labwriter: 2011, thread 10, December

We're only dreaming of a white Christmas this year. The best we can do is to remember last year's, I guess.

Here's thread #9

Here's thread #8

Here's thread #7

Here's thread #6

Here's thread #5

Here's thread #4

Here's thread #3

Here's thread #2

Here's thread #1




Books Read in December

1. Ancestors: A Family History by William Maxwell. 3 stars

2. No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod. 3 stars

3. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Not rated.

4. The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. 4 stars

5. Sand Creek, by Kevin Cahill. 2 stars

6. Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather. 5 stars

Just got caught up on your last thread, new one starred :)

I'm currently reading Ancestors: A Family History by William Maxwell, a rather oddly structured memoir, but interesting; I'm also reading Death Comes for the Archbishop, by Willa Cather, a novel I've been wanting to get to for quite some time. This is a reread for me of the Cather, but it's probably been 15 years or so since I first read the book.

I'm also trying to get through About Town: The New Yorker And the World It Made by Ben Yagoda, but I've been seriously bogged down in that one for months. I would rather be reading Here at The New Yorker by Brendan Gill, a far more engaging read.

Hi Chelle! Do you like the Stephen King? I'm sorely tempted.

Hi Becky, I love King! I'm currently working through his latest chunker 11/22/63.

>5 ChelleBearss:. I love his stuff, too. It's one of my "secret pleasures" or something. My favorite thing of his, evah is his novella, The Body, made into the movie "Stand By Me." I love that movie and also the book, maybe because age 12 was one of my favorite years with my son. I think King writes about 12-year-old boys better than anybody. He just gets them, exactly right. It was for that same reason that I loved It, although after reading 1000+ pages or whatever it was, I thought the ending was terrible--which is one of the big knocks on King. I'll be interested to know what you think of 11/22/63.

I remember being terrified of IT, but I also read it after an unfortunate childhood sleepover where the movie was played... ew! can't do scary movies

I think my favorite King is still The Stand. I really enjoy 'end of the world' type books (The Passage by Justin Cronin is another good one) And I think King is excellent at portraying human desperation and madness while adding in his supernatural or mysterious characters that can't be explained.

His new one 11/22/63 is amazingly creative but very different than his older works. He is branching away from scary and into more mysterious writing. I'm still only about 300 pages in (of I think 800 or so) but enjoying it quite a bit

One of the reasons that It was such a favorite is because I was a kid in the 1950s, and there's so much wonderful 1950s kid-stuff in that book. I just put the current one on my wishlist. Thanks!

I'm here - Can't read King, too susceptible, but I like his writing about writing and about himself....

Hi Sib. Since you read a lot of fantasy and alternate history, you might like the new one. I might not like it for the same reasons--ha.

Still painting the sunroom. Almost finished though. Gad, it's a lot of work--very time-consuming; however, when it's done then it's done for awhile. This poor room has had zero attention--no paint, etc. for over 20 years. It looks grand.

Last night I finished Ancestors: A Family History by William Maxwell. I really wanted to like this book, but I can give it only 3 stars. Honestly, the book had the strangest organization. I can't even describe what he was doing most of the time, but he jumped around a lot. I'm sure he had a good idea of what he wanted to do (after all, he was a fiction editor at The New Yorker for 40 years), but the structure of the book just didn't work for me. Oh well.

For some reason Maxwell left off the birth and death dates of his ancestors on the family tree. Without dates, I had a heck of a time following along and figuring out who was who and putting them in the proper context of time.

I've started reading Death Comes for the Archbishop, and I can already tell this is going to be a slower read than I thought. I was hoping for 20 or so pages a day, but since I'm reading along with John Murphy's notes in the Scholarly Edition, I doubt that I'm going to be able to read it that fast. Today I managed only about 10 pages. There's a thread to a focused read of the book, here, if anyone is interested.

Tonight is DH's bd dinner with friends/family--60 years. OMG! Because although I'm not there yet, I'm right behind him. We're having lasagna, my good bread, salad, and the cake that DH always asks for, German chocolate. Good stuff. Then DH is going fishing for 3 days, so this should be a pretty good bd for him. We've celebrated our bd's together since we were both 19 years old. Where has the time gone?

Anywho, this should be a good weekend for reading, since I'm staying home with the dogs.

It sounds like a fun evening for you tonight, Becky. And how neat that you two have been together for so long. We're not quite as far along as you, but it still seems significant that there is this other person who's life is so intertwined with mine that we are nearly one person. And that we both still like each other after all this time. Congratulations to you both. And enjoy your quiet weekend with your books and dogs.

Your husband's birthday dinner sounds delicious, Becky. Have a good time celebrating and a good weekend of reading.

Happy Birthday to your hubby!
(Enjoy your reading weekend with your puppies too :)

Happy B-day to yr. fella and then have a lovely weekend reading -- who gets the leftover cake????

Sandy, Pat, Chelle, Lucy--thanks all for visiting. Sib, what leftover cake? Heh.

I'm reading a book that Lucy read not long ago: No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod. I've also been working on some genealogy, so this book goes quite well with that.

Oh very nice -- I love the way the Macleod book plumbs the mystery and persistence of genetic characteristics. One of those that gets passed on in my family (Hatch, New England) is this (I can't describe it any better than this) throaty chuckle/giggle that kind of runs up and down the scale -- imagine being at a reunion picnic with a gaggle of Hatchlings and this laugh is all around you, all these people you've never seen before in your life! Hatches like wordplay and being sarcastic and this particular branch has a vein of skepticism a mile wide and it simply persists!

Hatches like wordplay and being sarcastic and this particular branch has a vein of skepticism a mile wide and it simply persists!

