
But not ONLY good things because I mean I do have to be honest and just write like how I talk to my friends (which is, after all, my schtick) and the first thing is a criticism: what a stupid title. Exactly whose heart is hidden? Why do publishers of Romance not even apparently care how inane a title is?
Okay, I'm backing away from that, because
(a) Romance novel titles are practically required to be inane
(b) at least it's not What An Earl Wants or Devil In A Kilt or something equally cringe-worthy
(c) I am as bad if not worse than the Authoress Herseluen at coming up with titles, and if it were me I'd probably have called it like OMG I GOT PUBLISHED!
Because this is the first book she ever wrote. Which is pretty damn cool when you consider how non-crapulent it is.
So, my first bit of advice: This book is way better if you read it before the rest of the Kinsale line-up. Because compared to the rest romance novels on the shelves, this is high-end. But compared to the rest of Kinsale, it's just, "Yeah that was okay."
And working right along with that is what her readers so very often say about her work overall: she totally spoils you for other romance. It's like how I used to be able to drink Dewar's and even Johnnie Walker Red Label, but now? Gack. I have tasted the glory that is Balvenie Doublewood (thanks, paul) and I can't go back. I can't. Just like I can't wear shoes from Payless anymore because oww they hurt my accustomed-to-quality feet. In much the same way, non-Kinsale romance oww hurts my soul.
So, to the novel at hand. The hero is one Gryphon Meridon. (good name!) Let's play a game and see if you can guess the best adjective for this, a Kinsale hero:
A. Domineering
B. Sensitive
C. Tortured
If you picked C, do a shot, wooo! Extra points if you expected "In a state of extreme sexual frustration" to be on that list.
This book is what established Kinsale - oh bah, I gotta call her LK, okay? Okay, this novel established LK as THE writer of anguished, tortured, wronged, drool-worthy, let me kiss it and make it better, "bleeding edge" heroes. Why? Because Gryphon is SO FRIKKEN SWEET and wonderful, but his life has been all hellish because he was orphaned and his parents and siblings died in this awful accident at sea and even though he's titled and all, there's the Villainous Cousin who claims the estate for himself, leaving Gryph out in the cold.
(Not Quite Relevant Aside: Omg, it just hit me that the same thing sorta kinda happened to Ruck in FMLH. The whole non-recognition of his birthright, I mean. And yet somehow, it's totally different in that book. Huh. BRAVA.) (End aside.)
So Gryphon is all like sailing around the world in a Have Ship Must Travel scenario, barely scraping by and desperate and all, and his only real friend is the lovable first mate Grady, this crusty old salt who's been around forever. And alla sudden yay he's in luck because some batty botanist wants to pay him buttloads of money to ship his plant specimens from the Indies (or whatever, the details aren't important) to Merry Olde England and Gryph and his assorted and motley crew are all like WOO HOO CASH MONEY!
Enter Lady Tess Collier. (good name!) She's all beautiful. Like really really pretty. So pretty, and so aptly described as such that years after reading the book, my reaction to her looks is precisely the reaction that Gryph has. He just looks at her and it's like: "Um. Pretty. Prettypretty look how pretty oh god don't smile you're killing me with the smile oh shit I just fell in love. DAMN IT."
Please note that Laura's description of that encounter is actually eloquent. Unlike the preceding paragraph.
So Tess's dad dies in like the very first page and she's gotta go to England and Be A Lady and Make A Good Match. These two things positively terrify her, as they would anyone with sense. She makes friends with Gryph on the boatride over, and he's supposed to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't hook up with any disreputable lords or whatever, but look: I dunno. I don't care about the plot. I barely remember the plot, though if I took two seconds and thought about it, I could give a detailed blow-by-blow.
But I'm not going to, and not just because I'm tired and not just because of spoilers, but because frankly? The plot is just meh. It's profoundly melodramatic, but that's pretty standard for the genre and so forgivable. (I forgive a lot as long as I'm not set up to expect something different. Romance = melodramatic plot. So I'm cool with that.) There's a Really Bad Villain who is, actually, not a cardboard cut-out. There's this focus of events on How Will Gryph Reclaim His Birthright which is, actually, very well-researched and not just for show.
