Movin' Out

Hey everyone!

It's official, we've moved! Come join us over at Wordpress:

http://literarytransgressions.wordpress.com/

~ KT

On being eaten by office supplies

If you click above, there's a larger image where you can actually read the insights on those Post-its -- things like 'KING IN THE MOUNTAIN' and strings of numbers that look oddly Da Vinci Code-esque.

See this, guys?

That's what my Tolkien essay looks like. Post-Its a-go go. They have taken over my room, my life, and my books. Bear in mind that the above picture doesn't include the three stacks of books I have yet to flag. Incidentally, that's pretty much why I haven't updated lately...but I do have news!

First, preparations are underway for Literary Transgressions to make the move over to Wordpress! Why, you ask? Because, in the words of my lovely co-bloggist, "It's so pretty and shiny!" And she's right, you know. There were promises of a custom header if we made the transfer, too, so look for that to come soon.

Second, there will be simply millions of posts soon. I promise. Mmhm. I have one drafted right now about Tolkien and contextualization, I have one in the back of my head about the King in the Mountain archetype, and I am sure there is going to have to be one sometime about Stardust, both in the novel and film forms (probably a comparision of, actually).

Third, ummmm...well, I guess there isn't really a third, except to say that this week is my final week of classes. What does that mean for you? Only that I just may have more flexibility and time to post in the future, lucky readers :)

The Shift from Square to Smart

When I first started reading Girlbomb: A Halfway Homeless Memoir by Janice Erlbaum, I’ll admit I felt more than a little bit like a goody-two-shoes. Girlbomb tells the story of Erlbaum’s misspent youth from the moment she walked out on her mother at age 15 through her life and times in a shelter, a group home, back at home and out on the streets, all the while cracked out like only a teenager in Washington Square Park in the late 1980s can be. I meanwhile grew up primarily in an affluent upstate suburb where I insistently went to school everyday, actually once made a rather inane New Year’s resolution to say no to drugs (I was in middle school, give me a break), went to a nice college full of nice girls, graduated on time and pretty promptly got a job. I was even wearing a jumper the day I read it, for Pete’s sake. I felt distinctly square.

But as I continued to lurch my way through Erlbaum’s memoir, that feeling changed. I stopped feeling like an abject loser and realized how wholly sad her story was. It was the tale of a life disrespected and utterly wasted. On the surface, Girlbomb might well be telling the story of a crazy 1980s teenage-hood in New York City, but what really got through to me was just how many moronic and pointless decisions one person really can make.

And nothing bad truly happens to Erlbaum in the book (aside from the obvious drugs, sex and alcohol things that she herself chooses), a fact which makes her decisions all the more pointless. This book does not moralize or hint that these choices were perhaps bad ones and thank heavens she has now reentered society as a respected author. There is no climactic moment where she realizes the error of her ways or dies in a blaze of glory. Instead, Erlbaum traipses through the 1980s drug and club scene of downtown New York and nothing happens. She isn’t arrested, she never dies (okay, she comes close, but that isn’t surprising considering the amount of coke we’re talking about here), she doesn’t contract any life-changing and/or horrifying diseases, she doesn’t get beaten up by her dealer and the toughest thing she has to deal with is a curfew she deems cruel set by her remarkably lenient mother and the fact that her two best friends like each other more than they like her.

But the overarching message isn’t about pointlessness or hardship. Rather, my first impression was dead on. All through her crazy antics and drug-induced freak-outs, Erlbaum is undoubtedly saying “yeah, this was a folly of my youth, but, damn, don’t you think it was a cool folly?” The book is filled with an undertone of ineffable coolness that just comes off feeling a trifle forced and hardly true. No, Jan, it wasn’t a cool folly. It was just stupid.

And that is what the reader takes away from Girlbomb: Erlbaum needlessly, idiotically and senselessly wasted her life. The sheer stupidity and pointlessness was what ended up really getting to me. The book calls itself a “compelling story,” but to actually be compelling, I think something dramatic followed by some kind of death or turn-around would really have to happen. The entire book comes off as pointless, since by the end of it, our dear Janny has set herself back on the road away from drugs, but not in a particular redeeming or dramatic way. One minute, she’s shouting profanity at her lover and then trying to make up with her boyfriend and the next she’s just out of the bad stuff and living in her own apartment (paid for by her dead grandmother) as she goes off to college. It’s all a trifle jarring, bizarrely more so than all the shocking nonsense that goes on before that moment, and the book just ended up confusing me more than anything else.

Click here for the first chapter read by the author herself, courtesy of Poets & Writers podcast.

Relevant Writing

In light of the recent discussions we've been having on this blog and in the comments about "fluff" books and chick lit, I thought I would link you all over to this extremely intelligent viewpoint on the matter written by Joanne Rendell over at the Huffington Post.