Sounds like you're describing Senator Orrin Hatch. {grin} If more of our politicians were like Senator Hatch, this country would be a whole lot better off.

No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod. I just happened to note MacLeod's biog in the back of the book. It doesn't surprise me, from what I've read in this book, that his reputation rests on his collections of short stories. The writing in this book is wonderful, but I keep thinking that the structure of the book could be better. The way he's writing it, first person retrospective, it seems as though he keeps setting the reader up for the "big event" of the story, but yet it never happens.

I think I would have liked this book better if he had structured it differently, maybe something like a book I remember by Lillian Nattel, The River Midnight. What Nattel did in her book was to write the stories of a fictional village in Warsaw, and each chapter was a recursive treatment of the same stories, but each from a different point of view. Like MacLeod, Nattel is a short story writer, and this book absolutely worked--maybe that's the best way I can put it. With MacLeod's book, I find myself getting a bit tired of this one narrator--the voice of the book has a sort of monotonous sameness to it. Don't get me wrong: it's good writing and very worthwhile reading; however, I think a different treatment of this same material would have made it a better book. For example, I would love to be inside the Grandma's head at different points in this story.

For our Canadian fiction friends on the list, if you haven't read this book of Nattel's, then you simply must. It's a "first book," and it's brilliant. Published in 1999, the same year as MacLeod's book. Nattel was born and raised in Montreal and now (as of 1999) lives in Toronto.

Oh very cool. She has a website: A Novelist's Mind. And a new book, Web of Angels, although I guess it isn't out yet. And she still lives in Toronto.

I'm at 198/283 of the MacLeod.

Orrin is, in fact, a distant rellie and he has the look and the chuckle. Despite our entirely different political views, I resepct him and think he is a decent and admirable man.

Good comments, very, on the structure of the MacLeod -- I gave him the benefit of the doubt -- that he was giving the book a repetitive, musical, structure, certain phrases being used as chorus....

Becky, I apologize for having lost you for a long time.......somewhere back on the older thread which I will read. You remind me that I need to read William Maxwell, but what I have is his novel, Time Will Darken It. I'll take your comments about *Ancestors* under advisement if I like my first one. The River Midnight looks too lovely to miss too, dagnabit!
Lucy, how about Alden Hatch? I had a college classmate, Alden Elwell Hatch, who was a descendent, I suppose. I don't remember any throaty chuckling though!

Must be a rellie, Peggy. And not too distant either. How funny is that!

Maybe I can't post a picture on someone else's thread? I give up for now. Here is a link to the portrait: HATCH FAMILY All Hatches with names like Alden, Adeline, Alfredric, Theodosia, Horace...... (You have to love it!) are descended from someone pictured here. My own gfa is the child clinging to his grandma's dress over on the right. (I'm fairly sure, but it might be the one on the floor in the checked kilt/skirt).

Hi Peggy. I sort of lost myself here for awhile too. I've been working on some genealogy. Someone contacted me who has a whole box full of photos and letters from my mother's side: from my grandmother, ggrandmother, and gggrandmother. It's simply amazing when this sort of thing happens. The genealogy angels have obviously been watching over this box of stuff.

The woman sent me this photo of "Baby Margie," my mother's mother, Trinidad, Colorado, 1899. Everyone used to exclaim over Margie's beautiful hair and blue eyes. I guess you have to start somewhere--I laugh every time I look at this photo--such a hilarious pop-eyed, puff-cheeked baby. I can hardly wait to show it to my mother.

She is incredibly poised and aware for a baby that young - absolutely loving all the attention!

I finished No Great Mischief last night (3 stars) and then picked up the memoir I had started in November by Condoleezza Rice, Extraordinary, Ordinary People. Her early life is a fascinating story of growing up in 1950s Birmingham, Alabama, when it was the most segregated city in America. Her parents really were extraordinary people--both teachers. She says there weren't any philosophical debates in her community about the relative merits of mothers rearing children while working. "Almost all of the women in my community worked, most as teachers. Teaching was such a prized profession that most who could teach did."

Are any of you dystopian folks out there reading the Suzanne Collins books? The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay? Just wondering what people think of them. I was considering buying them for my nephew for Xmas. Nephew is 14.

My son (18) likes them. My husband does, too.

They are wildly popular with students here. You might want to check to make sure he hasn't read them yet. Personally, I liked the first book best. The others didn't match it. I'm in the minority with this opinion, however.

>30 mamzel:. Good point. If they're that popular, then just asking him if he's read them yet might increase my stock with him--like maybe I'm not hopelessly out of the know, if you know what I mean. He's a sweet kid, but 14 is the age, if I remember correctly, when adults become incredibly (and increasingly) stupid.

>29 sjmccreary:. My son (31) has all of them on his Kindle, so he must have liked them as well, although I keep forgetting to ask him about them. I guess I'll borrow it from him and give it a whirl.

So I'm confused. Why are these marketed as Y/A books? Or are they?

OK, so I download The Hunger Games from his Kindle to mine, which feels a whole lot like breaking into his house and sneaking a book off his shelves. I guess I should tell him I did it so he'll know where it went. I will give it a whirl, to find out what all the shouting is about.

I read all three in that series and loved them! I think they are meant for the top age range in Y/A as they do deal with death and violence. I wouldn't recommend them for sensitive kids.
I really loved them though and my copies got passed around at work as well. Very popular

I really am hopelessly clueless about teens these days. What's the age range for Y/A books?

I think about 12-13 to adult. I know tons of adults that love YA books, myself included.

Personally I think it depends on the child as well. Some kids are more sensitive than others so depending on the kid I would check the content before gifting.

