Book #101: Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
July 29, 2014
The works that I've read by Christopher Paul Curtis (this one, and The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963) are examples of young adult literature done well. His works can be appreciated at so many ages, even though his characters are typically younger children (9 or 10). This is a book that I read with the intention of previewing it for my curriculum, and I know it will be a great text to use with one of my language arts sections. There are tie-ins to history here, as this novel is set during the Great Depression in Flint, Michigan (and later Grand Rapids). The characters are mainly African American, and there are examples of the racial issues in the text (like Lefty Lewis warning young Bud not to go into a certain small town alone at night). The story and characters are ones that I think my particular students could relate to as well.
I found myself comparing Bud (not Buddy; he explains how his mother, who died of some kind of unrevealed "illness" when he was six, had told him to never allow people to call him "buddy," because that's a term people use when they're being "false-friendly"; I thought that was kind of profound) to another orphan, Oliver Twist. The story is kind of similar: Bud runs away after he's mistreated, and in his adventures he eventually finds his way to family. But unlike Oliver, whose only firm action was to walk to London in the first place, Bud tries to take a hand in his own fate. He actively tries to get to Herman Calloway, whom he later learns is his grandfather. He's looking for his actual father, but at the end of the text, his entire story isn't wrapped up neatly (unlike Oliver's). That was more realistic, and yet he still had a happy, hopeful ending (and it didn't make me want to puke!). Bud has personality, and a narrative voice that really moved the story along. As an older reader, his misunderstandings of turns of phrase were amusing, such as thinking that a pie he was served in a restaurant was called "On the House" (when it was meant that the dessert was free, of course). He's a very likable character.
Here's how I picture structuring a unit around this text:
-I would want to start with some pre-reading activities. There are many topics in this book to discuss: racism, the Great Depression, jazz music, labor unions. I'll want to come up with an interesting, engaging way of having the students delve in and read about these topics, so that they can make important connections with the text.
-I wouldn't want to assign too much reading to the students on any given night. One issue that we had last year was some of the struggling students having issues completing homework. One colleague of mine has a tendency to ply the students with worksheets, so some students' homework folders would be stuffed with assignments that were never completed. I'll take some responsibility in acknowledging that the students are there for treatment first, schooling second, and so I'll take it easy on the chapter assignments, especially since I plan on using this with more of the struggling readers. Perhaps a chapter a night, two on the weekends, with a bit of reading time in class on some of these days. If I started the book itself on a Monday, okay, it would take like three weeks to complete it. I think that's reasonable for the readers I have in mind.
-During the reading itself, I'll do less quizzing and question-asking, and do more to encourage discussion about the reading amongst the students. I'll return to some of my teaching texts and seek out something that they can do throughout the entire reading, some sort of reaction journal activity or something...
-I'll want to bring in some jazz music as well. It ought to be easy to find online resources for this.
-Something for post-reading...
Just a rough outline, but that's a pretty generic sketch of how I would usually approach the teaching of a book. I think it will go over well if I make it genuine and help the students be engaged; plying them with worksheets, again, would be a terrible approach.
There's a part of me that's looking forward to next school year, since I love teaching (especially literature and writing) and lesson planning, and a part of me that's dreading it. I feel like my enthusiasm and teaching style clash so much with some of my colleagues, and I don't often feel like I get much respect from some individuals that I work with, which is a shame. Still, there's kind of a good balance going amongst my coworkers; like, it's not just me up against the "other side," but other people working with me who understand and support how I try to teach. I just need to remind myself of all of the possibilities that I have for teaching these students. I'm starting to get excited, and if I can find more quality texts like this one, I know it's going to be a really exciting year...at least for me.
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Book #100: The Best American Short Stories 2011
Book #100: The Best American Short Stories 2011 edited by Geraldine Brooks
July 27, 2014
It probably seems really random that, for such an important milestone as my 100th book for this "challenge," that I would read the best short stories from three years ago. Why not this year's (or last year, as I imagine that 2013 would be newest as yet), or the ones from the year that I was born, or something? I dunno. It was the newest edition available at the library last week when I took my nephew, so I nabbed it. I've been trying to read more short fiction, and that's about as contemporary as I could get. This is the first of any "best American" books that I've ever read, and here's what I understood about the way this series works:
Brooks was selected as the editor for this edition, obviously. She is a writer herself; her name is familiar, but I can't think of any titles off the top of my head. What's interesting is that Brooks is not herself an American writer, but an Australian one. I do not know if this is typical of the series, to get a (kind of) "outsider's" perspective on these American works? I don't object to that; if anything, I think it's pretty cool, and would be interesting in reading more editions edited by non-American writers. All of the submissions for this had been previously published in some sort of literary magazine, like The New Yorker or Harper's Magazine. In her intro, Brooks described the difficulty of choosing the 20 best from all of these. She expressed a preference for works that took place in other countries or mentioned world travel, and I could see that in the stories themselves.
So really, it's pretty subjective as far as what determines what the "best" are. I, like most readers of these works I'm sure, felt differently about all of them. Some I thought were deserving of their place, and some I wasn't so into. None of them were terrible stories. But I found myself thinking that sometimes, short modern fiction gives me a sort of empty or hopeless feeling. Like, stories about marriages falling apart, or people themselves falling apart; I feel like all of these stories were sad. What I'd like to do now, besides reading more of these "Best American" books, is to maybe get a subscription to some literary magazine, and see if this isn't typical of modern short fiction in general. I know life can be shit a lot of the time, and relationships and people are complex, but I don't know, I don't mind a little optimism in my reading.
I only had heard of two of the authors in this text. Joyce Carol Oates had a story called "I.D." that I consider one of the best (maybe the best) in the whole collection. It's about a thirteen-year-old girl who is pretty troubled, whose divorced mother has left her alone in their Atlantic City home for the past few days. Her father isn't around; the story gradually reveals that he'd beat the shit out of the poor kid, to the extent that she had to get eye surgery (she even wears prescription tinted lens, which she feels makes her look "cool"). She's concerned with her reputation; she hangs out with high school boys, and wants to get the attention of the coolest guy in school. One day in math class, she's picked up by the police, and asked to identify her mother's dead body. She's shocked, and isn't able to do it correctly, even though the clues in the text make it clear that it is her mother. Her father has gone AWOL from the army, so the poor girl's future is unclear. The only way she can deal is the only way she knows how: go back to school and play it cool in front of her friends.
I've also heard of Jennifer Egan, but again, can't really think of what I know her for. Her story, "Out of Body," was an interesting example of when the second-person perspective in a story actually works (I felt like Richard Powers's "To the Measures Fall" was an okay example of it as well) as it told the story of a young gay man in the early '90s who had recently attempted suicide; at the end of the story, he might be drowning in a river (it leaves it unclear as to whether he makes it or not, but the story switches abruptly, meaningful, to the first person for the last couple of lines). Apparently this is part of a larger work of her own called A Visit from the Goon Squad, and that title sounds vaguely familiar, so maybe that's a work I should check out sometime.
As we're coming to the end of July, I'm slowly, hesitantly getting back into teacher mode. So I found myself thinking about whether some of these stories could be used in my classroom. I found two that seemed interesting, and didn't have any sexual content of any kind and maybe a little swearing, that I would consider using. One was Nathan Englander's "Free Fruit for Widows," which presents very complicated morality questions as it tells the story of how one man, the lone survivor out of all of his family of the Holocaust, became hardened by his experiences. The fact that it presents such difficult questions, and that it also includes two interesting settings (Israel, where shit is getting way too real lately, and of course Europe during and after World War II). I feel like I could structure quite a bit around this particular story. I will need to see how I can get access to it to use in my classroom; I'm very grateful that the text includes the original publications for all of the stories.
The other story that I thought might work for my classroom was Caitlin Horrocks's "The Sleep." It tells the story of a widower and his children who one winter, in their small rural community, decide to hibernate for the winter. He extols the virtues of it to his neighbors and friends, how it is economical and how they'll wake up feeling very refreshed. After a few years, most of the town is hibernating for months in the wintertime, and when their ritual gains national attention, most are critical of what they're doing. There's a question of, are people running from their problems by going to sleep? It's a very surreal story, yet with such an otherwise realistic setting and characters, and I'd be interesting in seeing how perhaps my more advanced students would take it.
I imagine that much of my reading for the next few weeks will center around planning for the new school year. I don't have any specific books that I'm just dying to read right now; I feel like I just need to get really excited about reading something. I think I'll have another look at some of the "to-read" lists that I've compiled and stashed away in various random locations, and see if anything sparks for me.
July 27, 2014
It probably seems really random that, for such an important milestone as my 100th book for this "challenge," that I would read the best short stories from three years ago. Why not this year's (or last year, as I imagine that 2013 would be newest as yet), or the ones from the year that I was born, or something? I dunno. It was the newest edition available at the library last week when I took my nephew, so I nabbed it. I've been trying to read more short fiction, and that's about as contemporary as I could get. This is the first of any "best American" books that I've ever read, and here's what I understood about the way this series works:
Brooks was selected as the editor for this edition, obviously. She is a writer herself; her name is familiar, but I can't think of any titles off the top of my head. What's interesting is that Brooks is not herself an American writer, but an Australian one. I do not know if this is typical of the series, to get a (kind of) "outsider's" perspective on these American works? I don't object to that; if anything, I think it's pretty cool, and would be interesting in reading more editions edited by non-American writers. All of the submissions for this had been previously published in some sort of literary magazine, like The New Yorker or Harper's Magazine. In her intro, Brooks described the difficulty of choosing the 20 best from all of these. She expressed a preference for works that took place in other countries or mentioned world travel, and I could see that in the stories themselves.
