One of the interesting things about being a mother is that it automatically gives me something in common with about 75% of the people I meet. I've never been the kind of person who smiles at strangers or strikes up conversations with people in grocery checkout lines, but now...I have this adorable blue-eyed instant conversation starter. There's no resisting him. Everyone from the airline stewardess to the Starbucks barrista wants to say hi, ask how old he is, and exclaim over his cuteness. Senior citizens smile dreamily, reminded of their own grandkids.

Until I had one, I didn't much care for babies. They were sort of mysterious and scary, but not very interesting, and decidedly gross. After Z was born, it came as a great shock to me that most people *like* babies. An even greater shock came when I realized that I now like them too. And, in fact, I'm pretty good with them, provided they aren't any older than mine (those are still mysterious and scary).

Gone are the days when a crying baby on an airplane set my teeth on edge--now I know that the kid's parents are probably 10 times more upset over it than I am, since they have the added mortification of disturbing a plane full of strangers. When I see a mom with a baby in a sling or Bjorn carrier, I am filled with a warm nostalgia for the days when Z was that small; when I see an older child walking hand-in-hand with their parents, I am fascinated by this preview of things to come. And we, the moms, glance at each other, and exchange what I think of as the secret handshake of the society of motherhood--a sort of understanding smile combined with a rueful nod. "Yes," that smile says, "they're so much fun, aren't they?" And, "yes," says the nod, "they're a lot of work, aren't they?"

Recently I read Sena Jeter Naslund's novel Abundance, a fictionalized account of the life of Marie-Antoinette. There's a lot of trash talked about Marie-Antoinette, much of which is negative propaganda put about by the revolutionaries that ended up enshrined in history books--after all, we all know who gets to write the history books. Modern authors have attempted to reconstruct a less smeary account of the Queen's life and personality, and luckily there are many primary source documents to draw on, including a lengthy correspondence carried on between the Queen and her mother, the Empress of Austria. There are other letters written to, from, and about her, and other eyewitness documents that record things she actually said or did; the resulting picture is much less villainous, and much more human, than her enemies would have us believe.

It is her role as a mother, however, that touched me the most. Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI had four children, but only one survived past childhood. The descriptions of losing la petite Sophie, less than a year old, and the Dauphin Louis-Joseph, at age 7, were heart-wrenching. Even more so was the account of the Queen's forcible separation from her surviving children in prison. She seized her son, Louis-Charles, and refused to surrender him to the custody of her guards, to be removed to a separate cell--until the guards seized her teenaged daughter, Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte, and threatened to murder her then and there if the Queen did not relinquish her son.

What is the truth of Marie-Antoinette? Was she really the monster described by the revolutionary newspapers? Probably not. One thing I am sure of: in the end she was a mother, deprived of her children. Our hands touch across the years, and we exchange the smile and nod of membership. Welcome to the Society, ma soeur.

There's a (possibly apocryphal) story about J.R.R. Tolkien and the OED (of which he was on the editorial staff) that goes thusly:

Someone once approached Tolkien and asked him why he used the plural "dwarfs" in his Lord of the Rings trilogy, "when the OED says that the correct plural is 'dwarves.'"

Tolkien allegedly replied, "My good sir, I wrote the OED."

I don't know if that's a true story, but it's a good one. The following is not quite as good, since it lacks a famous author, but I know for a fact that it is true:

In the linguistics paper I just turned in, I had occasion to write:

The OED defines a robot as “One of the mechanical men and women in Čapek’s play; hence, a machine (sometimes resembling a human being in appearance),” however, this is incorrect. The robots in Čapek’s play are not mechanical automata but vat-grown artificial humans, rather like the modern conception of clones. Harry Domin, the General Manager of R.U.R., speaks of mixing them up out of dough. “Then there are the vats of liver and brain and so on. The bone factory. Then I'll show you the spinning-mill…Where we make the nerve fibres and the veins. And the intestine mill, where kilometers of tubing run through at a time (Čapek).”

Take that, OED!

