Book #5: Tales of the City

Book #5: Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

December 17, 2012


This book is certainly not lacking in number of pages (about 370 in my edition), but it was told in short vignettes, and from enough interesting third person perspectives that  found it easy to plow right through it (plus, being officially finished with my first semester of grad school helps). This book was sitting on the shelf in my dad's basement for years, and when I came upon it as I was constructing my list, I instantly recognized it. I assumed that it was a collection of short stories, but that is not the case. Rather, it tells several stories about characters whose lives intertwine in a variety of ways.

The book is set is mid-1970s San Francisco.  This is post-free love, hippie San Francisco, when it was starting to become known as a sort of haven for gays and liberals. This is the San Francisco of this book, a San Francisco that causes Mary Ann Singleton to drop her life in Cleveland and move there (permanently?). She takes up a room at 28 Barbary Lane, a small boarding house run by the eccentric Mrs. Anna Madrigal (who is not married; she admits to Mary Ann that this is a created name, one that she took up after some, um, significant changes in her life). Mrs. Madrigal is awesome. She grows pot and gives it to her tenants as gifts, she is lenient on the rent (especially when Mona and her friend Michael/"Mouse" are having money problems), and she is a motherly type who really cares for her "family" (as she affectionately refers to her tenants) at her house.

The book definitely presents San Francisco in the way that people imagine it to be, with public bath houses (with rooms for random hook-ups), and the casual public usage of drugs (and not just pot), and the "antics" of a gay community trying to etch out its identity in society. Identity is a big thing in this book, as many characters explore their sexual identities (Mona, who is more of an asexual "fag hag" than a person who is gay or straight; Michael, who is unable to come out to his parents, and feels inferior to his string of boyfriends; Beauchamp day, who cheats on his wife DeDe with men and women; even Edgar Halcyon, who has an affair with Anna and admits to her that he'd performed in drag in the past), but also who they are as people (Dorothy's story is especially strange in this regard). Mary Ann, as the somewhat naive MidWestern girl, definitely questions her identity as she struggles in a strange city.

I could connect with Mary Ann a little bit. For example, I also did not know the correct pronunciation for "Beauchamp" until it was explained in the text (that doesn't make me naive; I've always had a problem with unfamiliar word pronunciation, and besides, it's a weird and pretentious name). I've had nights (many nights) when I've sat around and wondered what I'm doing with my life. I've struggled to find my place. But I did feel that the situation with Norman was pretty obvious (I called that from a mile...at least the part about his involvement with Lexy). I also felt that the author really copped out on the ending to that particular tale.

I was most impressed with all of the different perspectives in the story. It does leave me with unanswered questions about some of the characters, especially DeDe and Beauchamp, and Dorothy, and Mrs. Madrigal. The author definitely left it open to sequels, and when I looked it up, I found that he has written several (I think seven?) other books continuing the stories of these characters in some way or another. Perhaps I will read one some time...but it will have to be added to the bottom of an already very long list.

(on the left) From a gay pride parade or march in San Francisco. I considered posting a picture of some really hot guys wearing very little clothing, but you know, that seemed a little sexist to me. I'll keep it (quasi) classy on this blog.


(on the left) The famous San Francisco cable car system was referenced in the book. Mary Ann actually used it to get around...I wonder if local still use it, or if its just a tourist thing now? You know, Maya Angelou was the first black cable car conductor in San Francisco. I think I read that somewhere once...

Book #4: Kaffir Boy

Book #4: Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane

December 11, 2012

Well, I'm still not reading at the rate that I want to. But, as of tonight, my first semester of grad school is over, so I will have lots of time to read (between working shifts at my seasonal job, of course). My goal is to get two more books read in the next month...I'm already several pages into my next one, so I technically finished Kaffir Boy a couple of days ago.

Anyway, this book was not originally on my "to-read" list. I came upon it while volunteering at a local middle school. This is a text that is assigned to the 9th graders there. Kaffir Boy is an autobiography (though I would call it more of a "memoir," since it takes place during a particular time in the author's life) about the author's first 19 years of life, living in apartheid South Africa. Now, I had very little knowledge of the realities of apartheid before I read this book. I knew it was pretty bad, and that it went on longer than segregation and "Jim Crow" in the United States. I know that Nelson Mandela had something to do with fighting it (by the way, he's only mentioned once in this book, and only then he is listed with some other political prisoners of the time). But Mathabane honestly and unflinchingly shows the readers the reality of life for black people living in that time.