So really, it's pretty subjective as far as what determines what the "best" are. I, like most readers of these works I'm sure, felt differently about all of them. Some I thought were deserving of their place, and some I wasn't so into. None of them were terrible stories. But I found myself thinking that sometimes, short modern fiction gives me a sort of empty or hopeless feeling. Like, stories about marriages falling apart, or people themselves falling apart; I feel like all of these stories were sad. What I'd like to do now, besides reading more of these "Best American" books, is to maybe get a subscription to some literary magazine, and see if this isn't typical of modern short fiction in general. I know life can be shit a lot of the time, and relationships and people are complex, but I don't know, I don't mind a little optimism in my reading.
I only had heard of two of the authors in this text. Joyce Carol Oates had a story called "I.D." that I consider one of the best (maybe the best) in the whole collection. It's about a thirteen-year-old girl who is pretty troubled, whose divorced mother has left her alone in their Atlantic City home for the past few days. Her father isn't around; the story gradually reveals that he'd beat the shit out of the poor kid, to the extent that she had to get eye surgery (she even wears prescription tinted lens, which she feels makes her look "cool"). She's concerned with her reputation; she hangs out with high school boys, and wants to get the attention of the coolest guy in school. One day in math class, she's picked up by the police, and asked to identify her mother's dead body. She's shocked, and isn't able to do it correctly, even though the clues in the text make it clear that it is her mother. Her father has gone AWOL from the army, so the poor girl's future is unclear. The only way she can deal is the only way she knows how: go back to school and play it cool in front of her friends.
I've also heard of Jennifer Egan, but again, can't really think of what I know her for. Her story, "Out of Body," was an interesting example of when the second-person perspective in a story actually works (I felt like Richard Powers's "To the Measures Fall" was an okay example of it as well) as it told the story of a young gay man in the early '90s who had recently attempted suicide; at the end of the story, he might be drowning in a river (it leaves it unclear as to whether he makes it or not, but the story switches abruptly, meaningful, to the first person for the last couple of lines). Apparently this is part of a larger work of her own called A Visit from the Goon Squad, and that title sounds vaguely familiar, so maybe that's a work I should check out sometime.
As we're coming to the end of July, I'm slowly, hesitantly getting back into teacher mode. So I found myself thinking about whether some of these stories could be used in my classroom. I found two that seemed interesting, and didn't have any sexual content of any kind and maybe a little swearing, that I would consider using. One was Nathan Englander's "Free Fruit for Widows," which presents very complicated morality questions as it tells the story of how one man, the lone survivor out of all of his family of the Holocaust, became hardened by his experiences. The fact that it presents such difficult questions, and that it also includes two interesting settings (Israel, where shit is getting way too real lately, and of course Europe during and after World War II). I feel like I could structure quite a bit around this particular story. I will need to see how I can get access to it to use in my classroom; I'm very grateful that the text includes the original publications for all of the stories.
The other story that I thought might work for my classroom was Caitlin Horrocks's "The Sleep." It tells the story of a widower and his children who one winter, in their small rural community, decide to hibernate for the winter. He extols the virtues of it to his neighbors and friends, how it is economical and how they'll wake up feeling very refreshed. After a few years, most of the town is hibernating for months in the wintertime, and when their ritual gains national attention, most are critical of what they're doing. There's a question of, are people running from their problems by going to sleep? It's a very surreal story, yet with such an otherwise realistic setting and characters, and I'd be interesting in seeing how perhaps my more advanced students would take it.
I imagine that much of my reading for the next few weeks will center around planning for the new school year. I don't have any specific books that I'm just dying to read right now; I feel like I just need to get really excited about reading something. I think I'll have another look at some of the "to-read" lists that I've compiled and stashed away in various random locations, and see if anything sparks for me.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Book #99: Geography Club
Book #99: Geography Club by Brent Hartinger
July 22, 2014
I remember hearing about this book at some point. It's a young adult novel, so maybe a classmate from one of my grad courses told me about it. I wanted to read something specifically gay-themed; there just don't seem to be many books out there with main characters who are gay or lesbian. I've noticed a crop of such books for YA readers, and maybe I can find some books that have adult lesbians are protagonists. After all, while it's important to read about characters from other cultures and other times, sometimes it's nice to read about a character with whom you have a personal connection.
I think that was Hartinger's intention with this book, and with the others that follow (I believe there are a total of four books that follow protagonist Russel Middlebrook). This first one was published in 2003. I was in high school myself at that time, and so I found myself comparing the conditions in Russel's school to those at my high school. There was a GSA club at my school, but I remember seeing vandalism on some of the fliers they would put up. Barely anybody was "out" in high school; hell, I'm just now going through the process of "coming out," and it just seems so awkward. I want people to just accept that I'm a lesbian, not be surprised about it (though most people probably aren't!), and just move on. The truth of the matter is, I'm a chicken-shit; the kids in this book are at least braver than I am, and under worse circumstances.
Russel thinks he's the only gay kid in school (ha!), until he meets another classmate in a gay teen chatroom online. Remember, this is 2003, so chatrooms and IMing were going on, rather than Facebook, Twitter, and texting. I don't think any of the characters had cell phones, even. But besides the changes to technology, I also feel like the atmosphere for gay teens has changed at schools. I can say that for where I'm living; having subbed in many of the area schools, I know that most of them have some sort of GSA or other organization supporting gay students. There are definitely more students "out" than when I was in school, and while I wouldn't say that things are easy for these kids, I think the fact that more of them feel like they can truly express their identities is telling in itself.
But in 2003, in a suburban community (I'm guessing Washington, since that's where the author is from, though the book could easily take place in some mid-West communities today, besides some antiquated references), being openly gay in high school and wanting to form a GSA group were social suicide. When Russel learns that his gay friend online is Kevin, a hot jock from his gym class, and when he learns that one of his best friends, Min, is bisexual, they want to start their own group with the two other gay kids that they know at school. But again, indicating that it's a club for gay students would have invited ridicule, and from the way the other students treat Brian, a social outcast, I can see that people are especially cruel and bigoted at this school. So they decide to form their club, but call it the "Geography Club," so that nobody would possibly want to join them.
What I like about this book is that Russel grows a lot on a personal level. He goes from being a scared kid in the closet, to being (more or less) out, and kind of proud of it, too. He stands up for Brian, and is able to be more honest with his friends, even Gunnar, his straight friend who is so desperate for a girlfriend that he keeps setting Russel up on dates with a girl who is friends with a slut, so that they can double. I found it interesting that Gunnar knew Russel was gay; that scene was nice and everything, but I still wonder why Gunnar would be so insensitive and force Russel to go out on those dates in the first place. Still, Gunnar redeems himself by joining the real GSA that most of the Geography Club members start at the end of the book.
I feel sad for Kevin, whose relationship with Russel ends because he's afraid of becoming unpopular after the situation with Brian. He doesn't join the actual GSA, of course, even though he was a founding member of the Geography Club. I felt like, even more than a decade later, Kevin is a pretty realistic gay teen character. He cares about saving face in front of his friends, even at the expense of others. He hides his true identity, and puts up with listening to his friends talk about nailing girls over the weekend. As a matter of fact, teens who aren't gay could probably relate to Kevin's inner conflict. Not many teens haven't done something to conform to peer pressure in spite of their own better judgment. At one point, Russel caves to peer pressure, too, and spends a little time being popular. But he feels guilty for being mean to Brian, and for upsetting Min about it, especially when rumors spread about his sexual orientation and he is cast off from the popular group. Kevin doesn't experience the same growth as his one-time boyfriend, at least not yet. Well, I guess Kevin could get a free ride to college for baseball and really go crazy there...or, he could further succumb to pressure and stay in the closet. Poor kid.
There are some things that irked me about this book, though. I understand that it's supposed to be the first of a series, but there are too many connections that aren't made. For one thing, there's the character of Reverend Bowd. Russel describes him as being a local conservative leader who crams his fundamentalist beliefs down the throats of community members. It's interesting to me that Hartinger, who as I said is from Washington state, would include such a character. That reminds me of a plot in one of Chris Crutcher's books...and he's from Washington state, too. Are there a lot of these religiousy types in the state of Washington? And what do they have to say about the legalization of marijuana?
Anyway, Reverend Bowd is featured in one scene in the principal's office, which Russel happens to overhear, as he complains about the health teacher demonstrating how to put on a condom, using a cucumber as a phallus. Russel reflects on how this guy has caused trouble in their community before; he even has the health teacher fired by the end of the book, but that's not a major plot line. I expected that Bowd would come back around as a major antagonist in this book, but I'm thinking it's being set-up for one of the later books, now that the school has an official GSA and everything. But something bothers me about that scene and the way that the character was introduced...and the whole situation with the health teacher, for that matter. I feel like there should have been a little more mention of it...
Also, what's the deal with Russel's parents? He barely mentions them. I remember him saying that telling his parents that he's gay isn't an option, though I'm unclear as to why...he doesn't talk about how they're religious (he doesn't seem to attend Bowd's church), or how his father is a macho man, or whatever. Nothing like that. So I'm still left with, well, why can you absolutely never ever tell your parents that you're gay? It's not explained at all.