But what this book is really about - and what, to me, any successfully executed romance novel is about - is what love can do for two people. It's about two characters growing up and figuring out who they are and fixing things inside of them that would never, ever get fixed if they hadn't stuck it out together. It's not just "We are in love and we vanquished the baddies and got a nice castle, too, happy ever after!"
And see, I think that's where so many romance writers go wrong, because they think that that's it - that's all you have to do. Boy meets girl, love, nookie, conflict nearly ruins it, conflict resolved, nookie nookie, happily ever after. NonononoNO, people. Read Kinsale and learn what it's REALLY about. It's about people changing for love, because of love, in spite of love. NOT about changing for the person you fell in love with. Love is its own character in her books. People tear themselves apart to get it, to have it, to keep it.
The real conflict of Hidden Heart has nothing to do with adventures on the high seas or reclaiming your family name and lands or escaping your kidnapper(s) or killing the Totally Crazy Cousin or getting out of a death sentence or scheming debutants or whatever else. That's all noise and confusion and the stuff that sort of fills up pages with some tension and whatnot. When it comes down to it, the thing that keeps Tess and Gryph apart, the obstacle that they really have to overcome? It shows up after all the rest is settled and there's no logical reason for them not to be together, but you realize it's been there all along: life is scary, and love is scary, and stepping into both of those things is a choice. Not a can't-help-it wild passion thoughtless irresistible I Must Have You thing, but a "Holy Shit, THAT'S what love will take from me and give to me and only I can make it true, and is that what I'm gonna do?"
Which sounds really trite and cliché when I boil it down like that. And I spose there's nothing all that original about it, but LK's writing is such - so rich and complex and so incredibly intense - that it's like a revelation. Love's absence and presence in any life is unique, and she uniquely illustrates it with every single character she writes. Love conquers all, love heals, love hurts, tralalalala we've heard it a bamillion times and we know it all. But Gryph stands there while a frikken parrot lands on Tess's head and she's appalled and the baby is wailing and he's breaking into a million pieces and in that moment you KNOW what love means to him, to his life. And it stops being a cliché.
Which is pretty goddamn amazing.
Um, okay - totally didn't do it justice, but there ya go. In sum, the characters are fully realized, the prose is lovely, the nookie is pretty yummy, the plot is superfluous-ish, it's a very very intense read, and I am SO damn glad those two got together and lived happily ever after.
Next time i'm doing Dream Hunter, because I really, really love to talk about that book.
And may it be the first in a series of Why I Heart Laura Kinsale's Writing And Why It's Better Than All the Rest The Genre Has To Offer And NO That's Not Up For Debate Because This Is My Blog And I'm Right And Anyone Who Doesn't See That She's The Best Is Nothing But A Puling Peasant And I Even Thought This About Her Writing Like Ten Years Ago Before We Were Friends Or She Knew Me From Adam, So Believe Me, This Is Not Sucking Up Because She'd Be The First To Tell You That I
Jaysus, that title is getting long. You get the point.
The Authoress Herseluen has requested talk about one of the lesser-praised tomes. Candy has stuffed the ballot box and just like wrecked my scientifical process - but I am charmed by her enthusiasm. So as a compromise, I honor both their wishes and prepare to say good things about
The Hidden Heart.
But not ONLY good things because I mean I do have to be honest and just write like how I talk to my friends (which is, after all, my schtick) and the first thing is a criticism: what a stupid title. Exactly whose heart is hidden? Why do publishers of Romance not even apparently care how inane a title is?
Okay, I'm backing away from that, because
(a) Romance novel titles are practically required to be inane
(b) at least it's not What An Earl Wants or Devil In A Kilt or something equally cringe-worthy
(c) I am as bad if not worse than the Authoress Herseluen at coming up with titles, and if it were me I'd probably have called it like OMG I GOT PUBLISHED!
Because this is the first book she ever wrote. Which is pretty damn cool when you consider how non-crapulent it is.