So I emailed my son about the Suzanne Collins' series. My question was, "Are you finished with them?" Normally, he would answer "Yes" or "No." Occasionally he has more to say, like today.

I'm done with all 3 in the Hunger Games series. It was pretty good, but I suspect her follow up books were written more to capitalize on the success of the first one, rather from real inspiration. She is what I think of as a "concept writer"; someone who comes up with a concept interesting enough to make a good story, but is then confined to that concept. I've been reading, incidentally, quite a bit of first person writing lately. I think personally I would only use it for short stories because it can get tiresome, and I'm sure at some point midway through a novel I would feel too structurally limited by it. I still think George RR Martin has done the most creative work with perspective that I've seen recently. I think I'd describe it as 3rd person limited omniscient with 1st person bias. I like it.

Honest, I didn't ask him what he thought of first person, pov nor did I mention No Great Mischief. Heh.

P.S. This is my son who tried college 3 times and said, breaking his mother's heart, "Not for me." Go figure.

Maybe he didn't finish college, but he sounds like an educated man. I'm sure much of that credit goes to his mother.

Hi there...It is a long time since I visited your thread. 2012 will be a better, healthier year and I hope to have more time for LT. In the meantime, all good wishes to you.

My dau really liked the Scott Westerfeld books -Pretties, Uglies and so on -- I think there were about four of them.

So I started the Suzanne Collins thing, The Hunger Games. The writing seems good; the subject seems very odd to me, although since I haven't read much of this futuristic, dystopian stuff I'm not in a position to judge whether this is somewhat "out there" for this genre or if it's fairly usual.

Honestly, I don't think this kind of thing will ever be my cup of tea. I guess I know that I have a sort of "bah, humbug" attitude towards dystopian fiction, but I also have to say that I find the popularity of these books to be more than a little bit confusing.

I find it odd and wildly inconsistent that so many people who, on the one hand, vote Left because they believe more and more government involvement is a good thing their lives and because they believe that bigger government is the answer to society's ills (eg: like the government will decide what we can or can't eat or what kinds of light bulbs we can buy), yet on the other hand are drawn to dystopian books like this one that show the destructive effects of "big brother" government and that laud personal independence. I don't get it. Isn't this inconsistent?

Why aren't PC "peace-loving" parents absolutely appalled by a book about children fighting to the death? Huckleberry Finn is being banned in schools, but these books are highly praised by educators and school librarians. Parents and schools have lost their minds about the issue of bullying (eg: "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" is bad for kids because the other reindeers bully Rudolph), but this book about children killing other children so that people can be entertained is a "perfect adventure novel." The same parents and teachers who would swoon over a little boy bringing a pocket knife with him to school--he would be instantly expelled--or who get hives over kids picking up a stick and pretending it's a gun--are over the moon about these books with their "hypnotic" Brothers Grimm violence (Time magazine review).

Dunno. Someone's gonna have to explain it to me. Seriously.

The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. I've been moodling this book over this morning; I knew it reminded me of something. Have you heard of this one? A nationally televised gameshow features ordinary US citizens, who, through their own personal circumstances, volunteer to be chased by professionally trained headhunters with the goal that the citizen contestants will be executed for pure entertainment value. It is possible to for a person to win by outmaneuvering the executioners, but in reality, nobody has ever survived for more than 8 days. Set in the dystopian United States of 2025, the nation's economy is in ruins and world violence is rising.

That would be The Running Man, published 1982, Richard Bachman, aka Stephen King.

Or this one: Battle Royale, published in 1999, by Koushun Takami. The story takes place in an region of a totalitarian state known as the Republic of Greater East Asia. According to the rules, every year since 1947, 42 third-year high school students are isolated and each student is required to fight to the death until one student remains.

And of course there's The Lottery by Shirley Jackson. All writers use the work of other writers when they create their stories; I think it would have been nice if Collins had tipped her hat to these other works when she "told the story of" coming up with her idea.

Added: I'm laughing to myself here as I reread this post, because I know so much about the "real" genesis of Willa Cather's works vs. what she said about them. Writers are storytellers, after all, so it's perfectly understandable that they also tell stories vs the "truth" about where their stories come from.

I received my November Early Reviewer copy of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain.

Cain's premise is that our culture overvalues extroverts. NO DUH. But that's not the half of it, in my experience. Our extrovert culture doesn't understand introverts. All my life, and particularly in my young life, since I hadn't yet learned any sort of cultural compensation for being introverted, I heard from people how QUIET I was, how SHY I was. I knew I was quiet (frankly, I thought that most people talked too much), but I also knew I wasn't shy. But when I was young, I was still the "good girl" who never pushed back against anything that was said about me.

Anywho, I'm looking forward to reading this book.

40> In the next volumes, they rebel against the government. I figured this is where the book was headed so even though I was initally appalled at the teen-killing-teen storyline, I went ahead with the series. (Also, I work in a high school library so I need to keep up with the kiddies.) The second book was not nearly as impressive as the first and I had serious problems with the third book. The one thing I did appreciate was the strong female character (this changes by the third book, one of my problems).

40: I find it odd and wildly inconsistent that so many people who, on the one hand, vote Left because they believe more and more government involvement is a good thing their lives and because they believe that bigger government is the answer to society's ills... yet on the other hand are drawn to dystopian books like this one that show the destructive effects of "big brother" government and that laud personal independence. I don't get it. Isn't this inconsistent?

Conceivably, some of the trouble may be with your assumptions... But indeed, people tend not to be internally consistent in all respects, and may hold multiple values simultaneously that can't be easily reconciled.

>44 qebo:. Conceivably, some of the trouble may be with your assumptions...

Well, that's a drive-by assertion. Care to elaborate?