Plus, he addresses (in an offhand way...in parenthesis, as this note here now is) that his parents aren't involved in his life much at all, and that's why they don't come into the story much. That's lazy on the author's part, I think. I mean, he does call them from the payphone when he leaves Trish's beach house. So if they'd be expecting him home at a certain time, then they couldn't be that uninvolved in his life. And again, no explanation for how they're not involved...are they workaholics? Alcoholics? (I doubt that, or he would have said something when Belinda, the "token straight" in the Geography Club, talked about her mother's issues). Or just really obnoxiously self-absorbed? Doesn't say.
Now, I do have to keep in mind that people my age aren't the audience for this book, but teens. Teenagers, on the one hand, might not be interested in reading much about the adults...hence, why so much of the text revolves around the teen characters, and there is nary a parent or actively involved teacher in sight. However, that would ring as unrealistic to most teens, I would think. After all, one big issue that teens deal with is their parents, of course! Yet Russel more or less does whatever he wants; he meets Kevin at the park several times in the dead of night. As an adult reader and a teacher, I'd like to know what's really going on here.
I would find this book much more dissatisfying if I didn't know it was the first in a series. If it was meant to stand alone with all of these unanswered questions, I'd be pissed on behalf of any teen who'd read this book. But I could see gay teens wanting to go on to read more about Russel and his friends. I'm sure they're more concerned with whether or not Russel and Kevin will get back together, or Min and Therese. Or if the GSA club will find out who the gay student was who spoke with the health teacher. She mentioned a kid expressing the need for a GSA group at their school, but it wasn't any of the kids who were involved in Geography Club. I like the way that particular unanswered question was handled, because I think it would be an appropriate plot line to continue into other stories.
As I said, I think it'll be better for me to find more adult-themed books with lesbian characters. But books like this one are great to see on the shelves for gay teens, or simply for teens in general. Apparently Hartinger is involved in supporting gay teens in his community, and that doesn't surprise me. The overall message of this book is good for any gay teen (or any gay person, for that matter) to keep in mind: you are not alone. I'd like to think that the conflicts that the characters faced are out-of-date, but I'm not that naive. I am optimistic, though, that in a few more years' time, a gay teen who reads this book will think, wow, I'm glad things aren't that way anymore. I really, really hope.
July 22, 2014
I remember hearing about this book at some point. It's a young adult novel, so maybe a classmate from one of my grad courses told me about it. I wanted to read something specifically gay-themed; there just don't seem to be many books out there with main characters who are gay or lesbian. I've noticed a crop of such books for YA readers, and maybe I can find some books that have adult lesbians are protagonists. After all, while it's important to read about characters from other cultures and other times, sometimes it's nice to read about a character with whom you have a personal connection.
I think that was Hartinger's intention with this book, and with the others that follow (I believe there are a total of four books that follow protagonist Russel Middlebrook). This first one was published in 2003. I was in high school myself at that time, and so I found myself comparing the conditions in Russel's school to those at my high school. There was a GSA club at my school, but I remember seeing vandalism on some of the fliers they would put up. Barely anybody was "out" in high school; hell, I'm just now going through the process of "coming out," and it just seems so awkward. I want people to just accept that I'm a lesbian, not be surprised about it (though most people probably aren't!), and just move on. The truth of the matter is, I'm a chicken-shit; the kids in this book are at least braver than I am, and under worse circumstances.
Russel thinks he's the only gay kid in school (ha!), until he meets another classmate in a gay teen chatroom online. Remember, this is 2003, so chatrooms and IMing were going on, rather than Facebook, Twitter, and texting. I don't think any of the characters had cell phones, even. But besides the changes to technology, I also feel like the atmosphere for gay teens has changed at schools. I can say that for where I'm living; having subbed in many of the area schools, I know that most of them have some sort of GSA or other organization supporting gay students. There are definitely more students "out" than when I was in school, and while I wouldn't say that things are easy for these kids, I think the fact that more of them feel like they can truly express their identities is telling in itself.
But in 2003, in a suburban community (I'm guessing Washington, since that's where the author is from, though the book could easily take place in some mid-West communities today, besides some antiquated references), being openly gay in high school and wanting to form a GSA group were social suicide. When Russel learns that his gay friend online is Kevin, a hot jock from his gym class, and when he learns that one of his best friends, Min, is bisexual, they want to start their own group with the two other gay kids that they know at school. But again, indicating that it's a club for gay students would have invited ridicule, and from the way the other students treat Brian, a social outcast, I can see that people are especially cruel and bigoted at this school. So they decide to form their club, but call it the "Geography Club," so that nobody would possibly want to join them.
What I like about this book is that Russel grows a lot on a personal level. He goes from being a scared kid in the closet, to being (more or less) out, and kind of proud of it, too. He stands up for Brian, and is able to be more honest with his friends, even Gunnar, his straight friend who is so desperate for a girlfriend that he keeps setting Russel up on dates with a girl who is friends with a slut, so that they can double. I found it interesting that Gunnar knew Russel was gay; that scene was nice and everything, but I still wonder why Gunnar would be so insensitive and force Russel to go out on those dates in the first place. Still, Gunnar redeems himself by joining the real GSA that most of the Geography Club members start at the end of the book.
I feel sad for Kevin, whose relationship with Russel ends because he's afraid of becoming unpopular after the situation with Brian. He doesn't join the actual GSA, of course, even though he was a founding member of the Geography Club. I felt like, even more than a decade later, Kevin is a pretty realistic gay teen character. He cares about saving face in front of his friends, even at the expense of others. He hides his true identity, and puts up with listening to his friends talk about nailing girls over the weekend. As a matter of fact, teens who aren't gay could probably relate to Kevin's inner conflict. Not many teens haven't done something to conform to peer pressure in spite of their own better judgment. At one point, Russel caves to peer pressure, too, and spends a little time being popular. But he feels guilty for being mean to Brian, and for upsetting Min about it, especially when rumors spread about his sexual orientation and he is cast off from the popular group. Kevin doesn't experience the same growth as his one-time boyfriend, at least not yet. Well, I guess Kevin could get a free ride to college for baseball and really go crazy there...or, he could further succumb to pressure and stay in the closet. Poor kid.
There are some things that irked me about this book, though. I understand that it's supposed to be the first of a series, but there are too many connections that aren't made. For one thing, there's the character of Reverend Bowd. Russel describes him as being a local conservative leader who crams his fundamentalist beliefs down the throats of community members. It's interesting to me that Hartinger, who as I said is from Washington state, would include such a character. That reminds me of a plot in one of Chris Crutcher's books...and he's from Washington state, too. Are there a lot of these religiousy types in the state of Washington? And what do they have to say about the legalization of marijuana?
Anyway, Reverend Bowd is featured in one scene in the principal's office, which Russel happens to overhear, as he complains about the health teacher demonstrating how to put on a condom, using a cucumber as a phallus. Russel reflects on how this guy has caused trouble in their community before; he even has the health teacher fired by the end of the book, but that's not a major plot line. I expected that Bowd would come back around as a major antagonist in this book, but I'm thinking it's being set-up for one of the later books, now that the school has an official GSA and everything. But something bothers me about that scene and the way that the character was introduced...and the whole situation with the health teacher, for that matter. I feel like there should have been a little more mention of it...
Also, what's the deal with Russel's parents? He barely mentions them. I remember him saying that telling his parents that he's gay isn't an option, though I'm unclear as to why...he doesn't talk about how they're religious (he doesn't seem to attend Bowd's church), or how his father is a macho man, or whatever. Nothing like that. So I'm still left with, well, why can you absolutely never ever tell your parents that you're gay? It's not explained at all.
Plus, he addresses (in an offhand way...in parenthesis, as this note here now is) that his parents aren't involved in his life much at all, and that's why they don't come into the story much. That's lazy on the author's part, I think. I mean, he does call them from the payphone when he leaves Trish's beach house. So if they'd be expecting him home at a certain time, then they couldn't be that uninvolved in his life. And again, no explanation for how they're not involved...are they workaholics? Alcoholics? (I doubt that, or he would have said something when Belinda, the "token straight" in the Geography Club, talked about her mother's issues). Or just really obnoxiously self-absorbed? Doesn't say.
Now, I do have to keep in mind that people my age aren't the audience for this book, but teens. Teenagers, on the one hand, might not be interested in reading much about the adults...hence, why so much of the text revolves around the teen characters, and there is nary a parent or actively involved teacher in sight. However, that would ring as unrealistic to most teens, I would think. After all, one big issue that teens deal with is their parents, of course! Yet Russel more or less does whatever he wants; he meets Kevin at the park several times in the dead of night. As an adult reader and a teacher, I'd like to know what's really going on here.
I would find this book much more dissatisfying if I didn't know it was the first in a series. If it was meant to stand alone with all of these unanswered questions, I'd be pissed on behalf of any teen who'd read this book. But I could see gay teens wanting to go on to read more about Russel and his friends. I'm sure they're more concerned with whether or not Russel and Kevin will get back together, or Min and Therese. Or if the GSA club will find out who the gay student was who spoke with the health teacher. She mentioned a kid expressing the need for a GSA group at their school, but it wasn't any of the kids who were involved in Geography Club. I like the way that particular unanswered question was handled, because I think it would be an appropriate plot line to continue into other stories.
As I said, I think it'll be better for me to find more adult-themed books with lesbian characters. But books like this one are great to see on the shelves for gay teens, or simply for teens in general. Apparently Hartinger is involved in supporting gay teens in his community, and that doesn't surprise me. The overall message of this book is good for any gay teen (or any gay person, for that matter) to keep in mind: you are not alone. I'd like to think that the conflicts that the characters faced are out-of-date, but I'm not that naive. I am optimistic, though, that in a few more years' time, a gay teen who reads this book will think, wow, I'm glad things aren't that way anymore. I really, really hope.