Black people were forced into really shitty ghettos. They're more comparable to the ghettos that Jews were forced into in Poland during WWII than to "ghettos" in large cities in the US where people of the same ethnicity gather. Black people had to constantly carry around their "passbooks," and would be hassled and arrested for not having these "in order" (gee, that sounds a little bit like the laws that were enacted in Arizona against Hispanic people a few years ago...). Not only that, but raids in the middle of the night were common; the book opens with a young Mathabane (who grew up with the name "Johannes," but changed his name to "Mark" as a teenager working for a white German) left to watch his baby brother and younger sister while his mother hides in the bedroom, because she will be arrested if the police see that her passbook is not "in order."

As Mathabane grows up, he sees how well the white people in South Africa live. He grows to hate and mistrust them, knowing that they created the laws that kept his people down, working menial jobs and hardly making more money than slaves. He does examine some positive interactions that he had with a few white people, but they were mostly foreigners who did not believe in the laws of apartheid. Mathabane is smart, and when he is finally able to start school (the process to get his papers in order is so complicated, it almost doesn't happen), he excels, in spite of the fact that his mother can hardly afford (and often CAN'T afford) the necessary materials and uniforms. Though he struggles mightily, Mathabane sees education as a way out, and his mother is fully supportive (though she herself is illiterate, she sees the value of education).

Besides being well-read and multilingual (Mathabane makes it a personal goal to learn and excel in the English language), Mathabane also becomes a star tennis player. This opens up many doors for him, and in this way, he meets white people of influence who want to help him be successful (though sometimes for their own political gains; when he is entered into a national tennis tournament as apartheid in sports is being abolished, he is seen as being an 'Uncle Tom' or traitor to his own race). Eventually, Mathabane gets a scholarship to an American university, and the book ends as he is leaving his family and embarking on his new life in a country that, like his own, has a history of racial tension, but, unlike his own, has worked actively to try to ensure rights for all citizens. When I looked him up on wikipedia, it said that Mathabane still lives in the US to this day, residing in Portland.

For the longest time, Africa has not had a very good reputation around the world, and the atrocities of apartheid in South Africa, I think, have contributed to this. But it's an important topic to consider. While all of this was going on, the officials of the country were working hard to keep the world blind to what they were doing to a majority of their black citizens. Perhaps people didn't WANT to know. I think of a speech that Eli Wiesel gave when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. He said that indifference is the most dangerous thing, and that being indifferent to the struggles of others will lead to more tragedies like the Holocaust...or apartheid in South Africa.

This book was difficult to read at times. Not because of Mathabane's writing style, but because of the horrors that he was describing. In his young life, Mathabane witnessed a murder, was beaten up multiple times by police, and watched his father turn into a bitter shell of a man. Yet he was able to rise above it, get out, and make a good life for himself.

Mathabane was incredibly brave to write this book. It was published in 1986, before the end of apartheid, and he probably knew (as he expressed in the book) that if he went to the US and was "naughty" (ie, if he represented South Africa "badly," or rather, truthfully), he may never be able to go home and see his family again. I think it's great that this school has it as required reading for its 9th graders, because it opens up a dialogue about issues around the world. I was shocked once when a senior, during my first year of teaching, told me that he didn't care about what was happening in Darfur because it didn't affect his life. I played the Wiesel speech for that class, in the (naive) hope that the message might get across to him somehow. I'm glad that the 9th graders are this school are being exposed to different word and human rights issues, so that they may not be so dangerously indifferent to the suffering of others.

Okay, so the last three books I've read have been pretty heavy ones. The next book, which I've already started, is a much "lighter" sort of read. Hopefully I'll have that finished and posted before the month is up!

(to the left) Mark Mathabane himself

(to the left) Famous American tennis player Stan Smith, who met Mathabane at a tennis tournament in South Africa. Smith and his wife offered support for Mathabane when he wanted to study in the US. There is a picture in the book of Smith and Mathabane at the latter's college graduation. Not to be confused with Stan Smith, a character on my favorite cartoon American Dad! (which I personally think is far superior to Family Guy, anybody agree?).