>44 qebo:. people tend not to be internally consistent in all respects

So then if people aren't in all respects internally consistent, does that mean, in your world, that consistency is a concept that can't ever be discussed? Just askin'. Lots of finger-wagging in your statement, qebo. How come? I'm just trying to have a discussion here. Why not just refute or discuss the arguments that I was discussing in post #40?

I'm baking Italian Semolina bread today from my favorite bread-baking book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, by Hertzberg and Francois. This is a new recipe for me: "Semolina is a high-protein wheat flour that gives loaves a sweetness and an almost winey aroma."

Here's my 5-star review of this book:

I'm going to bake bread this way for the rest of my life. That's my review of this book, and don't you dare flag this as "Not a Review." I bake bread from this book about 5 times a week. I have two bread dough tubs that live in my refrigerator so that I can always have dough available for two different kinds of breads. One of the author's tips is, "Don't wash the bread dough tub," because from the little bit of dough that's left in the tub you get a good sourdough starter for the next batch of bread. I love this book, and my family is so happy to have fresh-baked bread. My husband walks in the door and says, "It sure smells good in here," and I tell him, "That's the point, darling."

Hi Becky

I was one of the people that loved The Hunger Games, but I didn't read into as much as you are. I just took it as an entertaining book. I can see your points though.

I bought the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes but I think I did something wrong. Are you following the recipes exactly when it comes to baking time and temperature? The main loaf that they make they suggest cooking it at a very high temperature. I find my loaf is coming out undercooked inside and overcooked outside and VERY sour/doughy tasting.
I made the cheese bread and cooked it longer at a lower temperature and it worked much better though

I follow the temps they give for the recipes, even though I know my oven runs a little bit hot. I was routinely undercooking the bread (even though it tasted fine, it had a sort of gummy texture) when I was judging the time in the oven by how browned the bread looked. Having used these recipes for about 2 months now, I've found out that I can bake the bread longer (yes, I agree, to my eye it looks overcooked) and it actually comes out better.

As far as a strong sourdough taste, I don't know what to say. What kind of yeast are you using? In my house, the sourdough taste is considered a good thing. I use that old standby yeast, Fleischmann's. This is from a jar and says "RapidRise, Highly Active Yeast." I make sure that it's at room temperature before I throw it into the water. I also use Gold Medal Flour, the kind that says, "Better for Bread."

What I've found from my two months or so of baking from this bread book is that bread dough is very forgiving. I've made many mistakes (like forgetting to put the water in the pan, not cooking it long enough--oh jeeze, lots of little dumb things); however, I've yet had a batch of bread that wasn't scarfed up by my family. In fact, I quit saying, "I think I screwed up this batch," because my DH would always just say, "You're nuts."

I would say to you, don't get discouraged with this technique. I've been baking bread 4 or 5 times a week for a couple of months now. I remember at the beginning that I didn't seem to be getting the hang of it real well. But keep reading the recipes each time you make the bread, because you may pick up on a little detail here that you're leaving out that makes a difference--that's what I found. Practice, practice. You can give samples to friends and they'll love you for it--ha.

>47 ChelleBearss:. but I didn't read into as much as you are.

Ha. That's my curse. I have a photo of little Becky when I was about 2 years old. I'm sitting on my dad's lap, looking at the other kids who are all having a blast in the wading pool. It's so clear that I'm overthinking the whole thing, sitting out while the other kids are jumping in and having fun. That's me--always has been.

I'll have to practice more then! The cheese bread got scarfed up by everyone really quickly, but the other bread was too soury and no one ate it.

I'm using fleischmann's active dry yeast. Maybe I'll try to find the one that you are using. And I'll switch flour too, I was using just regular unbleached flour

Thanks for the tips!

45:

Well, that's a drive-by assertion.
I was taking a coffee break, and I'm not a speedy writer. So, on the internet with scattered time, I may jot a sentence or two and see whether there's interest in taking it further, rather than compose long paragraphs that nobody will care to read.

Care to elaborate?
Sure. Maybe I leapt to an assumption of my own that you were characterizing the Left in monolithic entirety, much as I get a touch defensive when someone says "Women are/do...", and I react: But not me! And also some men! There may be a set of people such as you describe. In a world of 7 billion, all sorts of things exist. Without a clear sense of who you were referring to, I responded to the "so many", and the mere act of voting. If behavior is misinterpreted, then inconsistency may seem more glaring than it actually is. That's all, nothing profound. I know nearly zip about dystopian literature or who it attracts for what reasons.

does that mean, in your world, that consistency is a concept that can't ever be discussed?
Oh, absolutely, consistency can be discussed. Where you said "I don't get it", I said meh, foibles of human nature (also we generally prefer to think that it's Other People who are taking us toward dystopia). Get it, don't always like it. :-)

>51 qebo:. OK, so maybe you know a lot of people who vote Democrat and who want less government involvement in their lives, fewer social programs, lower taxes, etc. Frankly, I do not. I live in a very liberal town where almost every political sign that goes up in a front yard is for the Democrat candidate. I belong to a church where most people are socially liberal and vote Democrat. The parents of young kids around here demand political correctness from their children's schools. How do I know? I read the letters to the editor of the (very liberal) small town paper--which "monolithically" backs every Democrat candidate and liberal social issue. So I was speaking from my own experience of the people I know and live around.

--Which has pretty much nothing to do with my comments/questions about the book in #40. I think I asked a reasonable question, but I didn't get an answer from anyone who could or would explain their take on what I see as a genuine inconsistency. I wasn't making a statement in the guise of a question. I am genuinely perplexed.