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Book #98: Oliver Twist
Book #98: Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
July 20, 2014
About a year ago, I downloaded a bunch of public-domain classic audiobooks on my Kindle. I found myself thinking that I would never read all of them. Well, I still have a few to go (and of course, I never just read straight classics), but I was recently surprised by how few were actually left. This was one of them.
Oliver Twist was Dickens' second published work. It's also one of his best known; most people know who Oliver Twist is, thanks to the many movies that have been produced. The "please, sir, may I have some more?" scene (which actually comes right near the beginning of the book) is very famous. I never actually saw any movie version of Oliver Twist but, like many of the well-known classics that I've read, I knew the basic premise going in.
Just as I observed with A Christmas Carol, Dickens really uses this work as a vehicle for his own social messages. At the beginning of the book, he is bitingly sarcastic when describing the people who control the church-run orphanages and work-houses. Essentially, these places sound like concentration camps, and the earnest conversations between the parochial council members about how feeding the paupers anything more than a small ration of gruel would actually be bad for them made me think of S.S. officers. As I've written on this blog before, Dickens had family that spent time in debtors prison, maybe even in workhouses with these sort of conditions. This was when he himself was a kid, so I wonder if he was subjected to the treatment of one such orphanage, or if he was left to run the streets and make his own way. Certainly, the descriptions of the children at the beginning of the book are heart-breaking. I think Dickens had good intentions with this book, to shed some light on the cruelty and indignity that the poor faced in their society.
What's ironic about Dickens' compassion towards these people's suffering is that, if he were around during World War II, he maybe wouldn't have cared so much about thoseconcentration camps. Because Dickens was very anti-Semitic. I noted that when I read Great Expectations, but it was really blatant in this book. One of the main characters is described as "the Jew" just as often as he is called in the narrative by his own name, "Fagin." Even sweet little Oliver refers to him as "the Jew." Oh, man. And, of course, he is disgusting to behold, as is the young man Barney (also called "a Jew") who associates with these criminals. There's one scene that describes him rubbing the side of his nose, a gesture that the person he is conversing with can't imitate because his Anglican nose is too small. Oh, brother. That's really big dark stain on this classic story, but people who actually haven't read the book don't realize this. Yup, innocent little Oliver Twist was a bigot. Go figure.
As I've been wont to do recently, I read up on some of the reviews that have been written about this book on the Goodreads site. Some people complained that the plot was predicable. I'd heartily agree with that, but I don't necessarily fault Dickens for that. This story has been influential; I mean, Anniedefinitely puts me in mind of Oliver Twist. And many stories and movies for children have featured young characters who are continuous victims of circumstance...but things eventually come out all right for them. Besides the blatant anti-Semitic attitudes expressed in the book, this is a perfect story for children...except that things do get a little violent when it comes to Sikes, one of the criminals with whom Fagin associates. The story doesn't seem sophisticated to today's readers because, I think, many of the plot twists and conventions that Dickens employed are now played out. In his time, the story may have seemed fresh and exciting.
I do feel that Dickens is shoving his agenda down his readers' throats, and sacrificing realism in so doing. The last few pages of the book are dedicating to tying everything up neatly. Everything turns out just peachy-keen for the "good guys," and the "bad guys" all meet their just desserts. Coincidentally, the few people who were kind of Oliver are all connected to his past, and ta-da, he's actually wealthy! He was the legally-illegitimate son of a wealthy man, whose half-brother (and his mother, when she was living) did their best to keep Oliver, and anyone connected to him, downtrodden. Turns out that sweet Rose Maylie is Oliver's actual auntie, and she and her cousin are not really cousins and therefore can get married without it being weird (haha,Dangerous Cousins). It was kind of sweet that Rose and Oliver, both orphans who had difficult childhoods, could find each other, I guess.
Two things that I did appreciate about the ending: one, that little Dick died, and two, that young Master Bates (hahahahahaha!) amended his criminal ways and eventually became a successful farmer. Now, I didn'twant Oliver's sick little friend to die, but it did add some realism to an otherwise nauseating ending. And Master Bates (tee-hee!) was one of the my favorite characters (besides Mr. Grimwig), so it was good to see him have a nice ending.
Dickens does a better job in this book, then he did in Great Expectations, with fleshing out his characters. Now, the main character was rather blah, and I was glad that the book didn't focus 100% on Oliver's story. Fagin, for instance, could have been a really great character, if he weren't described as a negative stereotype for Jews: greasy, big-nosed, money-obsessed. Nancy was interesting, especially in contrast to sweet Rose Maylie; Rose was rather two-dimensional, while Nancy was a complex character, whose history, while not described in detail, could be imagined. Nancy is the only "good" character who met a sorry fate (besides young Dick, of course, and the Dodger, who wasn't all bad), and that's too bad, but realistic, at least. The scenes with the criminals were the most interesting in the book, I think. I wonder just how much Dickens was able to draw from his own life when writing those particular scenes and creating those particular characters.
Overall, I would say that, like all of the works by Dickens that I've read so far, this is an essential classic that needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Now that I've read the two Dickens works that are most famous and have been the most influential in popular culture, I can see why other people would want to retell these stories. Dickens did okay the first time around, but his works are far from perfect.
July 20, 2014
About a year ago, I downloaded a bunch of public-domain classic audiobooks on my Kindle. I found myself thinking that I would never read all of them. Well, I still have a few to go (and of course, I never just read straight classics), but I was recently surprised by how few were actually left. This was one of them.
Oliver Twist was Dickens' second published work. It's also one of his best known; most people know who Oliver Twist is, thanks to the many movies that have been produced. The "please, sir, may I have some more?" scene (which actually comes right near the beginning of the book) is very famous. I never actually saw any movie version of Oliver Twist but, like many of the well-known classics that I've read, I knew the basic premise going in.
Just as I observed with A Christmas Carol, Dickens really uses this work as a vehicle for his own social messages. At the beginning of the book, he is bitingly sarcastic when describing the people who control the church-run orphanages and work-houses. Essentially, these places sound like concentration camps, and the earnest conversations between the parochial council members about how feeding the paupers anything more than a small ration of gruel would actually be bad for them made me think of S.S. officers. As I've written on this blog before, Dickens had family that spent time in debtors prison, maybe even in workhouses with these sort of conditions. This was when he himself was a kid, so I wonder if he was subjected to the treatment of one such orphanage, or if he was left to run the streets and make his own way. Certainly, the descriptions of the children at the beginning of the book are heart-breaking. I think Dickens had good intentions with this book, to shed some light on the cruelty and indignity that the poor faced in their society.
What's ironic about Dickens' compassion towards these people's suffering is that, if he were around during World War II, he maybe wouldn't have cared so much about thoseconcentration camps. Because Dickens was very anti-Semitic. I noted that when I read Great Expectations, but it was really blatant in this book. One of the main characters is described as "the Jew" just as often as he is called in the narrative by his own name, "Fagin." Even sweet little Oliver refers to him as "the Jew." Oh, man. And, of course, he is disgusting to behold, as is the young man Barney (also called "a Jew") who associates with these criminals. There's one scene that describes him rubbing the side of his nose, a gesture that the person he is conversing with can't imitate because his Anglican nose is too small. Oh, brother. That's really big dark stain on this classic story, but people who actually haven't read the book don't realize this. Yup, innocent little Oliver Twist was a bigot. Go figure.
As I've been wont to do recently, I read up on some of the reviews that have been written about this book on the Goodreads site. Some people complained that the plot was predicable. I'd heartily agree with that, but I don't necessarily fault Dickens for that. This story has been influential; I mean, Anniedefinitely puts me in mind of Oliver Twist. And many stories and movies for children have featured young characters who are continuous victims of circumstance...but things eventually come out all right for them. Besides the blatant anti-Semitic attitudes expressed in the book, this is a perfect story for children...except that things do get a little violent when it comes to Sikes, one of the criminals with whom Fagin associates. The story doesn't seem sophisticated to today's readers because, I think, many of the plot twists and conventions that Dickens employed are now played out. In his time, the story may have seemed fresh and exciting.
I do feel that Dickens is shoving his agenda down his readers' throats, and sacrificing realism in so doing. The last few pages of the book are dedicating to tying everything up neatly. Everything turns out just peachy-keen for the "good guys," and the "bad guys" all meet their just desserts. Coincidentally, the few people who were kind of Oliver are all connected to his past, and ta-da, he's actually wealthy! He was the legally-illegitimate son of a wealthy man, whose half-brother (and his mother, when she was living) did their best to keep Oliver, and anyone connected to him, downtrodden. Turns out that sweet Rose Maylie is Oliver's actual auntie, and she and her cousin are not really cousins and therefore can get married without it being weird (haha,Dangerous Cousins). It was kind of sweet that Rose and Oliver, both orphans who had difficult childhoods, could find each other, I guess.
Two things that I did appreciate about the ending: one, that little Dick died, and two, that young Master Bates (hahahahahaha!) amended his criminal ways and eventually became a successful farmer. Now, I didn'twant Oliver's sick little friend to die, but it did add some realism to an otherwise nauseating ending. And Master Bates (tee-hee!) was one of the my favorite characters (besides Mr. Grimwig), so it was good to see him have a nice ending.