So, my first bit of advice: This book is way better if you read it before the rest of the Kinsale line-up. Because compared to the rest romance novels on the shelves, this is high-end. But compared to the rest of Kinsale, it's just, "Yeah that was okay."
And working right along with that is what her readers so very often say about her work overall: she totally spoils you for other romance. It's like how I used to be able to drink Dewar's and even Johnnie Walker Red Label, but now? Gack. I have tasted the glory that is Balvenie Doublewood (thanks, paul) and I can't go back. I can't. Just like I can't wear shoes from Payless anymore because oww they hurt my accustomed-to-quality feet. In much the same way, non-Kinsale romance oww hurts my soul.
So, to the novel at hand. The hero is one Gryphon Meridon. (good name!) Let's play a game and see if you can guess the best adjective for this, a Kinsale hero:
A. Domineering
B. Sensitive
C. Tortured
If you picked C, do a shot, wooo! Extra points if you expected "In a state of extreme sexual frustration" to be on that list.
This book is what established Kinsale - oh bah, I gotta call her LK, okay? Okay, this novel established LK as THE writer of anguished, tortured, wronged, drool-worthy, let me kiss it and make it better, "bleeding edge" heroes. Why? Because Gryphon is SO FRIKKEN SWEET and wonderful, but his life has been all hellish because he was orphaned and his parents and siblings died in this awful accident at sea and even though he's titled and all, there's the Villainous Cousin who claims the estate for himself, leaving Gryph out in the cold.
(Not Quite Relevant Aside: Omg, it just hit me that the same thing sorta kinda happened to Ruck in FMLH. The whole non-recognition of his birthright, I mean. And yet somehow, it's totally different in that book. Huh. BRAVA.) (End aside.)
So Gryphon is all like sailing around the world in a Have Ship Must Travel scenario, barely scraping by and desperate and all, and his only real friend is the lovable first mate Grady, this crusty old salt who's been around forever. And alla sudden yay he's in luck because some batty botanist wants to pay him buttloads of money to ship his plant specimens from the Indies (or whatever, the details aren't important) to Merry Olde England and Gryph and his assorted and motley crew are all like WOO HOO CASH MONEY!
Enter Lady Tess Collier. (good name!) She's all beautiful. Like really really pretty. So pretty, and so aptly described as such that years after reading the book, my reaction to her looks is precisely the reaction that Gryph has. He just looks at her and it's like: "Um. Pretty. Prettypretty look how pretty oh god don't smile you're killing me with the smile oh shit I just fell in love. DAMN IT."
Please note that Laura's description of that encounter is actually eloquent. Unlike the preceding paragraph.
So Tess's dad dies in like the very first page and she's gotta go to England and Be A Lady and Make A Good Match. These two things positively terrify her, as they would anyone with sense. She makes friends with Gryph on the boatride over, and he's supposed to keep an eye on her to make sure she doesn't hook up with any disreputable lords or whatever, but look: I dunno. I don't care about the plot. I barely remember the plot, though if I took two seconds and thought about it, I could give a detailed blow-by-blow.
But I'm not going to, and not just because I'm tired and not just because of spoilers, but because frankly? The plot is just meh. It's profoundly melodramatic, but that's pretty standard for the genre and so forgivable. (I forgive a lot as long as I'm not set up to expect something different. Romance = melodramatic plot. So I'm cool with that.) There's a Really Bad Villain who is, actually, not a cardboard cut-out. There's this focus of events on How Will Gryph Reclaim His Birthright which is, actually, very well-researched and not just for show.
But what this book is really about - and what, to me, any successfully executed romance novel is about - is what love can do for two people. It's about two characters growing up and figuring out who they are and fixing things inside of them that would never, ever get fixed if they hadn't stuck it out together. It's not just "We are in love and we vanquished the baddies and got a nice castle, too, happy ever after!"
And see, I think that's where so many romance writers go wrong, because they think that that's it - that's all you have to do. Boy meets girl, love, nookie, conflict nearly ruins it, conflict resolved, nookie nookie, happily ever after. NonononoNO, people. Read Kinsale and learn what it's REALLY about. It's about people changing for love, because of love, in spite of love. NOT about changing for the person you fell in love with. Love is its own character in her books. People tear themselves apart to get it, to have it, to keep it.