Book #3: Great Expectations

Book #3: Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

November 1, 2012

I was hoping to at least be able to make one blog post in October, but obviously, I just missed the cut. In my own defense, Great Expectations is a long book. I have a small, thick (with tissue-thin, gilded-edged pages that I actually enjoyed carefully prying apart, even if it did briefly interrupt the flow of the story) hard-covered edition, coming out at around 620 pages. But I'll admit, I haven't been taking as much time to just read as I was able to before. I'm working a lot more now (though with substitute teaching, you can occasionally sneak in a little reading or homework time), and classes have been getting busier and busier. I need to make more time, for sure, and I intend to. But enough excuses.

As I've slowly made my way through the Dickens classic, I'd been looking forward to doing one thing: re-watching the "Pip" episode of South Park, a parody of the novel that is considered one of the worst episodes in the series' otherwise mostly illustrious run (the newest Halloween episode was pretty funny, by the way). I've been a fan of the show for years. I must admit, I love cartoons. I know it's so immature, but I honestly don't care. And I happen to be of the (popular) opinion that Trey Parker and Matt Stone are pretty hilarious guys, and they come across as being quite intelligent as well. It doesn't surprise me that at least one of them has read the book (oh, yeah, we're talking about a book here). I remember watching the episode once, maybe years ago, and not enjoying it much. It hardly ever airs, because it really is that unpopular. But I had to wonder, are most of the people who watch the show just not getting the humor because the haven't read Great Expectations? Um, probably. But I decided to test that, so I'll discuss my thoughts on the book with the comparison at the center.

Okay, so the episode starts with Pip (the little British character from the show that everyone is mean to...I finally get that gag. Don't really think he's on the show any more though) going to his parents' graves to pay his respects, when suddenly the convict Magwitch appears in his shackles. On the show, Pip voluntarily helps Magwitch, much to the convict's surprise. This is different from the book, because Magwitch threatens Pip and makes him go to his house and get the supplies and food for him over night. But I guess this was just to cut time.

In the episode, Joe is depicted as a simple-minded blacksmith (which he is), though his strangely roundabout way of speaking is not mimicked on the show. I'm sure that they could have done something with that to make it really funny. Joe's shtick in the episode is that he creates a bunch of useless metal crap, which was weird, but the fight between him and his crazy wife was pretty funny and reflective of their relationship in the book. Lots was cut from the beginning of the book, with many central characters missing: Orlick is gone, as are Pumblechook (take him or leave him...I wish Dickens had had Pip really tell him off at the end of the book, just really ripped into him at the Boar, so that was a disappointment), Biddy (who really didn't get enough face-time in the book, by the way, though I did like the fact that she married Joe at the end), Wopsle (a Shakespearean-esque fool, I could have done with more of him in the novel even if it had expanded it by a hundred more pages), and Compeyson (the crook who broke Miss Havisham's heart and was Magwitch's antagonist in the novel).

On the show, Jaggers isn't given a name, and he's definitely not as I pictured him in the book. But then again, he's not an important character in the episode. Jaggers is one character I would have wanted to know more about in the book, especially with regards to that whole situation with Molly, Estella's mother (definitely not in the episode). But he simply comes to the blacksmith shop and gives the news to Pip that he has "great expectations," without that strictly no-nonsense manner of his. As in the book, Pip believes his mysterious benefactor to be Miss Havisham, the crazy rich lady in town. He has "worked" for her as a playmate to her adopted daughter Estella, who is a brat and is very rude to Pip. The depiction of her in the episode is hilarious. She spews ugly insults at Pip in a manner that is very unrestrained, it's a good parody. Miss Havisham, as in the book, is raising the girl to be a heart-breaker, though her intentions in the episode are quite different from in the book.

So Pip goes to the London. The whole situation with him staying with Matthew Pocket and his family is cut from the episode. I thought that Herbert Pocket's mother was an interesting character, and again, more of her would have been great. I am noticing a theme with this review at this point: Dickens did a really great job of creating these complicated, fascinating, sometimes hilariously silly characters, but so much of the story is spent inside Pip's own head that you don't get to know them all that well. It was a disappointment.