Dickens does a better job in this book, then he did in Great Expectations, with fleshing out his characters. Now, the main character was rather blah, and I was glad that the book didn't focus 100% on Oliver's story. Fagin, for instance, could have been a really great character, if he weren't described as a negative stereotype for Jews: greasy, big-nosed, money-obsessed. Nancy was interesting, especially in contrast to sweet Rose Maylie; Rose was rather two-dimensional, while Nancy was a complex character, whose history, while not described in detail, could be imagined. Nancy is the only "good" character who met a sorry fate (besides young Dick, of course, and the Dodger, who wasn't all bad), and that's too bad, but realistic, at least. The scenes with the criminals were the most interesting in the book, I think. I wonder just how much Dickens was able to draw from his own life when writing those particular scenes and creating those particular characters.
Overall, I would say that, like all of the works by Dickens that I've read so far, this is an essential classic that needs to be taken with more than a grain of salt. Now that I've read the two Dickens works that are most famous and have been the most influential in popular culture, I can see why other people would want to retell these stories. Dickens did okay the first time around, but his works are far from perfect.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
Book #97: My Family and Other Hazards
Book #97: My Family and Other Hazards: A Memoir by June Melby
July 16, 2014
I had every intention of finishing this book before tomorrow evening. I saw that the author would be giving a reading and book-signing at a local bookstore, and I thought that might be a nice event to attend. I didn't buy a hard copy of the book, but rather an electronic copy. I knew I wouldn't find one to read at the local library, because this book has gotten a lot of attention in this area for the last couple of months or so. Melby is from a nearby community; she went to school there as a kid, and lives there now with her husband. Iowa loves its local writers, and writers who are from Iowa or who write aboutIowa. That makes me think that if I were to ever publish anything (that's a dream that I've always had, to publish a book), I would have some support...even if it happened to be something a little more scandalous. I only say that because this book certainly was notscandalous; it was pretty much a feel-good family story. Which isn't really what I expect when I read a memoir.
I found this book to be a quick read, and it kept my attention. I mean, I guess it would be pretty cool to spend the summer of your formative years living at, and working at, a mini golf course. That's a unique personal experience, something worth sharing, so it's no wonder Melby (who has written poetry as well as this memoir) would want to write about it. But I was bothered by something as I read this book. Her family is mentioned in the title, and yet I didn't really feel like I got to know the Melby family for real in this book. I guess I could understand this lack of connection in the early chapters, which talk more about the earlier years at the mini golf course Tom Thumb, when Melby herself was a pre-teen. Empathy comes with time, but even through the snippets of the Melbys "crazy" family life, I didn't feel like I got to know any of the other family members, outside of young June's perspective of them. Older sister LeeAnne is never anything more than bossy and industrious, and I want to know why Carla, the "fragile" youngest child, grew up to work at a suicide hotline (she herself lives in a nearby community). The father is just the dorky father, a high school teacher, and the mother is cheerful, industrious as her oldest is, and makes frequent references to God (she seems like many older women that I know here in my home state). When Melby goes off on tangents, explaining the history of mini golf and stuff like that, she could have been giving the reader more about her family. She's the one child who moves far away after college, but I don't know...I either feel like Melby just doesn't really know her family, or she, for some reason, was hesitant to give us more than what we got. It irked me mainly due to the fact of the title; the title is awful.
I was also a bit thrown by the structure of the book. Almost every chapter corresponds to one of the "hazards" on the mini golf course, like a chapter on the "wishing well" hole. They went in order, from hole #1 to hole #18. Melby would attach symbolic significance to each chapter, and would structure her narrative (the snippets that she would share of the Melbys and their lives) to kind of go along with that idea. This was kind of a lofty idea, but it didn't really work for me as a reader. All of the snippets made it all seem unfocused. I kept thinking that it had been edited sloppily. Somebody might have told Melby to focus more on the underlying theme of her whole narrative: that as a child, she wasn't really satisfied with the life she was living, and wanted to get out. But when she was older, and her parents were looking to sell Tom Thumb and the Wisconsin lakefront property, she felt regret that she didn't appreciate it all more. Which is something that every adult can relate to, I'm sure; I know I do. Melby seems to shy away, kind of, from focusing on this more. For having parents who seemed so kind and loving, there weren't many scenes in this book that I found heart-warming myself, but I did find Melby's reflections on her childhood, as she was swimming with her mother, to be interesting. Had the book focused more on that, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more, I think.
I'll be interested to see what reactions other people have to the book when I attend the reading tomorrow. I'll see what kind of crowd it draws; as I said, this book has gotten a lot of attention around here, and she's something of a local celebrity. I'm kind of eager to see Melby in person, because to be perfectly honest, something about this book just did not ring true to me. Perhaps I'll be able to see how genuine she is (or isn't) and get a better appreciation for the book...or not.
July 16, 2014
I had every intention of finishing this book before tomorrow evening. I saw that the author would be giving a reading and book-signing at a local bookstore, and I thought that might be a nice event to attend. I didn't buy a hard copy of the book, but rather an electronic copy. I knew I wouldn't find one to read at the local library, because this book has gotten a lot of attention in this area for the last couple of months or so. Melby is from a nearby community; she went to school there as a kid, and lives there now with her husband. Iowa loves its local writers, and writers who are from Iowa or who write aboutIowa. That makes me think that if I were to ever publish anything (that's a dream that I've always had, to publish a book), I would have some support...even if it happened to be something a little more scandalous. I only say that because this book certainly was notscandalous; it was pretty much a feel-good family story. Which isn't really what I expect when I read a memoir.
I found this book to be a quick read, and it kept my attention. I mean, I guess it would be pretty cool to spend the summer of your formative years living at, and working at, a mini golf course. That's a unique personal experience, something worth sharing, so it's no wonder Melby (who has written poetry as well as this memoir) would want to write about it. But I was bothered by something as I read this book. Her family is mentioned in the title, and yet I didn't really feel like I got to know the Melby family for real in this book. I guess I could understand this lack of connection in the early chapters, which talk more about the earlier years at the mini golf course Tom Thumb, when Melby herself was a pre-teen. Empathy comes with time, but even through the snippets of the Melbys "crazy" family life, I didn't feel like I got to know any of the other family members, outside of young June's perspective of them. Older sister LeeAnne is never anything more than bossy and industrious, and I want to know why Carla, the "fragile" youngest child, grew up to work at a suicide hotline (she herself lives in a nearby community). The father is just the dorky father, a high school teacher, and the mother is cheerful, industrious as her oldest is, and makes frequent references to God (she seems like many older women that I know here in my home state). When Melby goes off on tangents, explaining the history of mini golf and stuff like that, she could have been giving the reader more about her family. She's the one child who moves far away after college, but I don't know...I either feel like Melby just doesn't really know her family, or she, for some reason, was hesitant to give us more than what we got. It irked me mainly due to the fact of the title; the title is awful.
I was also a bit thrown by the structure of the book. Almost every chapter corresponds to one of the "hazards" on the mini golf course, like a chapter on the "wishing well" hole. They went in order, from hole #1 to hole #18. Melby would attach symbolic significance to each chapter, and would structure her narrative (the snippets that she would share of the Melbys and their lives) to kind of go along with that idea. This was kind of a lofty idea, but it didn't really work for me as a reader. All of the snippets made it all seem unfocused. I kept thinking that it had been edited sloppily. Somebody might have told Melby to focus more on the underlying theme of her whole narrative: that as a child, she wasn't really satisfied with the life she was living, and wanted to get out. But when she was older, and her parents were looking to sell Tom Thumb and the Wisconsin lakefront property, she felt regret that she didn't appreciate it all more. Which is something that every adult can relate to, I'm sure; I know I do. Melby seems to shy away, kind of, from focusing on this more. For having parents who seemed so kind and loving, there weren't many scenes in this book that I found heart-warming myself, but I did find Melby's reflections on her childhood, as she was swimming with her mother, to be interesting. Had the book focused more on that, I would have enjoyed it quite a bit more, I think.
I'll be interested to see what reactions other people have to the book when I attend the reading tomorrow. I'll see what kind of crowd it draws; as I said, this book has gotten a lot of attention around here, and she's something of a local celebrity. I'm kind of eager to see Melby in person, because to be perfectly honest, something about this book just did not ring true to me. Perhaps I'll be able to see how genuine she is (or isn't) and get a better appreciation for the book...or not.
Monday, July 14, 2014
Book #96: The Help
Book #96: The Help by Kathryn Stockett
July 14, 2014
I think I've written on this blog before about how I am turned off by hype. I do the opposite of jumping on the bandwagon with most trends, especially when it comes to popular fiction. I jokingly told a coworker of mine (after sucking down a Long Island iced tea at an end-of-the-year party) that I would try to do better with that, that I would read the Twilight series and Fifty Shades of Gray. I don't know if I'll go that far, but reading The Help, a book that got a lot of attention just a few years ago, is a start. While I want my reading to expand my intellectual horizons, I also don't want to be a snob or an elitist. After all, something's popular for a reason, right?
