Feeling Old

"A senior moment."

"You can't remember your own birthday?"
"No," said Gabriel, punching in the code. "I just cant believe it was that long ago."  Truth.

16.13 The Fallen Angel

We just moved – again – and I have never felt so old.  One day of moving boxes was followed by one day on the couch with a knee swollen to the size of a grapefruit. One trip to Home Depot was followed by three others because I can’t remember everything I need.  One goodbye to a neighbor was followed by hysterical crying because I never thought this would happen again, and now I have my heckles up anticipating what will come next.  Needless to say, I am a mess… but I finally made it through a book and it only took 4 1/2 weeks. Grrrrr.

It seems that life is catching up with Gabriel Allon as well, even though the formula of the books remain the same.  Now everyone knows his name and his face.  They know he is an art restorer and a spy.  They know who he works for and with.  And they know all about his friends in high places.  And maybe I know too much as well, because usually I fly through these books dying to know how it will end but this time I just didn’t care.  I don’t know if it wasn’t as exciting because it wasn’t so undercover, or because I just didn’t have the energy to make anything exciting.  I love Gabriel and I love reading my yearly Silva, but this one just didn’t do it for me.  However, that certainly doesn’t mean I won’t be back for the next one though.

Time Suck

So yeah… Still can’t read.  Not even Gabriel Allon can seem to rescue me - so obviously something tragic is going on but I am trying to not give it too much energy and let it resolve itself.

So what, pray tell, have I been doing with my time – I have become a cross-stitching fiend!  Finishing off projects that have been set aside for years, buying more projects than I can ever hope to complete, and even reading(!) a bit about the craft.

“Domestic arts were equated with virtue because they insured the woman remain at home and refrain from book learning.”  Ha Ha – I can’t even…

The Subversive Stitch

I am not going to pretend like I read this whole thing.  It is basically a PhD thesis on embroidery and feminism and if I can’t get my mind to focus on a Gabriel adventure then I sure as hell can’t get into this.  But the bits and pieces I did get through were interesting:  How stitching was considered a hobby of the rich and well mannered, and then became a kind of trade for the lower class; then the push back against the idea that the “craft” is for the idle or pious woman, or as I hear a lot “women’s work.” How the designs have changed from a young woman’s “casket” of work to show off to possible suitors, to the more modern subversive designs that try to break down barriers.  Speaking of…

The project I am working on now is from a book called Twisted Stitches.  I was originally drawn to it because it is written by a man who very unapologetically thanks a family friend for teaching him to stitch but also laments the fact that each finished piece is sent to live out its days in the bottom of a drawer somewhere like many of my past projects.  I love the Sugar Skull pattern but admit that the gun shot wounds, road kill, and voluptuous female vampire patterns lost my attention.  I have to think there is a way to be off the beaten track without beating that track to a pulp with your irreverence.  If only I was creative enough to come up with my own designs.  

Changes

“We can’t be afraid of change. You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the very reason why you don’t have something better.”  I really hope this is the Truth.

The past few months have been crazy in my life and thus I have not been reading or blogging.  While planning a ten day vacation to Germany, my husband got a phone call asking him to come back to the job he left almost seven years ago and it threw us for a huge loop.  We took our trip, the following weekend he flew down to interview for the job, last weekend we drive down and put an offer on a house, and this weekend we have started to pack up our house here.  I am pretty devastated to be leaving Oregon and never imagined raising my son in Nevada, but it is happening no matter how much I push back against it.  But honestly, I am scared and sad.  So my mind isn’t in a great space and while I wish I could read I probably should just give up because even the reading I have done hasn’t been done well.

15.13 A Death in Vienna

This audio book was an absolute lifesaver on the 8 hour drive to Nevada one day and the 7 hour drive back two days later.  I have read all of Silva’s books but my husband just won’t try them out (probably because I say he should) but we both enjoyed this and it made the time fly.  Plus, Gabriel is truly the best.