While waiting for the new Jaqueline Carey book, Naamah's Kiss, to show up at my local Borders, I picked up the not-quite-as-new Jaqueline Carey book, Santa Olivia. I was a little hesitant, since the last time I read one of her non-Kushiel books, I was terribly disappointed. Godslayer was the worst kind of predictable, derivative, Tolkien-imitating high fantasy dreck. So when I saw another non-Kushiel book on the shelf, I was a bit leery.

At first I was pleasantly surprised--the characters are vivid, the post-apocalyptic demilitarized zone of Outpost was sufficiently different from, well, anything else, and the premise was fun.

( spoilers )

Both hrmortcia and karistan have recommended the Kitty books by Carrie Vaughn, so I thought I'd check them out. I picked up the first one on Swaptree, read the first few chapters, and thought, eh, cute, fun, whatever, I'll keep going.

By the end, I was eagerly scouring half.com for the rest of the series.

These are good. Not great, not life-changing, definitely popcorn, but solid writing, with some great characterizations and interesting plots. A few weaknesses stand out: some of the secondary characters seem a little weak and underdeveloped, and sometimes things seem to happen for the convenience of the author and not the exigencies of the plot, but I find myself overlooking these low points and rooting for the protagonist nonetheless.

( Kitty and the Spoilers )

So, if you like your werewolves furry and your vampires toothy, go check these out.

I've often said I collect experiences. I think that a person's life is made of the stories they have to tell. The tongue-in-cheek saying is, "he who dies with the most toys wins," but I think it's more accurate to replace "toys" with "stories."

The tagline in my blog says, "Stories only happen to people who can tell them." This is a quote from a novel by Allan Gurganus, entitled The Oldest Living Civil War Widow Tells All, and I drew a bit of fire when I first posted it. What, said a friend, so if we're not storytellers, nothing interesting ever happens to us? No, I said, I think it means that story-worthy things happen to everyone, but only story-tellers notice and do something about it, which is the only way other people know they're stories.

A favorite author of mine, Lois McMaster Bujold, calls her readers her "invisible partners," and talks about her books being "a process, through which an idea in my mind triggers an idea, more-or-less corresponding, in yours...The book, therefore, is only finished when somebody reads it."

Between these two ideas about stories fall Bell's and Pavlenko's observations on the importance of narrative in discovering how individuals create and re-create their personal and cultural identities. By becoming storytellers, we can explore ourselves and reflect on our experiences. By sharing our stories with an audience, we can co-construct a shared narrative of culture. A story is only a story if it's told, and it's only complete when it's shared.

As it happens, I read Reading Lolita in Tehran last year, knowing nothing of either Nabokov or the Iranian Revolution. Aside from the literary and historical gleanings, my chief recollection of the book is that I found it hard to tell the characters apart. At first I attributed this to not being used to the Iranian names--but I read fantasy fiction, where people are named things like Belgarion and Anduriel. Then I thought perhaps it had to do with Nafisi's writing style, and the shifts in the timeline, since the middle two sections are flashbacks to the revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. As I kept reading, however, I started to wonder, if Nafisi was deliberately blurring the lines between her female characters in order to make a statement about the oppression of Iranian women during this period: that, perhaps, the donning of the veil, whether voluntary or not, made them all outwardly alike, and likely to blend together in the eyes of outsiders.

If my surmise is true (though I suspect I'm reading too much into what was merely lazy reading on my part), I can certainly see why Fatemeh Keshavarz would take exception to the idea that people like me might take Nafisi's book as the gospel and only truth of Iran the 80s and 90s. She is correct that it "does not demand that [its] reader know know a lot of information about the context." However, I don't think she's just in claiming Nafisi's experience to be inauthentic or misprepresentational. Nafisi experienced what she experienced, and felt what she felt about it, and reported her experiences and feelings as accurately as she could, in a style and manner that seemed appropriate to her. Keshavarz complains that books like Nafisi's are eyewitness accounts, but the interviewer notes that in Jasmine and Stars we meet members of Keshavarz's family, which sounds as if she also is giving an eyewitness account. I'd have to read the book to determine how her eyewitness account differs from Nafisi's.

This has been my month to read YA novels about outcast teenagers. It's not official or anything, you know, "Outcast Teen YA Novel Month" at your local library, nor did I really plan it, but three books on this theme came my way this month.