I've read some of the criticism about this particular book. I don't think it's necessarily fair to say that Stockett can't represent the views of black women because she herself is white. That's preposterous; that'd be like saying that I couldn't write a story about a straight person because I'm gay. What I do agree with is that there could have been a lot less focus on Skeeter's story; I wanted the whole book to be from Aibileen's perspective, or from Minnie's. I liked Skeeter as a character, but with her perspective being so prominent, the story doesn't really focus enough on how hearing the experiences of these women is expanding her worldview. The story kind of does this at the start, I think, but then focuses too heavily on the whole Stuart plotline, and on her mother's illness. I found her whole discovering Bob Dylan and going hippie story arch to be cliched for the 1960s, yet I enjoyed reading about her more from afar, from Aibileen's perspective, than I did actually reading her perspective most of the time. Like Celia Foote was to Minnie, Skeeter could have been an important character to Aibileen's sections, but not an actual narrator herself. So she was iced out from the Junior League and can't hang with the popular young married women anymore? Who cares?
What I like about this book, though, is that it brings a new perspective of Jim Crow south to the mainstream. Another idea that I've previously reflected on is how little I felt this topic was dealt with when I was in school. I saw that The Help was part of the curriculum at some school where I subbed at one point, and now that I've read it, I think that's a rather appropriate choice. It's a pretty easy read, and I suppose the shifts in perspective do keep a reader's interest (even if, again, I could have done without Skeeter's narrative). A lot of people (particularly women, I would imagine) read this book, and now have a new frame through which to view this shameful time in our history. I, for one, am cool with that.
My favorite character in this book by far was Minnie. She is very contradictory. She reminds me in many ways of Philo from Every Inch of Her; she's big and has a tough exterior. She has a lot of kids, and she loves them fiercely. And her husband beats on her, and drinks. This is only hinted at at the beginning of the book; when some bruises were mentioned, it seemed like he'd been an asshole to her when he was drinking, maybe shoving her out of the way or something, not nice but not serious. But her injuries got worse and were described more as the book went on; even dizzy little Celia Foote got the gist of what was happening. I was most fascinated by Minnie's relationship with Celia; on the one hand, she complains constantly that the crazy woman is driving her crazy, and on the other hand, she is very protective of her. She even cries when Celia and her loving husband Johnny have a tearful moment in their dining room, after they've discussed never being able to have children. It took Celia a long time to see that Johnny loved her for herself, in spite of her infertility and her lack of cooking skills...she's sweet, and has huge tits. In spite of herself, Minnie cares for this woman, who offers her friendship...in spite of her hesitation to take it, you can tell that Minnie will never leave Celia, if she can help it.
It is fascinating and heartbreaking to consider the relationships between these "poor little rich" white kids, neglected by their parents (whose, perhaps even despised, like little Mae Mobley) who are loved and cared for by their black maids, who don't have time to give that kind of care and love to their own children. Aibileen's reason for moving around to so many different jobs is because she can't stand to be around the white children she's raised once they start seeing racial differences...and believing that they matter. She probably spent her whole son's childhood raising little while children, and then he died as a young man. Her son's father had abandoned them, so throughout this book, she is living alone.
I've seen some of the movie, not all of it, and much of the book seems to be represented. I think the actress who played Minnie got nominated for an Oscar? That would be a great character to play. From what I can remember, some of the actresses playing the white "ladies" like Hilly and Elizabeth kind of hammed it up, and that hot Emma Stone played Skeeter. I may need to sit down and watch the whole movie some time soon. I still have a little more than a month ahead of me for summer vacation (I think more like five and half weeks, but who's counting?), so I definitely intend to read a lot more. Probably not any of the titles that I listed at the beginning of this post (I have limits), but maybe some more recently popular texts...
July 14, 2014
I think I've written on this blog before about how I am turned off by hype. I do the opposite of jumping on the bandwagon with most trends, especially when it comes to popular fiction. I jokingly told a coworker of mine (after sucking down a Long Island iced tea at an end-of-the-year party) that I would try to do better with that, that I would read the Twilight series and Fifty Shades of Gray. I don't know if I'll go that far, but reading The Help, a book that got a lot of attention just a few years ago, is a start. While I want my reading to expand my intellectual horizons, I also don't want to be a snob or an elitist. After all, something's popular for a reason, right?
I've read some of the criticism about this particular book. I don't think it's necessarily fair to say that Stockett can't represent the views of black women because she herself is white. That's preposterous; that'd be like saying that I couldn't write a story about a straight person because I'm gay. What I do agree with is that there could have been a lot less focus on Skeeter's story; I wanted the whole book to be from Aibileen's perspective, or from Minnie's. I liked Skeeter as a character, but with her perspective being so prominent, the story doesn't really focus enough on how hearing the experiences of these women is expanding her worldview. The story kind of does this at the start, I think, but then focuses too heavily on the whole Stuart plotline, and on her mother's illness. I found her whole discovering Bob Dylan and going hippie story arch to be cliched for the 1960s, yet I enjoyed reading about her more from afar, from Aibileen's perspective, than I did actually reading her perspective most of the time. Like Celia Foote was to Minnie, Skeeter could have been an important character to Aibileen's sections, but not an actual narrator herself. So she was iced out from the Junior League and can't hang with the popular young married women anymore? Who cares?
What I like about this book, though, is that it brings a new perspective of Jim Crow south to the mainstream. Another idea that I've previously reflected on is how little I felt this topic was dealt with when I was in school. I saw that The Help was part of the curriculum at some school where I subbed at one point, and now that I've read it, I think that's a rather appropriate choice. It's a pretty easy read, and I suppose the shifts in perspective do keep a reader's interest (even if, again, I could have done without Skeeter's narrative). A lot of people (particularly women, I would imagine) read this book, and now have a new frame through which to view this shameful time in our history. I, for one, am cool with that.
My favorite character in this book by far was Minnie. She is very contradictory. She reminds me in many ways of Philo from Every Inch of Her; she's big and has a tough exterior. She has a lot of kids, and she loves them fiercely. And her husband beats on her, and drinks. This is only hinted at at the beginning of the book; when some bruises were mentioned, it seemed like he'd been an asshole to her when he was drinking, maybe shoving her out of the way or something, not nice but not serious. But her injuries got worse and were described more as the book went on; even dizzy little Celia Foote got the gist of what was happening. I was most fascinated by Minnie's relationship with Celia; on the one hand, she complains constantly that the crazy woman is driving her crazy, and on the other hand, she is very protective of her. She even cries when Celia and her loving husband Johnny have a tearful moment in their dining room, after they've discussed never being able to have children. It took Celia a long time to see that Johnny loved her for herself, in spite of her infertility and her lack of cooking skills...she's sweet, and has huge tits. In spite of herself, Minnie cares for this woman, who offers her friendship...in spite of her hesitation to take it, you can tell that Minnie will never leave Celia, if she can help it.
It is fascinating and heartbreaking to consider the relationships between these "poor little rich" white kids, neglected by their parents (whose, perhaps even despised, like little Mae Mobley) who are loved and cared for by their black maids, who don't have time to give that kind of care and love to their own children. Aibileen's reason for moving around to so many different jobs is because she can't stand to be around the white children she's raised once they start seeing racial differences...and believing that they matter. She probably spent her whole son's childhood raising little while children, and then he died as a young man. Her son's father had abandoned them, so throughout this book, she is living alone.
I've seen some of the movie, not all of it, and much of the book seems to be represented. I think the actress who played Minnie got nominated for an Oscar? That would be a great character to play. From what I can remember, some of the actresses playing the white "ladies" like Hilly and Elizabeth kind of hammed it up, and that hot Emma Stone played Skeeter. I may need to sit down and watch the whole movie some time soon. I still have a little more than a month ahead of me for summer vacation (I think more like five and half weeks, but who's counting?), so I definitely intend to read a lot more. Probably not any of the titles that I listed at the beginning of this post (I have limits), but maybe some more recently popular texts...
Thursday, July 10, 2014
Book #95: Every Inch of Her
Book #95: Every Inch of Her by Peter Sheridan
July 10, 2014
I can't help it. No matter how many times I claim that I won't go to the library without a plan again, I always end up blinding grabbing books from the shelves. As much as that's bitten me in the ass, I've also found some quality books that might have otherwise escaped by attention. While I picked this book up the same day that I got The Casual Vacancy, I had at least been aware of the existence of the latter, though I kind of had a moment of oh, yeah, J.K. Rowling did write another book... I'd never heard of this particular book, but in this situation, I was satisfied with both of my spontaneous choices.
This wasn't a perfect story. There were some things left unsaid that I thought could have merited more time in the plot, like Sister Rosaleen's sexuality or Philo's obvious learning disability. I didn't appreciate how abruptly the reader was presented with Philo's dark secret, but it did make sense that it would come about after the reader had gotten the impression that Philo was a strong woman who used humor to fight her battles in life...this was what she'd been hiding under her good-humor and vulgarity, and under all of her fat, too, apparently, and it couldn't be laughed at.
Philo is fat. The reader (at least of the edition that I read) knows this before even opening the book. She is a compulsive eater, and her issues with food apparently stem from sexual abuse that she'd experienced as a child at the hands of a man whom her father owed money to. I found that to be a tragic and very profound revelation, but I didn't like the whole liposuction thing. She doesn't really address her problem with food in the story; she does make some half-hearted promises, but it's revealed that she's done this many times, as many people who have problems with food and weight have. She does stand up to her abuser, which is a good thing, but I would have rather seen her stand up to her father, who seemed to know about the abuse, and allowed it to continue to placate his benefactor.