#52 Dunno - people are stupid? That's my standard explanation for unexplainables. I haven't read the books, so can't make any judgement of their content. My community isn't quite as Democratic as yours, but I know the profile you are describing. My son was caught with a pocket knife at school once. Not expelled, but suspended for a week. The knife was found by another student who was searching backpacks during sports practice - looking for money to steal. I don't think he was as severely punished as mine was. Zero tolerance is ridiculous, but you'll never convince the masses that it's OK to handle each situation on a case by case basis.

I think Becky, the best answer is that it is fiction. Writers, especially those drawn to the dystopic, imagine situations and then work from there to see what happens. It may 'seem' political, but it is most likely in this case no more than a premise to write a story from. I think she (the author, name gone from my head) is way more focussed on the kinds of ethical/moral/social issues of loyalty, independence, friendship, responsibility, and where you draw the line between saving yourself and others, ...... issues that obsess many adolescents. At least the one living under my roof. Thus the political situation is a pretext or platform for the story. Some dystopic works geared toward an adult audience are more clearly a commentary - but even then -- the writer is trying to follow as best they can a line of logic. If we go this way then this could happen..... Again, it may not reflect their own politics -- writers are shameless when searching for a story. One reason I like dystopic stuff is just seeing how various writers work out an idea. That is also why I like science fiction. It's a kind of serious playing around? Does that make any sense to you?

Hi Sib. Well, that might help to explain the inconsistencies I find in the politics, but it doesn't help much with helping me to understand the laudatory reviews of the book overall--the storyline of which is children killing children. I'm about 50% through with this thing, and maybe I get it why the Y/A age group likes this book, but I sure don't understand the positive reviews it gets from school librarians and educators. Not when these same people ban dodge ball at recess because the game is too violent. No, THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.

Our children, particularly our boys, are being "wussified" by the schools and by this culture. They're going to grow up afraid to say "Boo" (but not to worry: our girls, SUPERWOMEN that they are, will save the day). Bleh. That's another issue I have with this book. The female protagonist essentially babysits her male counterpart during the killing games, or whatever they are. Turn on any sitcom and you'll see the same thing--castrated males and "powerful" females who have it all figured out and who save the day. I'm sick of it. The other day on facebook a young mother posted a photo of her son in a pink tutu. She thought it was simply wonderful that her son was expressing his sensitive side. This kind of thing is making me crazy. Let kids be who they are, but it isn't necessary to dress a boy up like a little princess. Cripes.

My son had something of a similar experience to Sandy's son and the pocket knife (#54). He was about 10 years old. Some kid was giving him jazz in class and just wouldn't stop. The teacher did nothing. My son threw a pencil at him. The (male) teacher practically had a seizure, making the child lie down on the couch, checking him over for puncture wounds, sending him to the nurse, wailing about how "an eye could have been put out in this situation." My son was sent to the principal's office where he sat the entire day, without lunch. The big issue seemed to be that the pencil had been sharpened on both ends, so it was deemed to be a "weapon." For the love of God. You don't forget things like that when they happen to your kid.

Lucy, have you read this book? The title is The Hunger Games; the author is Suzanne Collins.

Becky, I think you've expressed these complaints before, and I agree with them as much now as I did then. I'm trying to recall the exact details, but another of my sons was pulled out of class in about 3rd or 4th grade, and I even had to go over there and meet with the principal. His offense? Calling another student a "name". I think it was "punk" or something. Now, my nephew - much older than my kids - lived with us for several months and when he'd call one of the kids "punk", that was a sign that he wanted to play. The younger kids loved it. So, my son missed an entire afternoon - including the Oct 31 fall party put on by the room mothers - because he refused to admit that he'd done anything wrong. This alleged offense was not witnessed by a single adult. The principal even admitted to me that it was not such a bad thing for a kid to say, which just made it worse. What happened to "sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me"? That's what we were being taught at that age. The other kid would still have been taken aside and scolded for using inappropriate language. It has been my experience that, when kids have a dispute of any kind, there are no innocent parties. Someone always starts it and someone always ends it. I always punished them both.

55: I sure don't understand the positive reviews it gets from school librarians and educators. Not when these same people ban dodge ball at recess because the game is too violent. No, THIS MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.
Ah, a specific example, and yes, these things don't on the face of it seem to fit well together, so I would be curious if an individual who holds these ideas simultaneously were asked to explain. Difference between crowd control and individual imagination? I wonder where video games would fit into the scheme.

Oh yes, I've read all three (or maybe two out of the three..... can't quite remember now..... I think I lost interest while waiting for the last one to come out?). Re violence, perhaps we have only ourselves to blame? But I've noted that the now several generations younger than us are very adept with distinguishing 'real' violence from the violence that is part of a story. They've all played very vicious video games, watched all kinds of stuff at the movies and at home on TV.... in a word.... I would say it is a way to make the stakes higher. Only death or the fear of it or escaping it gives the other stuff (friendship, independence etc.) the emotional weight they are looking for. A group can focus on the issues that are raised, that is what the teachers like -- the kids really really like to talk about these books and that is exciting to the teachers, since the kids can be hard to connect with.