( Freak )

( Lord of the Flies )

Which brings me to the next book on the Outcast Teen YA Novel Month reading list:

( Stargirl )

Where Golding deems the uncivilized, primitive state a disaster and a fundamental flaw in human nature, to be conquered by rational thought, Spirelli celebrates it as a wellspring of humanism and creativity. Why are their views so different? Golding was writing about a group of young boys; Spirelli writes of one girl. Is it a difference of gender? Of group dynamics? Of geographical versus social isolation? Of the different time periods when the books were written? Or are both books navel-gazing rubbish to be discarded in favor of the harsh realism of Pixley's Freak?

Total: 65 (up a bit from last year)
Rereads: 27
New books: 38
Average per month: 5
High: 10 (March)
Low: 2 (June--I think this was my month to watch all 6 season of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" back to back...followed by all four seasons of "Angel")

( The Complete List )

I just finished reading the Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon. I liked the first few so much I actually went out and bought the last one in hardback, which is quite a compliment for me--there are about three authors whose books I automatically shell out that much cash for, and while I've enjoyed Moon's writing in the past, she hasn't typically been on that list.

But I was enjoying these a lot, liked the main character, and the plots were complicated enough that I was worried if I waited for the last one to come out in paperback I'd forget the overall story arc and have to re-read the whole series--which I'd already done to read the second-to-last book. So. Hardback it was.

*sigh* I'm close to saying it was a major disappointment. And it's not because it was bad--on the contrary, the writing is great, the POV characters are all sympathetic and realistically complex, the plot resolves itself with panache and finality...but. But!

( spoilers ahead )

*sigh* I want my...not money, not time, my...my anticipation back. :-( If it had been a bad book, I wouldn't have kept reading. This is worse--it was a good book that should have been great.

In addition to watching umpteen episodes of Buffy, I've been reading to Z this week. Since I don't want him to lose those neural connections that perceive non-English phonemes, I've been reading to him in French, German, and Spanish, along with English. He doesn't have any clue what I'm reading, but in the case of the German and Spanish, sometimes neither do I. Here's a sample of what we've been reading:

Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, by T. S. Eliot (illustrations by Edward Gorey, no less!)

The Space Child's Mother Goose - nerdy nursery rhymes, including such gems as

Possible-Probable, my black hen
Lays her eggs in the relative when.
She doesn't lay eggs in the positive now,
Because she's unable to postulate how.

Frida - a picture book in Spanish about the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo. This is great not only bc of the language, but bc the illustrations are done in a style evocative of her artwork--and she did some pretty disturbing artwork. This may be creepier than the Edward Gorey illustrations.

Die Drei Kobolde - a German picture book about, as far as I can tell, three orphaned goblins who can control the weather. The level of German is much higher than the level of Spanish required by the Frida book.

Best of all, N'heures souris rames - Mother Goose rhymes rewritten in French--sort of. The French words are real, but translate to utter nonsense, bc they've been combined to sound like the original English words. Best of all, there are footnotes deconstructing the French "verses" as if they are from a historical manuscript, with commentary on the politics and events of the 16th century.

Ok, maybe this is only funny if you speak French. It cracks me up. And Z seems to like it

You know how much I hate people who ask me what I'm reading, when it's evident that 1) they are making random conversation and don't really care, 2) they clearly don't read recreationally themselves, and/or 3) they're interrupting my reading!

The lady taking my blood pressure at the midwife's office today was guilty of 1 and 2, but she managed an even more ludicrous offense:

BP Lady: What are you reading?
Me: [shows her book cover]
BP Lady: What's it about?
[Ok, how do you explain the plot of a Terry Pratchett novel smack in the middle of a series full of inside jokes only funny to regular readers?]
Me: Don't worry, you wouldn't be interested.
BP Lady: Is it related to your work?

Ok, here's what the cover of the book looks like. What exactly did she think I do for a living??

Has anyone out there (aside from vatavian) been borrowing my Harry Dresden books? I can't find book 3 (Grave Peril), but for some reason I've got two of book 6 (Blood Rites). Anyone who might have given me back the wrong one?

Attention, Bujold readers: meet psopcmaster.

First hit's free...