16.13 The End of the Wasp Season

This is the second Mina I have read, both featuring DCI Marrow, and while I like her character and find her intriguing, the format of shifting between the investigators and the criminals just kills the mystery for me.  Since we know everything and everyone as it happens I just can’t get invested in watching Marrow solve it.

17.13 The Twelve

I started this on the plane to Germany and was so excited to really tuck into it on the ten hour flight – but oh my god! You now have your own TV on those flights and it has been years since I watched an adult movie of my own choosing so instead of reading I watched: Anna Karenina, Jack Reecher, Perks of Being a Wallflower, Hitchcock, The Help, Twilight – somethingridiculous, and The Hobbit.  Do I feel guilty?  Kind of, but such is life.  Honestly, I haven’t even finished this one but I do plan to, I just figure I won’t be very qualified to write a review by then so I am including it here.

They Are a Rotten Crowd

“Americans, while willing, even eager, to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry.” Truth.

14.13 Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby

I am usually not a fan of film adaptations of books, especially those I taught at school, but I have always have a soft spot for Redford and Farrow as Gatsby and Daisy; the foggy lenses, and over acting.  Showing it in class was always hilarious.  The kids eagerly anticipating the gruesome ending and instead laughing out loud at the almost comedic scene.  It isn’t a perfect movie, but it was pretty perfect for what it was supposed to be.  The Great Gatsby is all about what we see instead of who we are, what we imagine instead of what we have, so the over acting was just right because these people were always pretending about everything.  And now we have a remake coming, and I am sad that this original version will be relegated to the classics section.  The remake is being directed by Baz Luhrmann of Moulin Rouge fame so is destined to be gaudy as all get out, but will that take away from the story, from the truth of the book – that in America it isn’t about who we are, but instead about who other people think we are.  I really wasn’t sure, the casting seemed off to me and rumors of the soundtrack sounded crazy but…

Then I saw this:

The pink suit, the pool, the car.  The back-story, the pearls, the green light. All the pretty, and yes, all the gaudy.  But, oh my gosh, I am in – like totally in (except maybe not the 3-D part, can we just kill the 3-D part please.)  And this Tom Buchanan is the perfect Tom Buchanan – am I right? 

So I wasn’t excited about the movie and now I can’t wait and because of this I found out about Trimalchio.  It is an early version of Gatsby that was written in 1924 but published in 2000, along with some of the letters Fitzgerald’s editor sent him in regards to revisions.  For me, it is also the superior book.  It seems to me it is a lot more messy than the original. It feels more obvious to the reader and the characters that Gatsby and Daisy will never have the future they both have imagined, in fact, none of the them will.  All I could think about while reading was how much I wish I had had this edition when I was teaching Gatsby years ago because it seemed a bit more realistic in the end, and maybe this movie will be the same.

Lose Ends

“Novels gave you a completely false idea about life, they told lies and implied there were endings when in reality there were no ending, everything just went on and on and on.” Truth.

13.13 Case Histories

It feels lately like every time I tidy up one lose end at least ten more unravel, and this month the ends are out of control!  I can’t even focus my mind on reading a book, which kind of made Case Histories perfect. 

At the center of the plot is Jackson Brodie, a PI and father who is hired by various people to solve their various mysteries.  But it is much more complicated than that because all the stories over lap and intertwine is both insignificant and significant ways.  But really each story is about family, and how they look like one thing from the outside but are on the inside very different, much like the mysteries being investigated.  I have seen Atkinson’s name a lot in the book press lately and I can see why people read her books.  She is a true storyteller, but I am not sure she is a great mystery writer.  The cases are all solved off screen leaving very little for the reader to play with and so I felt less invested in the outcomes.  There are also point of view and time shifts that I found a bit jarring, but overall Brodie is a character that I would like to spend more time with since he seems to be the only one with more lose ends to tie up than me.