Anyway, in the episode, they poke fun at Herbert's obviously homosexual tendencies. Parker and Stone really don't like this character (at the end of the episode, the "British Guy" who is narrating the episode says that "Pocket" died of Hepatitis B. Oops). I found Herbert to be annoying most of the time as well, and I wasn't at all surprised that he wasn't pissed when he found out that Pip had paid for him to get his current job. He was such a wimp that he had to wait for his girlfriend's alcohol father to die before he could marry her. But at the very least, he saved Pip from Olick, so that's where he came in use. So I enjoyed the parody of him on the show, huge (HUGE) front teeth and all. The scene of him politely correcting Pip's table manners was great, and I definitely wouldn't have appreciated that one as much if I hadn't read the book.

Okay, so the episode runs on a much shorter time frame than the book. While Great Expectations follows Pip from the age of seven to his mid-twenties (then briefly in his mid-thirties or so), the "Pip" episode only goes over a time span of a few months, maybe a year. Oh, well. Some more characters were cut from the story, most notably Wemmick and the characters surrounding him (Aged P. and Miss Skiffins/Mrs. Wemmick). It is easy to see why these characters would not be included in the episode, though. Thinking back on it, they were really the closest thing that Pip had to family during all that time in London, yet they didn't really help him to appreciate the family that he'd had with Joe and Biddy any more than he had when he left. In fact, I'll just note here that the lessons that Pip should have realized long ago where quickly realized in the end (unsatisfactorily, I might add), and as much pity as I felt for him at the beginning of the book, I feel that and more than a little annoyance at him now that I've finished it. The Pip in the episode is definitely the more likable hero.

So Pip (in the episode) goes to show himself to Miss Havisham and Estella. As in the book, he speaks alone with the crazy woman in her chambers (okay, I gotta throw it in...how could little Pip, in the book, not be just disgusted by the conditions of the Havisham home? Why was he so impressed with all the rotting decadence? It was too depressing, and it made me wonder how shitty his life could be that he would envy that). She urges him to love Estella, as in the book, with the same intention of having Estella break his heart. At a ball in London thrown by King Tony Blair (very silly, South Park), Pip and Estella dance and Pip confesses his love, while Estella confesses to having no heart. That's not quite how it all goes down in the book, but that was a good enough summary of it.

At the ball, Estella has an older boyfriend (he, unlike the other characters in the episode, is modern in appearance and manner) who is an asshole. In the book, she marries Drummle, a jerk whom Pip went to school with. Pip, heartbroken, rushes back to Miss Havisham's house to get the old woman on his side. But he finds the couple there with her, and Miss Havisham announces her evil plan to Pip, which is nothing at all like in the book. I remember reading somewhere that either Parker or Stone hated the ending of Great Expectations (I didn't hate it, but after all the build-up, I was left unsatisfied), so they just made the rest of the episode really outrageous. I thought it was a riot. To keep it brief: Pip, Herbert, Magwitch (who is apparently a robot), and Joe burst into Miss Havisham's chambers ready to fight. Miss Havisham plans to transfer her soul into Estella's young body, and Estella's boyfriends are tied up, their tears to be used to power her evil machine. Pip, trying to convince Estella that she does have a heart and that she doesn't want to give up her life for Miss Havisham, keeps giving her baby bunnies, which she kills to prove him wrong in his claims. But after a couple dozen dead bunnies, she decides to stop killing, and she and Pip leave happily together. Miss Havisham burns to death (sort of like in the book, except more dramatic and immediate), and that's that.

Overall, not the greatest of South Park episodes, but I definitely get the gags now that I've actually read the book. It's interesting, Great Expectations is considered by many to be Dickens's "masterpiece," but it is definitely not as integrated into popular culture as, say, Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol, which have both had many parodies made of them (especially the latter). I'd say that this book was worth the read, even if it did take the better part of two months to plow through, but in the end I didn't feel like I really connected with the narrator and main character. 600+ pages, and I felt like I connected more with some of those other characters. But now that I've gotten through this long book, which had been sitting on my shelf for more than two years, I'm more excited than ever to continue on with my readings.