The second I can only say that I think the method might be awkward and silly, but what underlies it isn't, as it has to do with respecting others. My own dau. has always been in the 'middle' group, even at nursery school she played in a boy-girl group that was into make believe and playing with little animal toys. There were two other groups in her tiny 11 person class, a few boys who already only gathered and talked cars and rough and tumble and some girls who would talk about shoes and their hair and outfits and I am not kidding! At the age of 3! Now my dau. who is really talented at martial arts (and also fencing, although she's let that go) is in a class of mostly boys, and as one of the two or three best in the class she spars with them and has to work hard to get the respect she deserves -- over the years she's had boys say unbelievably crude things to her or just 'Why don't you quit, since you're nothing but a girl.' She doesn't want to be one of them, she only wants to be respected. I think all that the tutu mothers are trying to do is, admittedly awkwardly, is move along this process of not judging people by their gender, not automatically putting them in one box or another, you can't do this cos you're a boy/girl etc. There are better ways, but I think that is what is behind the impulse. I like best the books that have strong brave characters in both genders, but I think women writers are still struggling to find the right ways to represent strong women without making them just boys in drag and without emasculating the boys -- but once you've assigned gender to the 'hero' of a story, it's difficult not to fall into certain patterns, no argument from me -- but the struggle to find a way to is a process that I find fascinating. Think of the Boxcar children -- all they did was role play a family in traditional roles (much as I loved them)..... how do you get past that without a lot of experimentation, probably much of it not the answer? Just my thoughts.

>56 sjmccreary:. I always punished them both. Love it.

>58 sibylline:. I'm thinking you might respond to some of those books differently if your only was a boy instead of a girl. Maybe I'm wrong; however, as the mother of a son, I'm not happy with what the culture is communicating to our boys/young men.

I think there's something really disturbing about faux violence--kids reading about violence but not being allowed to play dodge ball on the playground. There's something wrong with that picture.

I'm 57% of the way into The Hunger Games.

>58 sibylline:. once you've assigned gender to the 'hero' of a story, it's difficult not to fall into certain patterns

I think writers can easily get around that problem by creating multiple pov characters. I've read only the first one of George R.R. Martin's books, Game of Thrones, but one of these days I'll read them all; the way he handles his multiple pov characters is nothing short of brilliant. Who couldn't love Arya Stark, the younger daughter. But I'm very glad we don't have to see the entire world of the novel through her eyes. And I love the interplay between the sisters, Sansa and Arya.

Collins' choice to give readers one point-of-view character (for those who haven't read this thing, it's written from the first-person-pov, inside the head of the female protagonist) when she's writing the story about a "game" that will have only one winner out of 24 seems like an odd choice to me. I guess she wasn't interested in creating any sort of suspense about the outcome.

A quibble about the book. Some writers are inspired in the way they create names for their characters, but that skill isn't one of Collins' strong suites. Katniss Everdeen? Bleh.

55, 58: The "tutu mothers"... nicely succinct. And what's the story behind the FB photo? My nephew at age five was entranced by a Barbie doll dressed as Dorothy with glittery red shoes, so his parents got one for him. My sister-in-law said she'd never imagined that she'd be relaxing her aversion to Barbie dolls for her son. (Who also went through phases of construction machinery and dinosaurs and baseball.) A decade ago, so no FB. Maybe the caption is tinged with humor, or maybe it's an ideological Statement. I am thankful that there was no internet when I was a kid; what once were fleeting silly moments are now recorded for all eternity.

58: over the years she's had boys say unbelievably crude things to her or just 'Why don't you quit, since you're nothing but a girl.'
Infuriating. You would kinda hope we'd moved beyond this sort of thing by now.

59: as the mother of a son, I'm not happy with what the culture is communicating to our boys/young men.
What does your son think?

60: I think there's something really disturbing about faux violence--kids reading about violence but not being allowed to play dodge ball on the playground. There's something wrong with that picture.
Makes me queasy too. I grew up with "go outside and play" and a loose association of neighborhood kids who played kickball or softball in the alley without supervision. Not sure what dodgeball bans are about -- physical safety? bullying? Legitimate concerns, but institutions sometimes take the cheap way out. To what extent does fantasy violence desensitize, or evoke fear, or highlight social/psychological issues? I'd guess all of these things, depending on the kid and the communication that occurs. I don't care for ratcheting up of the drama factor, or the special effects, worry that real life may pale in comparison. But I can feel old fogeyness creeping in...

>61 qebo:. Yeah, I can feel the old fogeyness thing creeping in, too. I haven't yet yelled at the neighbor kids, "Hey you kids, get off my lawn," but I've actually come close (and then I caught myself and laughed, remembering the old lady who lived next door to us when we were little kids in the 1950s. The more she complained, the more attractive "misbehavior" towards her property became. Oh dear.).

I'll tell you another thing that really bothers me about this book, The Hunger Games: the issue of privacy, or lack of it. Every time this character, Katniss Everdeen, acts in a particular way because she knows the cameras are watching, I get creeped out. I guess it's because these little scenes are always insincere--not true to character. Does the invasion of privacy depicted in this book bother anyone? I think young kids growing up today are becoming desensitized to a lack of privacy, thanks to social networking programs like facebook. It's creepy the way George Orwell's 1984 was creepy, but they don't seem to respond to it that way. Orwell seems more prescient every day.

>61 qebo:. the mother of a son, I'm not happy with what the culture is communicating to our boys/young men. What does your son think?

That's a really good question. As it happens, a couple of weeks ago he and his father were out on the front porch smoking cigars together, and they had a discussion about just that very thing that DH told me about later. It went something like this:

Son talked about being in high school (he graduated in 1998): It was a really hard time to grow up and sort things out because of all the ambiguous messages. Like you know in your heart, in your blood, that you're aggrressive, you want to impose your will. Women send the message, "I want a hero," but the other side of it is that men have to be touchy-feely, not aggressive, and her "best friend." The ambiguity drives you nuts, because you find out that women are still attracted to "real men"--assertive, aggressive, take what they want, or at least say what they want, but the deck is stacked against guys because when they proposition a woman, you might feel like instead of just getting a simple "No," you're just as likely to have them throw down the sexual harrassment card. A guy is expected to pursue a woman, but then when they do they run the risk of being called a creep or a neanderthal. There used to be understandable rules of behavior, but those seem to be gone now. And women hold all the cards.