Philo and her dangerously obese mother Sylvia are pretty much shit on by this man (and Philo by her own alcoholic husband Tommo) all of their adult lives. Now that I'm reflecting on it, it makes me wonder about other overweight women who are married to men who don't have weight problems, and the kinds of shit that they may have to endure. It's easy for someone who is thin and condescending to say that they should just lose the weight; Philo demonstrates that psychologically, its not so simple. But I would have wanted to see Philo, a woman who was strong in so many ways, overcome that most important obstacle in her life (now that her husband has been dealt with, you could say). Really, she was pretty clueless about the basics of nutrition, as was her mother (convinced that she could eat half-calorie cookies all that she wanted and not gain any weight); she has many startling gaps in her knowledge, but she's certainly not a dumb woman.
The book actually has a more light-hearted tone than I'm letting on. Philo, as I've said, uses humor to her advantage, and it helps her in social situations. When she seeks the aid of a convent of nuns after first running away from her husband, she charms them with her vulgarity, rather than turning them off. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Sister Rosaleen, whose "crisis of faith" is an unsatisfying brief plot point, was in love with the lively Philo. Damn, she would have treated Philo better than any of the men she'd ever encountered!
At the convent, Philo becomes popular with the local seniors when she livens up their afternoons at the center. Her version of the British show Blind Date (I only got the references because its also mentioned inBridget Jones) puts Dina and Cap together. The problem is that these two have been feuding for like 50 years. He'd been in love with her in his youth, but his best friend had also had a crush on her; a coin toss decided the matter, and Cap was best man at their wedding. They became enemies over a docking dispute; Cap didn't want to deal with the issue violently, and Dina saw that as a betrayal to the cause. Later, after Cap had opened a small vegetable shop, Dina and her husband did the same; and so the "vegetable war" had been going on for a long time. Dina's husband had left her, but she still harbored some bitterness towards Cap. Cap, meanwhile, was still in love with her, and a 71-year-old virgin to boot.
I found Cap and Dina's story to be an interesting contrast to Philo's. Cap was very sweet to Dina after they finally got together, and he studied up on sex so that he would not only know what he was doing, but so he could please her. That's pretty hot, even if they are both old farts (and by the end of the book, Dina was missing both of her legs from the knees-down). In contrast, Philo's husband Tommo had been sweet to her at the start, but had since become poisonous to her; not only physically abusive (which she could handle, and almost seemed to like to some extent), but emotionally abusive as well. The language of this book is rather, uh, realistic (it is working class Dublin, after all), so there's a lot of cursing, but the names that Tommo would call Philo were just disgusting. But besides the contrast in these love (or not-so-much-love) stories is about the only connection I can make between the two plot lines, although Philo does become a big influence in Cap and Dina's lives. I almost wanted more of each of the stories, especially Cap and Dina's; once they got together, there was less of their story than I wanted to see.
I found Philo to be easy to sympathize with. She was a battered woman in a conservative society (at least in regards to marriage and family, being Catholic and all), an overweight woman in this world that glorifies being thin and shovels unhealthy food in our faces, and undereducated to boot. And yet she was a good mother, and a good person; in spite of her need to feed her face, she was mainly a positive force in people's lives. I almost found in unbelievable that she would have once allowed herself to get pushed around by Tommo, a drunk who is full of shit. But at the end of the book, even with him out of the way and her children back in their home, she still has a long road ahead of her. She may have a love interest in an ex-monk named "Brother" Felix, who runs a boy's home that her eldest son went to to get away from his stepfather, but that's another part of the story that was a bit underdeveloped. But, at least Philo has her charm, and hopefully a renewed resolve to turn her life around, before she ends up like her poor mother.
July 10, 2014
I can't help it. No matter how many times I claim that I won't go to the library without a plan again, I always end up blinding grabbing books from the shelves. As much as that's bitten me in the ass, I've also found some quality books that might have otherwise escaped by attention. While I picked this book up the same day that I got The Casual Vacancy, I had at least been aware of the existence of the latter, though I kind of had a moment of oh, yeah, J.K. Rowling did write another book... I'd never heard of this particular book, but in this situation, I was satisfied with both of my spontaneous choices.
This wasn't a perfect story. There were some things left unsaid that I thought could have merited more time in the plot, like Sister Rosaleen's sexuality or Philo's obvious learning disability. I didn't appreciate how abruptly the reader was presented with Philo's dark secret, but it did make sense that it would come about after the reader had gotten the impression that Philo was a strong woman who used humor to fight her battles in life...this was what she'd been hiding under her good-humor and vulgarity, and under all of her fat, too, apparently, and it couldn't be laughed at.
Philo is fat. The reader (at least of the edition that I read) knows this before even opening the book. She is a compulsive eater, and her issues with food apparently stem from sexual abuse that she'd experienced as a child at the hands of a man whom her father owed money to. I found that to be a tragic and very profound revelation, but I didn't like the whole liposuction thing. She doesn't really address her problem with food in the story; she does make some half-hearted promises, but it's revealed that she's done this many times, as many people who have problems with food and weight have. She does stand up to her abuser, which is a good thing, but I would have rather seen her stand up to her father, who seemed to know about the abuse, and allowed it to continue to placate his benefactor.
Philo and her dangerously obese mother Sylvia are pretty much shit on by this man (and Philo by her own alcoholic husband Tommo) all of their adult lives. Now that I'm reflecting on it, it makes me wonder about other overweight women who are married to men who don't have weight problems, and the kinds of shit that they may have to endure. It's easy for someone who is thin and condescending to say that they should just lose the weight; Philo demonstrates that psychologically, its not so simple. But I would have wanted to see Philo, a woman who was strong in so many ways, overcome that most important obstacle in her life (now that her husband has been dealt with, you could say). Really, she was pretty clueless about the basics of nutrition, as was her mother (convinced that she could eat half-calorie cookies all that she wanted and not gain any weight); she has many startling gaps in her knowledge, but she's certainly not a dumb woman.
The book actually has a more light-hearted tone than I'm letting on. Philo, as I've said, uses humor to her advantage, and it helps her in social situations. When she seeks the aid of a convent of nuns after first running away from her husband, she charms them with her vulgarity, rather than turning them off. In fact, I'm pretty sure that Sister Rosaleen, whose "crisis of faith" is an unsatisfying brief plot point, was in love with the lively Philo. Damn, she would have treated Philo better than any of the men she'd ever encountered!
At the convent, Philo becomes popular with the local seniors when she livens up their afternoons at the center. Her version of the British show Blind Date (I only got the references because its also mentioned inBridget Jones) puts Dina and Cap together. The problem is that these two have been feuding for like 50 years. He'd been in love with her in his youth, but his best friend had also had a crush on her; a coin toss decided the matter, and Cap was best man at their wedding. They became enemies over a docking dispute; Cap didn't want to deal with the issue violently, and Dina saw that as a betrayal to the cause. Later, after Cap had opened a small vegetable shop, Dina and her husband did the same; and so the "vegetable war" had been going on for a long time. Dina's husband had left her, but she still harbored some bitterness towards Cap. Cap, meanwhile, was still in love with her, and a 71-year-old virgin to boot.
I found Cap and Dina's story to be an interesting contrast to Philo's. Cap was very sweet to Dina after they finally got together, and he studied up on sex so that he would not only know what he was doing, but so he could please her. That's pretty hot, even if they are both old farts (and by the end of the book, Dina was missing both of her legs from the knees-down). In contrast, Philo's husband Tommo had been sweet to her at the start, but had since become poisonous to her; not only physically abusive (which she could handle, and almost seemed to like to some extent), but emotionally abusive as well. The language of this book is rather, uh, realistic (it is working class Dublin, after all), so there's a lot of cursing, but the names that Tommo would call Philo were just disgusting. But besides the contrast in these love (or not-so-much-love) stories is about the only connection I can make between the two plot lines, although Philo does become a big influence in Cap and Dina's lives. I almost wanted more of each of the stories, especially Cap and Dina's; once they got together, there was less of their story than I wanted to see.
I found Philo to be easy to sympathize with. She was a battered woman in a conservative society (at least in regards to marriage and family, being Catholic and all), an overweight woman in this world that glorifies being thin and shovels unhealthy food in our faces, and undereducated to boot. And yet she was a good mother, and a good person; in spite of her need to feed her face, she was mainly a positive force in people's lives. I almost found in unbelievable that she would have once allowed herself to get pushed around by Tommo, a drunk who is full of shit. But at the end of the book, even with him out of the way and her children back in their home, she still has a long road ahead of her. She may have a love interest in an ex-monk named "Brother" Felix, who runs a boy's home that her eldest son went to to get away from his stepfather, but that's another part of the story that was a bit underdeveloped. But, at least Philo has her charm, and hopefully a renewed resolve to turn her life around, before she ends up like her poor mother.
Thursday, July 3, 2014
Book #94: The Casual Vacancy
Book #94: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
July 3, 2014
As you might expect, some who've read this book were thrown. This is not the J.K. Rowling that they grew up reading; the Fields ain't Hogwarts, and there's no Dumbledore. Rowling creates a realistic, contemporary community in this story, and through the lives of the various characters, shows different views on the concepts of class and social responsibility. So I'll start by saying that Harry Potter fans who claim to not like this book simply aren't getting it.
As I've written in a previous post, Rowling had her share of hard times. I'm pretty sure that she was on welfare at one point; I quite image that, unlike Terri Weedon, her social worker found her easy to work with. But it's not inconceivable for me to think that Rowling saw people like the Weedons in her experiences; haven't we all? This story is about trying to pass the buck, trying to shirk responsibility. The question is, who isresponsible for helping the poor? What can society do to better understand the causes of poverty, and drug addiction?