The real conflict of Hidden Heart has nothing to do with adventures on the high seas or reclaiming your family name and lands or escaping your kidnapper(s) or killing the Totally Crazy Cousin or getting out of a death sentence or scheming debutants or whatever else. That's all noise and confusion and the stuff that sort of fills up pages with some tension and whatnot. When it comes down to it, the thing that keeps Tess and Gryph apart, the obstacle that they really have to overcome? It shows up after all the rest is settled and there's no logical reason for them not to be together, but you realize it's been there all along: life is scary, and love is scary, and stepping into both of those things is a choice. Not a can't-help-it wild passion thoughtless irresistible I Must Have You thing, but a "Holy Shit, THAT'S what love will take from me and give to me and only I can make it true, and is that what I'm gonna do?"
Which sounds really trite and cliché when I boil it down like that. And I spose there's nothing all that original about it, but LK's writing is such - so rich and complex and so incredibly intense - that it's like a revelation. Love's absence and presence in any life is unique, and she uniquely illustrates it with every single character she writes. Love conquers all, love heals, love hurts, tralalalala we've heard it a bamillion times and we know it all. But Gryph stands there while a frikken parrot lands on Tess's head and she's appalled and the baby is wailing and he's breaking into a million pieces and in that moment you KNOW what love means to him, to his life. And it stops being a cliché.
Which is pretty goddamn amazing.
Um, okay - totally didn't do it justice, but there ya go. In sum, the characters are fully realized, the prose is lovely, the nookie is pretty yummy, the plot is superfluous-ish, it's a very very intense read, and I am SO damn glad those two got together and lived happily ever after.
Next time i'm doing Dream Hunter, because I really, really love to talk about that book.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
In re critique, reviewing, reading and writing
Um. I know I said I'd work on this and all, so I'm sure you're all probly thinking a considerable amount of time and thought and effort went into this, but I'm here to tell you right now that every time I sat down, looked at the blank page, and told myself to go on and tackle the subject? I pretty much just, like, looked at couches that I can't afford or added stuff to my Amazon wishlist or just played with dolls.
Anyway, now that I think of it, the only thing I really have to say on the topic is something I've said before, many times: Not everything is a matter of opinion. Here - I wrote it back in my guest bitchery of months ago, so allow me to quote myself from when I was talking about a Gaelen Foley novel, bolding the part that I think is importantest:
When I tell a writing friend that this scene she's written is just okay, just serviceable and not anywhere near great, and that her insistence on bouncing back and forth between POVs has robbed the scene of its intensity and interfered with the reader's ability to viscerally connect with her characters, and unless her readers connect with her characters in that scene, they will never ever forgive those same characters for their very human flaws, etc? Not so much an opinion, that. It's a fact. Because writing certain things in certain ways creates certain effects. Which is a fact. Not an opinion.
And said friend's defense of "But I like seeing it from both POVs, I don't want to scrap one," is perfectly valid. But it's not catty or mean or vindictive when I respond with, "Hey, if you want your reader to care less about the people you're writing about, go right ahead."
Look, it is not wrong in any way to say that something can and should be better. Ever.
And pay atytention now, because it's also no sin to say, "Yeah okay - it's not good. But I love it anyway, and a lot better than stuff that's technically superior." (And don't get on that reactionary kick of I hate everything those snooty critics praise, because who the fuck ever said that critics in NY are the experts? It's not just that most are pretentious gits, it's that they're as much Dumb Sheep as so much of the rest of society.)
Or maybe this, which I very often say: "There are many things wrong with it, but it still works and somehow it's still good." (Those are the trickiest to me, because finding out why it still works despite the flaws is like a desperate attempt to define and distill magic.)