Dear Son is 31 years old and single. He doesn't really want to be single; he'd love to have a wife & kids, but so far that hasn't happened. I pray for him, and I have faith that someday he will find a wonderful woman to share his life with.

>62 labwriter:. The privacy thing--additionally, that's an area where Collins could step in with an authorial voice and discuss this issue. The fact that she doesn't is one reason why I find this book to be "thin" and disappointing. Admittedly I have read almost no current "Y/A" fiction, but I have to wonder if writers aren't sometimes using this designation as an excuse to dumb down the contents of their books. I'm sure I'll be flamed here for painting with too broad a brush, but this is one of my big disappointments with this widely popular and highly praised novel.

I really feel for your son -- it's never been easy and maybe never will be, communication between men and women. Hopefully that special person is going to cross paths with him soon.

As for Collins, I don't want to seem to defend her work, I don't think a great deal of it ultimately. It's lively enough but I agree the books are thin, that is exactly the right word. The Westerfeld's are way more interesting if you can stand more of this category, which I can only take in small doses and only take at all when my daughter says, "You HAVE to read this." Compared to the Stephanie Meyers oeuvre you are reading the YA equivalent of War and Peace.

I'm writing this as I sit today in our local library volunteering for the afternoon!

Compared to the Stephanie Meyers oeuvre you are reading the YA equivalent of War and Peace.

Hilarious.

62:
Many years ago I read, in a book about business management maybe, that in a dysfunctional organization, everybody thinks that somebody else holds the power.

Your description of the conversation between your son and husband triggers memory of a book I read several years ago, Self-Made Man by Norah Vincent. A woman disguises herself as a man, and discovers that being a man isn't easy, is a constant negotiation between contradictory expectations. It gets mixed reviews on LT, but this review includes a quote that is an echo of your son's comments.

>66 qebo:. Yeah, I would characterize the communication between genders as being dysfunctional. I don't know if things are getting better or worse, but if the TV sitcoms and current commercials are any indication (many current commercials seem big on having the woman showing the bumbling, rather cheerfully retarded man how to do something--or now that it's Christmas, she is shown buying him a car), I would say that things are pretty bad out there.

It isn't just males and females, though, who have problems communicating and are in dysfunctional relationships. I have a good friend who is a lesbian. I'll call her Mary. Mary and I have great times together until her partner Sue shows up. When Sue is around, Mary's personality completely changes. Mostly she becomes whiney and passive. Whereas when we're together we always have a screaming good time and Mary is smart and confident (for example, she taught me, who had never been on a subway in my life, to use the New York subway system), when Sue is around Mary always defers to her, seeming to lose about 50 IQ points. I have other women friends who act the same way--become someone completely different around their husbands. For some reason (which I realize doesn't make much sense) before I met Mary and Sue I expected lesbians to act differently.

>55 labwriter:, 62. Apropos to my rant about emasculated males/ "empowered" females in the culture today. This is probably a boring discussion for most people. Whatever. This comes from my current read, a Y/A book I picked up so that I could find out why it's so highly praised. I'm finding myself very depressed as I read this book, and I will be so happy when I've finished. I'm 83% of the way through The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Here's today's depressing quote from the book. Our first-person point of view character is a 16 year-old girl. The "Peeta" who is referred to is her male peer.

Ideally, I'd dump Peeta now with some simple root-gathering chore and go hunt, but then he'd be left with only a knife to defend himself agains Cato's spears and superior strength. So what I'd really like is to try and conceal him somewhere safe, then go hunt, and come back and collect him. But I have a feeling his ego isn't going to go for that suggestion."

67: I wouldn't say dysfunctional necessarily, but in transition, so the rules aren't clear, and different people have different expectations (which they aren't always aware of), and communication takes effort and empathy. Can't possibly think through every interaction, we'd all be paralyzed, so rely on convention and automatic assessment, prone to misinterpretation and error. Not pleasant to be on the receiving end of someone's negative assumptions.

Yeah, one might suppose it'd be a male-female gender role thing, but seems that people can lock each other and themselves into roles in any relationship. Maybe useful to see; if it happens in same sex relationships, then the blame lies with... people.

68: The "ego" thing? The whole thing? Cliche in a way, and useful to point out. (I haven't read the book so can't really comment.) And then there's this: http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/12/is-real-science-for-men.html, which drives me a tad nuts. So, we've got a way to go before everyone is viewed as a person.

Finished last night, The Hunger Games. Glad to be done. I think I've said enough about it here already, I don't need to add much. I don't intend to rate this one because I don't read Y/A fiction as a general rule, so I haven't read enough to give this one a fair rating. I feel zero interest in ever reading books 2 and 3 of the series.

I would just say this: if this is a pretty good offering as far as Y/A fiction goes, then there's plenty of room for writers of this category who want to step it up.

Note to self: No more books with single 1st person pov characters for awhile!

I guess I'm at 68 books for the year. There's no chance I'll be making 75, but that's fine. It's a completely arbitrary number anyway. I do expect to finish Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop before the end of December. I'm thinking my goal for 2012 will be more like 50 books than 75 for the year--aiming for less rather than more.

OK, so fill in here with your favorite 4-letter words. If you don't have any, well, I'm sorry. Anywho, I was going to read Stephen King's latest, to cheer myself up after reading the Suzanne Collins. {{Horrors!}} The entire freaking thing is written in . . . wait for it . . . FIRST PERSON. Oh snap!