Those themes aren't exactly foreign to Harry Potter. The distinctions between wizards who are mixed-blood or "Mudbloods" is clearly a metaphor for racist attitudes. And the whole situation with the Weasleys (a kindly but poor family) and the Malfoys (rich assholes) shows Rowlings feelings about class distinctions and snobbish attitudes as well. In The Casual Vacancy, good and evil aren't exactly black and white (not that they're always so easy to distinguish in those other books, either); we're talking about the real world here, of course.
Pagford is a small, picturesque community in the English countryside. The town is run by a parish council, and while the councilmen and councilwomen had been elected without competition in the past, the political atmosphere has been heating up by the start of the book. Some people in the town want to unload the Fields, a community full of people who are mostly on welfare and many who receive treatment at a methadone clinic, onto the nearby town of Yarvil, which sounds like more of a working class community than middle-class Pagford. Barry Fairbrother (okay, so his name was a little on-the-nose here, as was the name of "Hope Street," where Krystal's grandmother had lived), who had grown up in the Fields but, in spite of this, had become a contributing member of the Pagford community, wanted to fight to keep the Fields part of their town, mostly so the kids there could attend the nice local school. But, at the beginning of the book, he dies of an aneurysm, on his wedding anniversary! His sudden death is a shock to the community, but to his opponents on the parish council, it's also a chance to get rid of the Fields for good.
Various characters get wrapped up in the politics of the election for the open chair, for their own reasons. Simon Price, the biggest asshole in the entire book, runs because he thinks he'll be offered bribes in the position; his son, Andrew, humiliates with him with an anonymous online post about his father's illicit activities. The Price family is interesting enough on their own; Simon is emotionally unstable and violent, and it's more than a little disheartening that his wife Ruth won't do anything to put a stop to his rampages. But Rowling creates a number of interesting families in this book: the Mollisons, with dangerously obese but conniving Howard and greedy Shirley; their son Miles, who wants to be like big daddy, and his wife Samantha, who has huge boobs and fantasies about boy bands; the Wall family, with dumpy but sympathetic Tessa, paranoid Colin, and their adopted son Fats, who is a dickhead; the Jawanda family, with matriarch Parminder (who realizes that she may have been in love with Barry Fairbrother), her handsome husband, and their children, including Sukhvinder, who is insecure, has learning disabilities, and is teased mercilessly by that dickhead Fats Wall, to the point that the poor girl is driven to cut herself; the Bawdens, Kay and her daughter Gaia, who have just moved to Pagford from London so that Kay could pursue a doomed relationship with Gavin, who turns out to be in love with the widow Mary Fairbrother. And, of course, there are the Weedons: Terri, a heroin addict who makes a little progress when Kay comes on as her social worker; her daughter Krystal, a troubled and promiscuous teen who was crushed by Barry Fairbrother's death, as he'd been a mentor to her; and Robbie, a little boy who not only witnessed sexual activity, but was probably molested himself at some point. In spite of all of Krystal's care, Robbie cannot be protected from his mother's lifestyle. From Terri's perspective, she can barely be protected from herself most of the time. So again: who is to take responsibility?
Even though the plot of the story revolves around the open seat in the parish council, it's about so much more than that. I love a story when the characters seem very real, and I felt like most of the characters (whom I've described only briefly and in the simplest of terms) were actually very well fleshed out. Their lives were all intertwined, of course; how could they not be in a town as small as Pagford? Some reviews of this book (I'm talking about Goodreads-type reviews here) stated that the characters were not likable. But I only found that to be true for Simon Price, and maybe Shirley Mollison and Fats Wall; but even for those two, I could sympathize with them to some extent. Not every character was likable all the time, but I found that I could relate to each one of them at one point or another. Colin Wall is an especially interesting character; he suffers from crippling anxiety, OCD, and having experienced a little anxiety myself, I could understand Colin's train of thought, even as he took it to extremes. I wanted justice for Sukhvinder; more specifically, I wanted her to sock Fats Wall in the face. Of course, she was a timid girl, so that didn't happen. At the end, her future is a bit uncertain, but at least her parents have found out about her cutting and her mother isn't being such a bitch to her.
I got into this book, I sympathized with the characters, and I feel like it presented a lot of important questions. The plot was engaging and believable. All in all, it met my requirements for a quality book. I had been wondering if Rowling's magic would translate into other genres, and I believe that it does. I hope that her future works continue to present those tough questions and those grittier realities of life to readers.
July 3, 2014
As you might expect, some who've read this book were thrown. This is not the J.K. Rowling that they grew up reading; the Fields ain't Hogwarts, and there's no Dumbledore. Rowling creates a realistic, contemporary community in this story, and through the lives of the various characters, shows different views on the concepts of class and social responsibility. So I'll start by saying that Harry Potter fans who claim to not like this book simply aren't getting it.
As I've written in a previous post, Rowling had her share of hard times. I'm pretty sure that she was on welfare at one point; I quite image that, unlike Terri Weedon, her social worker found her easy to work with. But it's not inconceivable for me to think that Rowling saw people like the Weedons in her experiences; haven't we all? This story is about trying to pass the buck, trying to shirk responsibility. The question is, who isresponsible for helping the poor? What can society do to better understand the causes of poverty, and drug addiction?
Those themes aren't exactly foreign to Harry Potter. The distinctions between wizards who are mixed-blood or "Mudbloods" is clearly a metaphor for racist attitudes. And the whole situation with the Weasleys (a kindly but poor family) and the Malfoys (rich assholes) shows Rowlings feelings about class distinctions and snobbish attitudes as well. In The Casual Vacancy, good and evil aren't exactly black and white (not that they're always so easy to distinguish in those other books, either); we're talking about the real world here, of course.
Pagford is a small, picturesque community in the English countryside. The town is run by a parish council, and while the councilmen and councilwomen had been elected without competition in the past, the political atmosphere has been heating up by the start of the book. Some people in the town want to unload the Fields, a community full of people who are mostly on welfare and many who receive treatment at a methadone clinic, onto the nearby town of Yarvil, which sounds like more of a working class community than middle-class Pagford. Barry Fairbrother (okay, so his name was a little on-the-nose here, as was the name of "Hope Street," where Krystal's grandmother had lived), who had grown up in the Fields but, in spite of this, had become a contributing member of the Pagford community, wanted to fight to keep the Fields part of their town, mostly so the kids there could attend the nice local school. But, at the beginning of the book, he dies of an aneurysm, on his wedding anniversary! His sudden death is a shock to the community, but to his opponents on the parish council, it's also a chance to get rid of the Fields for good.
Various characters get wrapped up in the politics of the election for the open chair, for their own reasons. Simon Price, the biggest asshole in the entire book, runs because he thinks he'll be offered bribes in the position; his son, Andrew, humiliates with him with an anonymous online post about his father's illicit activities. The Price family is interesting enough on their own; Simon is emotionally unstable and violent, and it's more than a little disheartening that his wife Ruth won't do anything to put a stop to his rampages. But Rowling creates a number of interesting families in this book: the Mollisons, with dangerously obese but conniving Howard and greedy Shirley; their son Miles, who wants to be like big daddy, and his wife Samantha, who has huge boobs and fantasies about boy bands; the Wall family, with dumpy but sympathetic Tessa, paranoid Colin, and their adopted son Fats, who is a dickhead; the Jawanda family, with matriarch Parminder (who realizes that she may have been in love with Barry Fairbrother), her handsome husband, and their children, including Sukhvinder, who is insecure, has learning disabilities, and is teased mercilessly by that dickhead Fats Wall, to the point that the poor girl is driven to cut herself; the Bawdens, Kay and her daughter Gaia, who have just moved to Pagford from London so that Kay could pursue a doomed relationship with Gavin, who turns out to be in love with the widow Mary Fairbrother. And, of course, there are the Weedons: Terri, a heroin addict who makes a little progress when Kay comes on as her social worker; her daughter Krystal, a troubled and promiscuous teen who was crushed by Barry Fairbrother's death, as he'd been a mentor to her; and Robbie, a little boy who not only witnessed sexual activity, but was probably molested himself at some point. In spite of all of Krystal's care, Robbie cannot be protected from his mother's lifestyle. From Terri's perspective, she can barely be protected from herself most of the time. So again: who is to take responsibility?
Even though the plot of the story revolves around the open seat in the parish council, it's about so much more than that. I love a story when the characters seem very real, and I felt like most of the characters (whom I've described only briefly and in the simplest of terms) were actually very well fleshed out. Their lives were all intertwined, of course; how could they not be in a town as small as Pagford? Some reviews of this book (I'm talking about Goodreads-type reviews here) stated that the characters were not likable. But I only found that to be true for Simon Price, and maybe Shirley Mollison and Fats Wall; but even for those two, I could sympathize with them to some extent. Not every character was likable all the time, but I found that I could relate to each one of them at one point or another. Colin Wall is an especially interesting character; he suffers from crippling anxiety, OCD, and having experienced a little anxiety myself, I could understand Colin's train of thought, even as he took it to extremes. I wanted justice for Sukhvinder; more specifically, I wanted her to sock Fats Wall in the face. Of course, she was a timid girl, so that didn't happen. At the end, her future is a bit uncertain, but at least her parents have found out about her cutting and her mother isn't being such a bitch to her.
I got into this book, I sympathized with the characters, and I feel like it presented a lot of important questions. The plot was engaging and believable. All in all, it met my requirements for a quality book. I had been wondering if Rowling's magic would translate into other genres, and I believe that it does. I hope that her future works continue to present those tough questions and those grittier realities of life to readers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)