The problem I see all the time is that people think that if they like it, then it is good. Period. And then they get all defensive. (Sound familiar, my fellow genre readers?) This is especially the case with reading material, because we tend to think of literature as an indicator of intelligence. So someone looks at that Amanda Quick novel that you're in love with and calls it worthless crap writing, and the gut reaction is often: That's criticism of ME, that person thinks that I am inferior for reading an inferior book. But you know what? I READ Slightly Shady and it IS crap. And if I say that? It's a slam on the book. Not on the reader. And not on the human worth of Amanda Quick or those who enjoy that crime against aesthetic sensibilities.
The bigger problem in this belief that Everything Is A Matter Of Taste, of course, is that we've become a culture that is largely incapable of recognizing (and thereby encouraging) excellence. The "No one's better than anyone else" philosophy has escaped the kindergarten and now rules our society and we let it because god forbid we have some kind of passion for or against a thing, state it in no uncertain terms, and then stick by it.
Read that bolded part there again. Apply it to personal relationships (generally the failed ones) or your worklife or, especially, politics. And tell me that I'm wrong. Because variety and choice and freedom of opinion doesn't come from the Pollyannish attitude that As Long As Someone Likes It, There's Got To Be Something Good About It. Variety and choice and freedom of opinion come when we all agree that there is such a thing as a standard of excellence, and we like when it's achieved. And, conversely, just because we like a thing, that doesn't mean that it's met that standard.
I don't know that I'm making any sense, so here's some shorthand: I love Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. I looooooove them. They are cheap and bad for me. I also love Vosges gourmet chocolate truffles (which cost like $3 each. EACH!) Now some days I am more in the mood for Little Debbie than I am for truffles. And people who don't like Little Debbie snack cakes at all? I think they are serrrrriously missing out on one of the better guilty pleasures in life. But I will never, ever dispute the fact that Vosges chocolate is a higher quality product and that Little Debbies are basically crap. But that's okay because I love crap! And if someone insists that Leonidas truffles are the best and that they can't stand Vosges? That's a matter of taste.
Or just boil it down to what Paul so eloquently wrote once: Some stuff is just better. Platonically. God loves it more." Not because you love it more.
Hm yeah, that about covers it.
Um. I know I said I'd work on this and all, so I'm sure you're all probly thinking a considerable amount of time and thought and effort went into this, but I'm here to tell you right now that every time I sat down, looked at the blank page, and told myself to go on and tackle the subject? I pretty much just, like, looked at couches that I can't afford or added stuff to my Amazon wishlist or just played with dolls.
Anyway, now that I think of it, the only thing I really have to say on the topic is something I've said before, many times: Not everything is a matter of opinion. Here - I wrote it back in my guest bitchery of months ago, so allow me to quote myself from when I was talking about a Gaelen Foley novel, bolding the part that I think is importantest:
This is a bad book - crap characters and a crap story and even crap nookie (um, not kinky nookie involving crap, though, you know what I mean). Sure, some people may like it - and like it a LOT, and are sitting at the monitor, working up a healthy bit of indignation at what a rip-roaring little bitch I am - but having defenders doesn't make it good writing. Good writing is qualitative, and so is bad writing. And there's just something about this genre (I dunno, maybe because girls are taught to play nice?) that makes it impossible for reviewers to come right out and say: This is BAD WRITING. You might like it and it's not wrong to like it, and I don't think less of you or your intelligence for liking it, and bully for the author who can care so little and sell so much. But the bottom line is that It. Is. Not. Good. It's not even just sorta-okay. It's downright bad, so jesus effing CHRIST, can we all stop pretending that it's simply not my cuppa? Can we all just say that we WANT good writing instead of being nice about the stuff that other people seem to like, and it's what's on offer, so okay apparently it's "all a matter of taste"?Yeah, see - I already covered the subject, lo these many months ago. And for those people who insist that everything in writing/reading IS a matter of opinion, I just say: why the hell do you think writers critique each other? When I give my writing to someone else and ask for feedback, it's because I want to know what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong. And because I know--we BOTH know--that there are definitive answers to that. I mean, look - I could sit here and blog, "My job is unsatisfactory, and that creates a tension in my life that is sometimes unbearable." I could do that, but honestly, I'm pretty sure that this is far more compelling writing and, in a word, better.