In all our discussions here at Literary Transgressions about "fluff" and chick lit, we have yet to breach what might perhaps be the most basic aspect of the debate: gender. As a Smithie, I know it sounds woefully cliche to bring this up, but it seems to me that in all our ponderings about what makes chick lit today so derided and simply not respected, we have failed to look at the fact that most chick lit authors are women. Is there something more to be said there or is chick lit disrespected for other, more stylistic reasons?

Hot Town, Super in the City

Super in the City by Daphne Uviller is (Devil Wears Prada aside) my first true foray into what society at large has not-so-lovingly dubbed "chick lit." I must say that I was more inclined than most to read this book and even more inclined to like it, having become e-quainted with said author over the past few months (she just seems wonderful). And yet...?

The book's main flaw is its very genre. Chick lit is by nature infuriating with its rampant escapism, its unattainable alternate realities and, at the gushy heart of any chick lit book, its mythical One striding about in a very manful manner. It is nice to delve into and even disappear into this relatively tidy little world where you just know everything is going to eventually work out. It's peppy and comforting and wonderfully distracting, but it is not real. The moment you lift your nose out of any chick lit book's light pages, you immediately crash. On the cover of this book, Elizabeth Gilbert compares the novel to candy ("intelligent candy," mind you) and I think that is very much accurate of the genre. You get this happy little sugar rush reading and then, once done, you crash back to reality with very little residual buzz to show for your time. It's disheartening even as you were moments ago reveling in your sunny little chick lit world.

However, setting the main constraints of the genre itself aside, the book was not in and of itself at all bad. In fact, I just plain old liked it! There isn't anything really deeper to read into that or anything to really comment on why or why not, I just liked it. The book is the simple, friendly little tale of an extremely likable woman with the fantastic name of Zephyr Zuckerman. She merrily skips through the novel, going through a range of emotions and catastrophic situations before finally getting her perfect, rainbow over Manhattan happy ending. It's great.

Most simply, this book was a nice little moment of escapism and one that is not so far-fetched as to really hurt you when you come crashing back down from chick lit land. Ms. Uviller's writing style is utterly fantastic: intelligent without seeming pretentious (although, as a Yale graduate, she would have every right to be so), funny without hitting you over the head with the punchline and wonderfully real-feeling, even in its moments of greatest unreality. Zephyr honestly comes to life, as do the people she encounters along the way. I have absolutely no idea what other genre Zephyr might have more happily fit into (although judging by her preoccupation with romantic fantasies of the mind perhaps chick lit is the right place for her), but it might have been nice for Ms. Uviller to try out her debut writing chops on something equally shiny, equally nicely written but perhaps slightly more substantive.

Note: I actually wrote this review some weeks ago since I was beneficently given a review copy and, since then, I have slightly revised my thoughts on the book. This book stuck with me a surprisingly long time and I still find myself thinking about it sometimes, weeks later. While no one is going to confuse Super in the City with high literature, I must say this was a good, thoroughly likable book. Please do read it in your spare hours! It goes quickly and is quite an "upper."

Valley of the Dolls, not the chicks

At first, I wasn't sure why Valley of the Dolls wasn't included in chick lit week for my literature course. After all, it has a pink cover, follows three young women through various career arcs and romances, and has enough sex to qualify. Plenty of handsome men and beautiful girls to go around.

But from the first chapter, I knew that Valley was in a category apart for certain. Though Anne, the main character in the first part of the book, is beautiful and pursued by a millionaire, Jacqueline Susann sets a tone in the beginning that makes the reader feel as though Anne's life is much more real than any chick lit protagonist could ever hope to be. Though a millionaire wants to marry her, she lives in a singularly squalid one-room apartment; and though her boyfriend seems to be a sweet, unremarkable young man, it is soon revealed that he is, in fact, connected with a lotof money gained through very dubious means.

We discussed chick lit a lot in our course, at least during the class assigned to it, and we came to the conclusion that though they are regarded as 'fluff,' they do deal with important issues such as body image, female self-worth, shopping addiction, and the angst inherent in being a single 30-something in London. Still, a lot of us were left with a vague sense of contempt for the genre, though we were unable to articulate it when the professor asked, 'How can you call this fluff if it deals with these issues?'

But Valley of the Dolls answers his question clearly. I could never call Valley 'fluff'; though it was popular, and therefore it has the stigma of common approval, it is also a complex, raw examination of show business, women, relationhips, and what people will do to protect what they think is valuable.

Valley deals with addiction (mainly to pills, called 'dolls'). It deals with body image (all three of the characters make livings off of their bodies). It deals with being single, or rather not being able to get who you want, until you finally get them and realize it's not enough. It deals with the horror of having to take six Seconal and still not being able to sleep; it addresses cancer, insanity, fame, fortune, love and adultery.

And it does it all at the same time.