Bad hardly describes it--more like, dreadful, condescending, redundant, and absurd. The author begins with the assumption that his readers are half-wits (with, as one reviewer on Amazon noted, no access to a dictionary), and then demonstrates the origins of his belief: his characters, likewise, barely contain half a wit amongst the whole lot of them. I've known any number of 14-year old girls cleverer than Violet, 12-year-old boys smarter than Klaus, and there are probably toddlers out there more perceptive than Mr. Poe, Justice Strauss, and Sunny put together.

The whole tone of the book is a syrupy, twitchy, snide commentary on how bad things are, how much worse they'll get, and by the way, "bad" is meant here to mean "writing I wouldn't foist on my children if the only other book in the library was The Giving Tree." The author is clearly trying to channel Edward Gorey, and is not...quite...making it...even a little.

I am left wondering what age group this book is intended for: children young enough to not feel talked down to would likely need the dreary mess read to them--and I'd rather sit through endless repititions of Goodnight, Moon than subject myself to this drivel.

So I finally got around to reading it, and--eh. Not excited. It wasn't *bad*, just not what I was expecting from all the hoopla.

But as for it being an anti-church book...It seems to me that the conclusion turns that whole "anti-church" thing on its head.

( Spoilers )

Since coming home, I've read Frankie Manning's autobiography. It reads something like this:

I was born.

I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced.

Then I got drafted. War sucked, but there were some good times, too. I even danced a little.

Then the war ended.

I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced.

Then I got married, had a kid, and went to work for the post office.

30 years later, there was a swing revival. So I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced and I danced.

And you know what? I'M STILL DANCIN'!

Joyce, you've just finished five grueling weeks of research and writing--what are you gonna do now??

( I'm gonna read the new Harry Potter book! )

The Explaining Meme, from selenite. He picked three icons and three interests for me to explain. Comment and I'll pick three of each for you.

None of these are particularly obscure, but:

Icons



This is my travel icon; I really would prefer something a little more interesting and dynamic, but it works for now. I swiped it off a Google image search somewhere.



This is a picture I took at the historical museum on our trip to Oslo in 2004. The full picture, with caption translated from Norwegian (go me!) can be found here. I use it as an icon when I'm sick, which in itself is kind of sick.



I used this as my default icon for a long time. It's a shot Aaron took of me, that I then photoshopped purple. The pose reminds me a bit of the da Vinci drawing used in "Ever After."

Interests

codex alera - Series of fantasy novels by Jim Butcher. Astonishingly good stuff, esp considering they were written on a dare: someone bet Jim he couldn't write a good novel about the Lost Roman Legion and Pokemon. My personal satisfaction with them stems from the underdog hero, who continually saves the day through multi-culturalism. There's unique.

sci-fi cons - Going to cons means never having to ask yourself, "But where would I wear this?" It's a world where it's perfectly polite to show off, stare, or bring a book or a laptop to a party.

square dancing - Square dancing evolved from European folk dances in much the same way as contra dance. In fact, they have a lot of steps in common. I happen to prefer squares to contras because the partner and position switches make them more challenging. Unfortunately, a square full of inexperienced dancers combines badly with an inattentive caller who can't rescue them. So, much as I like them, they tend to be frustrating when they come up.

Back in April, Stephen posted about reading To Kill a Mocking bird. I commented that I'd read it in 9th grade, and I must have had a very good teacher, bc I remember parts of it crystal clearly. It got me remembering what a good book it was, so I decided to re-read it.

Dear god. This book isn't just good. It's brilliant. It's mind-blowing. It's awe-inspiring. It is so beautifully significant, and significantly beautiful, it exceeds my feeble human capacity for expression.

And stupid, narrow-minded nitwits keep trying to ban it as a "filthy, trashy novel," because it does "psychological damage to the positive integration process " and "represents institutionalized racism under the guise of good literature." In other words, some people can't read past the word "nigger." Racial themes? Of course it has racial themes, you ignorant morons.

This summer's reading project: work my way down this list.

*whimper* The new Jim Butcher book is here. I asked at the Borders last night, and it's sitting in the back room, but they can't put it on the shelf til the official release date, next week. *sob*