Above: Pip and Herbert, as depicted in the South Park episode. To the left: Charles Dickens. A great writer, but I watched a brief video about him with a class I was subbing last month, and he sounded like kind of a douchebag. Doesn't he look kind of douchey in that picture? Nice beard, dude.

Book #2: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Book #2: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

September 12, 2012

Having just finished Maya Angelou’s best-known book, I can’t help but feel a sense of regret that I didn’t pick this one up a long time ago. This is another one of those books that’s been sitting untouched on my shelf for over two years, and one that I’ve meant to read for longer than that. Most people who have not read the book are at least familiar with the basic premise: Angelou, a famous black poet, writes about her childhood. I am not typically drawn to nonfiction (though I’m trying to include a fair number of them in this excursion), but a couple of books that I’ve appreciated have been memoirs by women reflecting on their childhoods.

One of these memoirs was Marya Hornbacher’s Wasted, recalling her years growing up in Minnesota/California and her struggles with a serious eating disorder, mental illness, and substance abuse. Another one was Jeanette Walls’s The Glass Castle, about her own difficult childhood with parents who led them on strange adventures, and into painful poverty. I actually used this book in a class that I taught last year, and the class of freshmen and sophomores (most non-readers) seemed to connect with Walls’s story more than anything else that we read that term.

What these three texts have in common is that all three of these women bravely recall, put to print, and present to the world their painful childhood experiences. The three women come from different places, are of different races (more on that in a moment), and lived in different times, but they all share the simple fact that they had to fight to make it to adulthood intact (more or less). As I read Angelou’s descriptions of how awkward she felt as a child, how she didn’t feel like she didn’t fit in anywhere, that really struck a chord with me. I might be a white girl who grew up in the ‘90’s in Iowa, but I understand that feeling of not belonging and feeling awkward. I can hardly think of those mortifying moments of my childhood without feeling a sense of shame. I spent years putting my childhood behind me and not letting it define who I am. Angelou, who definitely had more than her share of personal difficulties alongside with her awareness of the place that society was trying to force her into as a young black girl, bravely laid out all of those painful memories to the world.

Not only is Angelou’s work brave, it is written gracefully and poetically. Angelou is a poet, of course; I’ve had girls eager to have her as their subject in a poetry unit that I taught at my last job. I can never imagine her being clumsy, the way that she describes herself in the book, when she writes so beautifully, even when the subjects are sometimes ugly and difficult to read.

I can never seem to turn off my “teacher mode”; as with my last book, as I read this one, I found myself thinking of how I would incorporate this into my future classroom. I’m trying to just read for the enjoyment of it, for the enrichment that it can provide to my life, and I still can’t stop the lesson plans from forming in my head. But this is one that I’ll definitely want to have.

Aside from the fact that this is a beautifully written personal account, the text also presents a unique perspective on race relations, as Angelou recalls her feelings of frustration as an intelligent, self-aware black girl. I will admit that it wasn’t until a few years ago that I was made aware of the true atrocities of the Jim Crow south. I didn’t read Richard Wright until college, and until then, the only thing I knew about “segregation” was that it ended (at least legally) because of the Civil Rights Movement. I don’t believe that Angelou ever used the term “Jim Crow” in this text, but her descriptions of her time in Stamps, Arkansas (and even some of the scenes from San Francisco) show it. The fact that the only time in her childhood when she experienced any sort of “racial harmony” was her month living in a junkyard in Southern California really makes you think. In the “real world” that Angelou grew up in, different races were made to live separately and to fear one another. But Angelou, as she grew into a determined young woman, was not willing to accept that all people, regardless of their color, were helpless victims of racism.

I believe that anyone who has had a childhood can connect with this book, regardless of their color and where and when they grew up. Out of all of the powerful statements Angelou makes in this book, one that she made in retrospection of her relationship with her mother really struck me: “But what mother and daughter understand each other, or even have sympathy for each other’s lack of understand?” (page 68 in my edition). I actually looked up from my book and declared to my dog (the only other living thing in the room), “Holy shit.” Instantly, I thought of my own mother, a woman that I’ve always felt that I’ve had very little in common with. My mother always seemed to relate more to my brother and sister, and I always felt very apart from all of them. I never understood some of the hurtful, selfish things that she does (though, as I’ve kind of stood away from the situation and tried to analyze it from an outsider’s perspective, I’ve come to some detached conclusions about my mother’s psyche), just as I’m sure she’s never understood my love of books and information or my need for quiet. I am lucky to have had a good relationship with my father (while Angelou had her older brother Bailey) to at least make me feel somewhat connected to the people in my family. But even though I’ve moved back to town, I still rarely see or speak to my mother. I guess “it be’s like that sometimes.”

