Zadie Smith

The Great Divorce

Just Read:The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis

My sentence free summary and review: Heaven and Hell, real love, redemption, forgiveness, stubbornness, pride

My one sentence review: Lewis deftly and fascinatingly challenges the reader's preconceived notions about Heaven and Hell and creatively addresses the different ways in which people search for meaning and self-importance.

Tick, tock

"Paul Gauguin was a depressed, suicidal stockbroker before he moved to Tahiti at the age of 43 and became a painter. Henri Rousseau was a tax collector until the age of 49; now his paintings hang in the Museum of Modern Art. Gabriel Garcia Marquez didn't write One Hundred Years Of Solitude until he was 40. I do believe it's never too late."
-Dodai Stewart

The Handmaid's Tale

Just Read: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

My sentence free summary and review: suppression of women, scary, misinterpreting scripture, religious oppression, future, unreliable narrator (maybe), technology, sexy, unsexy, subconscious sexism

My one sentence review: The narrator's voice and the fact that the author indicts everyone while not taking potshots at any particular group, are really what breathe life and credibility into this well-crafted parable.

Jennifer Government

Just read: Jennifer Government by Max Barry

My sentence-free summary and review: capitalizm, humour, dystopia, privatization, family, awkward love, police, heroine, tie-in browser game, USA, Nike, Wal-Mart?

My one sentence review: It's no 1984, but it's still smart, funny, fun, and a worthwhile, quick read.

Madeleine L'Engle

Kurt Vonnegut

The Sacred

Jordan (I)
by George Herbert

Who says that fictions only and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beauty?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines pass, except they do their duty
Not to a true, but painted chair?

Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow coarse-spun lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lover's loves?
Must all be veil'd, while he that reads, divines,
Catching the sense at two removes?

Shepherds are honest people; let them sing;
Riddle who list, for me, and pull for prime;
I envy no man's nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with loss of rhyme,
Who plainly say, my God, my King.

Have it Your Way?

An excerpt from God's Politics by Jim Wallis, because why summarize when he already says it so well?

She was working the drive-through window at 4:00 in the afternoon. But whenever there was a lull between orders, the young woman kept returning to a table in the corner of the restaurant. Three kids were sitting there, with schoolbooks, papers, and pencils all spread out, doing their homework. And Mom was helping as best she could while keeping straight the orders for Whoppers, fries, and chicken nuggets. Given her low wages, this single mother was no doubt balancing more than fast food and homework - but also deciding between paying the rent, going to the doctor and affording prescriptions when somebody gets sick, or buying winter boots for her kids. She has become an icon for me. I call her Burger King Mom.

In election years, the pundits talk often about Soccer Mom and how she will vote. Both the Democrats and the Republicans court her. Since the president went to Daytona, there is a new electoral icon; he's called NASCAR Dad, and his support is crucial, especially for Republicans. Also, in the 2004 election, attention focused on Security Mom. But who will speak to or for Burger King Mom? She exists in both the red and blue states, but neither party is much interested in her or her family's issues. She is part of the low-income demographic that is most unrepresented in American politics, with the lowest levels of both voter registration and turnout, and includes a high percentage of immigrants. Many low-income people have a hard time connecting to voting: too complicated, too many other things to worry about, too little confidence that the outcome makes much difference for them.

The Republicans look after their wealthy constituents, and the Democrats want to be champions of the middle class, but neither prioritizes the needs of the poor.* Is that because the problems of poverty are disappearing in America? On the contrary, the poverty rate (including for children) has risen over the last three years, more people than ever are without health insurance, increasing numbers of people can't find affordable housing, and the minimum wage hasn't been raised for eight years.

*-Emphasis mine.

What's so Right About Twilight?

What is it about Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series that is so right? After reading the first book, I've wanted to (and have on occasion) rant endlessly about everything that is wrong with the series. But the intensity of my emotional response to these books is too overwhelming. I recently stated that the only other piece of literature that has elicited such a strong emotionally ambivalent response in me was Toni Morrison's Beloved. And I assure you that my response to Beloved was for very, very different reasons. So, simply, about Twilight, I have too much to say. So I'll start with a list of the bads:

1. No writer should use any form of the word smolder unless discussing a fireplace...and she uses it multiple times in each book. "His eyes smoldered." I literally cringed every time I read something to that effect in the books. Perhaps this was the first thing that bothered me about Twilight: It wasn't that well written.
2. A reader should relate to the hero(ine) of the story but Bella is a complete and total twit. Slightly insecure klutzes can be endearing but Bella is completely lacking in self-awareness and self-preservation skills. Some readers like to feel as if they are Bella: beautiful girls who simply don't know that they are beautiful, who are loved by perfect men despite their imperfections. Ok, seriously, the chicks who are really like that are super annoying! Bella's not a bad person, I just know that part of the reason I got over my romance novel phase very quickly back in middle school was because I was tired of reading about these spunky, yet unavoidably helpless women getting saved and loved unconditionally by these perfect and condescending men. I like my romantic couples to be evenly matched.