**Let's be honest, this is a terrible post - but I swear to you I cannot get my mind to focus.  I am leaving tomorrow for a ten day trip overseas and I haven't packed, and when we come back we need to deal with possibly moving to one place, or definitely moving to another when, truth be told, all I want to do is stay still.

False Advertising

“Maybe nobody ever saw themselves completely objectively.  Every self-image needs a flattering mirror or two.” Truth.

12.13 The Devil in Silver

This book is classified as literary horror.  Wrong. I suppose it is Literary because there are words, but there is no horror involved; suspense maybe but no horror.  Instead it is a social commentary on the woes of the mental health system.  In a lot of ways it felt like I was reading a fictionalized version of someone’s college thesis. Are there too many drugs being handed out like candy? Yes. Are there doctors who hands are tied by hospital boards who only care about making money? Yes. Are these huge issues that need to be fixed? Absolutely.  Does this book show us all of this? Yes.  Does it offer any answers? No.  And so I am left wondering what the point was.

Spoilers ahead!

The only answer suggested here is to run away, not to mention the fact that the over riding assumption is that all the patients in the hospital has been put there wrongfully.  So everyone is over drugged and everyone wants out.  One character does manage to escape and while it makes for a bit of a heart-warming moment for the story, I have to wonder what she will do now? She has no money, no job skills, and no network of support.  How can anyone manage that way? At the end of the book the remaining characters prove themselves to be literal savages and yet I am supposed to think that they are the good guys?  And our main characters, I never understood him in the first place.  So many of his actions, after being brought to this hospital under such odd circumstances, made no sense.  Why didn’t he call someone?  Why didn’t he ask the doctors or nurses for help?  Why didn’t he ask any of the visitors to help him?  And why, when he spoke to his family, did he act like he was calling from home?  How could he expect anyone to help him when no one knew anything about his situation?

Again, I have no idea what the point was, and if I hadn’t been reading the book for a group I never would have finished it.

Safe Travels

“Just dreaming it is nice… Even if it doesn’t happen. Just dreaming it is nice.” Truth.

11.13 Ask The Passengers

Whenever I am in an airport I can’t help but wonder where all those people are going.  Are the going towards something or leaving something behind?  Is it the end of their journey or the beginning?  And somehow it always feels both happy and sad to me.  In Ask the Passengers, Astrid looks up to those planes and sends her love to the travelers.  She sends it to them because she feels like she doesn’t have anyone else to give it to, so instead of not giving it at all she gives her love to strangers – isn’t that wonderful?  Isn’t it powerful?  Asking teenagers to not give up on it but to give it anyway.  Thank you AS King.  In a brilliant twist, King also shows those passengers receive Astrid’s love, right when they need it, and isn’t that the truth too.  Aren’t there moments when we all just need something from someone, anything: a smile, a hello, just a bit of positive energy, something to help us through.  In the story, Astrid is discovering something about herself and as she puts it out there she is desperate for those around her to give her some love back; some raise to the occasion and some disappoint in heartbreaking ways, but the important thing is that she keeps trying.

I keep wondering why I haven’t heard more about King’s work.  This is her fourth book; I have read one other and can’t wait to get my mitts on the rest. She is really great at writing stream of consciousness in a way that rings very true.  I keep wanting to compare her to John Green as their books share a compulsively readability trait, but while many complain that Green’s characters act older than they appear (a la Dawson’s Creek) King’s characters act more true to the reality (a la Friday Night Lights) and I would imagine that fact sends some parents through the roof – these kids cuss, have sex, and think their parents are idiots.  Let’s be real, that is real. I have to think that is what has kept these books off my radar, and that is a real shame because while her characters do those things that parents hate they are also to the core good.   They support their friends, search for who they real are independent of what other people want them to be, and they don’t give up on those idiot parents even though they have every reason to.  As a parent, I hope my son will do this for me and I thank King for showing him how.