Chick lit can only deal with one issue per book, sometimes per series. Jemima J is about body image. Full stop. It doesn't bother to delve into the disturbing fact that Ben only likes Jemima after she's skinny. Confessions of a Shopaholic and the rest of the series is about shopping addiction and debt, as well as the possible involvement of the financial industry. Slightly more complex, but as everything always works out okay for Becky Bloomwood, you can hardly say this is an intense examination.

Bridget Jones's Diary does deal with a few more issues, including judging by appearances, trying to find self-worth in the midst of a society that tells you you're worth nothing without a husband, the falsity of tabloid journalism and the demerits of weighing under 9 stone. However, Bridget Jones is the best of the bunch, and everything ends with a happy ending that doesn't quite ring true.

Valley, with all of its glamour and glitz, never feels false. Despite the blockbuster sensationalism of the subject matter, Susann has a firm grip on what feels real and what a simply realistic ending would be, based on the character's pervious actions and tragic flaws. Pessimistic, possibly -- but then it definitely escapes the dreaded moniker of 'fluff.'

What goes around comes around

When I said earlier that Edward Rutherford’s epic The Forest didn’t deserve its own post, I was just plain wrong and lumping it rather unfortunately in with other books I read towards the end of 2008. Having now finished the volume, I can say that, more than Rutherford’s other books, this one most certainly deserves its own post. I say this not because The Forest is so far superior to its compatriots, but because this one was so much more unreliable in its quality.

I have without reservation been merrily recommending Edward Rutherford to just about anyone who would listen since the latter half of high school. “Read anything by him,” I would say excitedly, “It will all be brilliant!” While that might well be the case with both London and, perhaps even more truthfully, Sarum, I am very disappointed to report that Mr. Rutherford lost his swing in this particular tome. The Forest tells the story of, simply put, the New Forest located in the south of England. As with all Rutherford novels, this one successfully covers centuries of history by stopping every hundred years or so in various time periods and examining the people who are found there. Another Rutherford trademark is unsurprisingly present in The Forest: he follows five or six select families in the given region as he skips about through time, checks in with their descendants and makes little winky mentions of previous forebears as he goes through time.

This format may sound at best like a tedious exercise in attempting to bring the past to life for the ordinary reader (who cannot really be expected to really feel for someone living in 1614 without personifying 1614 with Alice Albion, for example). However, tedium is simply not a part of the Rutherford formula. Despite the book’s simplistic formula (and Mr. Rutherford unfailingly follows it in every chapter), Mr. Rutherford possesses the unique ability to quickly sum up a time period (quite accurately most of the time), introduce/define some characters and get on with the plot in such a way that the book never lags. At least, that is the goal. And one that he admirably attains in his previous works (the aforementioned Sarum and London among others).

However, he does not truly make it work in this book. The first half of the book is charming and interesting as any other Rutherford novel, but as he enters the seventeenth century, his ability to make it all interesting apparently just deserts him and the reader is dragged through an increasingly uninteresting and distended piece about the Stuarts, the unfair trial of Alice Lisle and Oliver Cromwell. One can easily see that Mr. Rutherford did some research, discovered Alice Lisle and then thought it would be just wonderful if he could incorporate her into his novel, which he did at much detriment to the novel itself. The story of Alice Lisle is quite interesting on its own simply because of the extreme injustice done to poor old Alice, but the whole retelling just comes off as forced and more than a little dull in Mr. Rutherford’s attempts to force his families into the mix. I admit I struggled woefully for weeks through that unending chapter about the seventeenth century and emerged from it liking Mr. Rutherford and his book rather less and hating the Stuarts and Oliver Cromwell about equally as per usual.

That said, Mr. Rutherford does manage an impressive save after the unfortunate “Alice” chapter by bringing the late eighteenth century and a Jane Austen-like chapter into play directly thereafter (“Albion Park”). One of the things that makes Mr. Rutherford's book so interesting is how his tone changes to match the time period he has entered in every chapter. While there is a calm, descriptive even-handedness pervasive throughout the book, Mr. Rutherford is also very much aware of literary styles of any given time period and relishes in morphing into them a little bit. He disappears almost entirely in Jane Austen for his “Albion Park” chapter and it is a very enjoyable exercise.

The book lags a little bit in the chapters after “Albion Park,” but he never truly loses himself as he did in the seventeenth century. His Victorian section seems a little pointless and plotless (more of a character study and familial check-up than anything) and his tacked-on 1920s and 1980s narratives make you wish the book had just ended in “Albion Park.”

Despite these shortcomings, the book is still an impressive feat of historical research and this is an area Mr. Rutherford clearly loves. I would more readily recommend his other, earlier novels, but this one was good enough. Even if he somehow lost his magic touch to make everything fascinating, the book is still an interesting study in history and how a place changes over time. This may not be enough to tempt most readers into taking on this epic (indeed, I might not have bothered if I had known that it was not Sarum-like in its excellence), but it is a great accomplishment nonetheless.