(Above) Jeannette Walls's The Glass Castle. Highly recommended, though I should note that there is quite a bit of "strong language" (my students got a kick out of the unique combinations of curse words used by Rex Walls, the author's father).

(To the right) Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. I read this a couple of times in high school, during a rough period for me. 

Book #1: The Hound of the Baskervilles

Book #1: The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

September 8, 2012

Sherlock Holmes is certainly the most famous detective in Western culture, and The Hound… is definitely his best-known story. I figured that this was as good a place as any to start my 1000 book challenge, especially since I already had an unread copy on my personal shelf. As I read the relatively short book (not even 170 pages), I found myself making comparisons between Holmes and my favorite contemporary fictional detective, Shawn Spencer from the TV show Psych.

Like Holmes, Shawn notices things that other people miss. He uses his powers of observation to pass as a psychic detective, a ruse that he has successfully kept from the detectives and police of Santa Barbara (including his girlfriend Juliet) for 6 hilarious seasons. Also like Holmes, Shawn has a bit of an off-beat sense of humor. In the narrative, Watson (as first-person narrator) observes that whenever Holmes has a good laugh (which is rare), it’s usually at someone else’s expense. Shawn laughs much more often, but he and Holmes are alike in that their priorities are not often understood by others. They have different ways of thinking; some people see it others are eccentric, and others see it as genius.

Watson, Holmes’s faithful sidekick, may be compared with Shawn’s best friend Burton “Gus” Guster. Like Gus, Watson works on the case as much as Holmes himself does. But unlike Watson, Gus does not have a glowing admiration for his partner. If anything, Gus is often disgusted with some of Shawn’s “immature” antics, though he participates in a many himself. Watson regards his friend Holmes as a genius, and he never wants to disappoint him.

Another comparison that I’ll make between Psych and Holmes’s adventure is that on the show, the characters are sometimes encountered with seemingly supernatural occurrences. But by the end of the episode, Shawn has figured out the logical, Earth-bound reason for the strange crime. The title character of the novel, the Hound itself, is believed to be a devilish apparition sent to haunt the descendants of the evil Hugo Baskerville. Without giving too much away, Holmes finds that a ghostly monster is not the cause of the deaths around Baskerville Hall, and he brings to light the true villains that have been hiding behind a superstition.

The relationship between Holmes and Watson is in itself interesting, but I wouldn’t go so far as to make (clichéd) claims that Holmes and Watson have a homosexual relationship. It is a “bromance,” nothing more and nothing less. I actually “awwwwed” out loud when I read that Holmes was worried about sending Watson off to the dangerous Baskerville Hall, and would be glad when his friend was home safe. As annoyed as Gus sometimes gets with Shawn, they have a “bromance” themselves, and like Holmes and Watson, have been friends for many years and know each other very well.

My write-up of this book as turned out to be more about a TV show than the story itself, but there’s a point to that. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales of Sherlock Holmes have directly influenced every piece of crime fiction (I am including film and television under that blanket term) that has come after them. I have a great many mysteries on my tentative (and very, very incomplete) to-read list, so I am glad for that reason that I started with this one, one of the most influential pieces of classic mystery literature ever written. And I’ll end on this note: even though the “formula” for the story was much more familiar to me than it would have been to readers in Sir Arthur’s time, I was still surprised by many of the twists and turns of the story. A classic read.

Above: James Roday and Dulé Hill as Shawn and Gus (respectively) from USA's Psych. Season 7 premieres in the fall, so if you're not familiar with the show, get to it! Very funny stuff.

On the right: Jude Law and the delicious Robert Downey Jr. as Watson and Holmes (respectively) from the Sherlock Holmes films. I have never seen these myself, though my ex housemate liked the first. I may have to see one of them now...