But this is where the internal conflict comes in: I can't help but to love the Twilight series anyway. Each book has been better and better written and these insufferable characters are growing on me.

I'm trying to bite my tongue, which wants to blame Meyer's Mormonism for the obnoxiously traditional values that permeate the love story. But it makes sense. I can be considered fairly conservative myself when it comes to issues of love and marriage...but I can't help but feel nauseated by this common theme of Bella pressuring Edward for sex and him constantly telling her to show some self-control. Of course she's the out of control floozy and he's the mature, protective male full of restraint.

Sigh. I'm rambling. The final book comes out in approx. 36.5 hours. I'm looking forward to it. I can't decide whether or not I can stomach watching the film when it comes out, but we will see. No matter how much this series infuriates me for its shortcomings, what will always infuriate me the most is the fact that it is clearly doing something right.

Gendercide

io9: Found Footage: Y Not Two Last Men?:

A popular theme in science fiction films is a future (or hidden or extra terrestrial or Amazonian) world in which men have been eradicated* and women have formed their own lesbianic society. Usually what happens in these films is that a man or group of men who act as our main protagonists, wander into these worlds and in the end, couple up with some woman/women and everyone learns that the sexes really do need each other.

Hahaha. I'm just joking. What really happens is that the men teach the women that yes, women need men. I've managed to find a few of these films entertaining despite their sexism, because they were just silly. I think Queen of Outer Space is the only film that left a horrendously bad taste in my mouth. Today, however, perhaps it is the fact that I am in the middle of reading Second Sex and io9 posted the above clip that has me in such a tizzy.

You see, I am not offended by the proposition that men and women need each other. No, that's fine. I'm a red-blooded heterosexual woman. I love men. I'd hate not having men around. It's just the fact that men feel the need to tell us that we need them which is slightly offensive. Men (I am now using this term to refer to the patriarchal and misogynistic variety of the male homo sapiens) have always understood that they need women:

1. Women provide sexual pleasure (for heterosexual men, who make up the majority of the male population)
2. Women are necessary for reproduction
3. Women take care of children and handle other domestic chores that are unappealing to many men

If men did not need women, they would have eradicated us. But instead they have enslaved us. As our societies have changed, men's superior strength has become less and less of an evolutionary advantage. As woman began seeking equality, man got scared at the threat to his supremacy. If woman no longer needs man for protection and science and cloning can make reproduction possible without man, then woman can survive without man.

I leave you with a quote from Second Sex:

In truth women have never set up female values in opposition to male values; it is man who, desirous of maintaining masculine prerogatives, has invented that divergence. Men have presumed to create a feminine domain - the kingdom of life, of immanence - only in order to lock women therein.

Ok, I lied. One more thought before I go: Can anyone tell me of any movies in which the opposite is true? In which there is but one woman left?

Movies of Note:

• The Last Man on Planet Earth
• Queen of Outer Space
• Twins Effect 2
• Sex Mission

-------------------------------

*In some cases, there are men around for breeding purposes.

Literature Killed the Radio Show?

7th Son recently was brought to my attention by the sci-fi blog, io9. 7th Son is basically an audio book series by J. C. Hutchins which he released via podcast and which is now scheduled to be published in 2009.

So, the plot sounds amazing. I encourage you to go to the site and read about it. I even listened to the first few minutes of the first book and was immediately intrigued. The problem? After those first exciting minutes, my mind started to wander. You could blame it on the current state of our society, the need for every part of us to be stimulated, the death of radio at the hands of video...and you'd be partially right. I couldn't just sit and listen because my eyes would wander and my hands would wander causing my mind to traipse right along behind them. But it's not a film version of this story I am longing for. No, so much gets lost in film translations. I want the book. I want to hold the pages in my hands and get lost in looking at the print. I want my imagination to run wild, creating my own images of what the author is describing.

Perhaps it is the fact that I am a visual person which makes me less interested in audio-prose. I can handle books-on-tape or a radio show when I'm in a car...but that's the only time and place. Are there still people who sit at home and listen to radio shows? What do the 40,000 listeners of 7th Son do while they are listening?