No, apparently we can't. The closest we can get to it is agreeing on One Really Bad Author coffConnieMasoncoffcoff and deciding it's okay to laugh at her. (Insert social commentary here, about the momentum of mediocrity and the tyrrany of egalitarianism, how too-threatening it is to have to recognize definitive excellence and definitive dreck because heaven forbid anyone is better than anyone else in this world. Oh and as long as I'm at it, I'll quote my friend Paul who says that "some stuff is just better. Platonically. God loves it more.")
When I tell a writing friend that this scene she's written is just okay, just serviceable and not anywhere near great, and that her insistence on bouncing back and forth between POVs has robbed the scene of its intensity and interfered with the reader's ability to viscerally connect with her characters, and unless her readers connect with her characters in that scene, they will never ever forgive those same characters for their very human flaws, etc? Not so much an opinion, that. It's a fact. Because writing certain things in certain ways creates certain effects. Which is a fact. Not an opinion.
And said friend's defense of "But I like seeing it from both POVs, I don't want to scrap one," is perfectly valid. But it's not catty or mean or vindictive when I respond with, "Hey, if you want your reader to care less about the people you're writing about, go right ahead."
Look, it is not wrong in any way to say that something can and should be better. Ever.
And pay atytention now, because it's also no sin to say, "Yeah okay - it's not good. But I love it anyway, and a lot better than stuff that's technically superior." (And don't get on that reactionary kick of I hate everything those snooty critics praise, because who the fuck ever said that critics in NY are the experts? It's not just that most are pretentious gits, it's that they're as much Dumb Sheep as so much of the rest of society.)
Or maybe this, which I very often say: "There are many things wrong with it, but it still works and somehow it's still good." (Those are the trickiest to me, because finding out why it still works despite the flaws is like a desperate attempt to define and distill magic.)
The problem I see all the time is that people think that if they like it, then it is good. Period. And then they get all defensive. (Sound familiar, my fellow genre readers?) This is especially the case with reading material, because we tend to think of literature as an indicator of intelligence. So someone looks at that Amanda Quick novel that you're in love with and calls it worthless crap writing, and the gut reaction is often: That's criticism of ME, that person thinks that I am inferior for reading an inferior book. But you know what? I READ Slightly Shady and it IS crap. And if I say that? It's a slam on the book. Not on the reader. And not on the human worth of Amanda Quick or those who enjoy that crime against aesthetic sensibilities.
The bigger problem in this belief that Everything Is A Matter Of Taste, of course, is that we've become a culture that is largely incapable of recognizing (and thereby encouraging) excellence. The "No one's better than anyone else" philosophy has escaped the kindergarten and now rules our society and we let it because god forbid we have some kind of passion for or against a thing, state it in no uncertain terms, and then stick by it.
Read that bolded part there again. Apply it to personal relationships (generally the failed ones) or your worklife or, especially, politics. And tell me that I'm wrong. Because variety and choice and freedom of opinion doesn't come from the Pollyannish attitude that As Long As Someone Likes It, There's Got To Be Something Good About It. Variety and choice and freedom of opinion come when we all agree that there is such a thing as a standard of excellence, and we like when it's achieved. And, conversely, just because we like a thing, that doesn't mean that it's met that standard.
I don't know that I'm making any sense, so here's some shorthand: I love Little Debbie Swiss Cake Rolls. I looooooove them. They are cheap and bad for me. I also love Vosges gourmet chocolate truffles (which cost like $3 each. EACH!) Now some days I am more in the mood for Little Debbie than I am for truffles. And people who don't like Little Debbie snack cakes at all? I think they are serrrrriously missing out on one of the better guilty pleasures in life. But I will never, ever dispute the fact that Vosges chocolate is a higher quality product and that Little Debbies are basically crap. But that's okay because I love crap! And if someone insists that Leonidas truffles are the best and that they can't stand Vosges? That's a matter of taste.
Or just boil it down to what Paul so eloquently wrote once: Some stuff is just better. Platonically. God loves it more." Not because you love it more.
Hm yeah, that about covers it.
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