OK, I'm sort of over my snit, and maybe now I can think this through a little bit. I know you reading snobs out there won't/don't believe that King is a good writer. Too bad for you. But what I'm thinking is this: here is an opportunity to read a first-person narrative account in the hands of someone who can actually write. Maybe that's not a bad thing. The book, if you're wondering (and if you're wondering, you obviously don't read King) is 11/22/63. Naturally, being from King, the book is a door stop, so those of you who are reading 105-page novellettes so that you reach your 75 goal by the end of the year--this isn't for you, at least not until after January 1. Ah, so many reasons not to read this man. Haha.

Christmas.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is reading Truman Capote's A Christmas Memory out loud--to whomever will listen. I love reading aloud; it was one of the joys of my life when my son was little--and even not so little. Can anyone say GRANDCHILDREN? I do so hope and pray. He's 31, after all. I have a friend who turned 60 in June who is expecting her 19th grandchild in May. Where's the fairness? I know, I can volunteer at the local school. I will, I promise.

Another Christmas thing I do, maybe a bit "out there," is to read out loud (to myself, usually, down in the basement) Tennyson's loooong poem, In Memoriam.

What do other people like to read for Christmas?

I'm very excited about the new King -- it sounds like one I might be able to read without being terrified. I've never had any problem with King's writing, it's the stories, he seems to plunge deep into some place that I cannot go without consequences.

Hmmmm is this a reference to my thin book December program.....? I've put away my quota of massive tomes this year, I assure you!

About as far as we go is me playing xmas carols on the piano while the others put up the decorations on xmas eve.

However, I do read aloud (to no one but myself) A LOT.

>71 labwriter:, 73. Hmmmm is this a reference to my thin book December program.....? I've put away my quota of massive tomes this year, I assure you!

I guess this is me, getting myself into trouble even if I stay on my own thread. No social skills, have I. Zero. I will soon be off to bed to read Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, my ER book for November. Maybe it's me that needs to stop talking. Not that I'm blaming my zero social skills on introversion. Although maybe I should. Dunno. Maybe Cain will help me figure that out--although for me it's pretty late in the day to be making any sort of radical change.

Uh, no, do you have a thin books for December program? The comment was just me trying to figure out what makes sense for my reading goals for 2012. This is a good time of year to assess/reassess what I've done and what I want to do for the next 12 months. A couple of years ago, one of my goals was to "read more." I think in 2012, one of my goals is going to be to "read less." Now I just need to figure out what that looks like. Numbers don't mean much to me. I guess if I had to push myself to read, then having a particular numerical goal would mean something if I achieved it. What I need to do is to push myself to do other things, so I'm thinking a "goal" of less makes more sense for me than a goal that involoves more. So next year everyone can congratulate me if I read less. You do have to admit that if you read many threads around here, there are a massive number of congratulatory posts about numbers. I would say that plowing through those gets a little tiresome, but then that would just get me into trouble again.

Maybe I'll change the subject. I have a great decision to make about my next book: the King thing or The Help. Maybe I'll have to flip a coin.

My social skills have only been won slowly at great cost -- being essentially introverted, intense and a bit impulsive (gee, a lot of i words there..... oh and easily distractible, did I mention that one?) it's been an uphill battle. No worries from here, though, I thought maybe you were teasing me is all. I am planning to give the King to the spousal unit so then I can read it later, but I already have The Help and even though it is a fat book indeed I have a feeling it isn't a slow or demanding read and I'd be willing to give that a go if you'd like company.... don't know how far I'll get, but this is a time of year weirdly chopped up so that once I give up on my other occupations (writing, music) I often have a fair amount of reading time in between wrapping presents and brewing and swilling eggnog or whatever.

Becky, hope you have fun with whichever you choose. I'm like Lucy, I get scared thinking about reading King. If you do read The Help I'll be interested in your thoughts - I've heard some interesting discussions around race and class provoked by people's reactions to it. It is an easy read.

>75 sibylline:. See, I don't see the point of "battling" to obtain social skills when I will be forever woefully inept no matter how hard I try--and you of anyone here have observed over the past couple of years how often I stick my foot in my mouth. What you haven't observed is all the times I've walked away from the computer, deciding not to write something, trying to "get along" with people here (and Sib, I'm not referring specifically to you--I mean all the nice people here at 75). Plus, that battle takes up emotional energy that I'd rather use on things I'm good at. Does the world really need another person pretending to be an extrovert?

Right now I'm flipping through pages of Susan Cain's book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. I have no idea whether or not it's any good. But I just found this, and I just laughed, because obviously that's what I'm guilty of so often here at LT: "there's a limit to how much we can control our self-presentation. This is partly because of a phenomenon called behavioral leakage, in which our true selves seep out via unconscious body language." I'll write something here at LT that seems OK to me, maybe a little edgy--but that's who I am. Then I come back later and see that I've been flamed by 6 different bomb throwers and I and think, "Well, maybe that wasn't the most diplomatic thing to say." Sigh. This is why lately 99% of my posts are written on my own thread. I got tired of people piling on when I would write something on someone else's thread. She writes about introverts who are especially good at acting like extroverts. Well, that's not me. Sometimes I can do that, if there seems to be good reason for it, but it costs me, just as much as it would cost an extrovert to be locked up in a basement.

>77 labwriter:. Does the world really need another person pretending to be an extrovert?

Oh, and there I go again. I wasn't referring to you and your hard-won social skills, Sib. Kudos to you for giving a damn. I was referring to me as "another person pretending." My social skills will never be anything but somewhere in the lame-to-clueless category, at best, so when I look at it from the benefit vs. effort point of view, it just simply isn't worth it. That's one reason why I enjoy church, frankly. I once told the rector at my church, "You know, Bob, this is church. If you can't be who you are in this place, then what's the point?" And I'm not saying there's no room for or point in improving. I am saying that I really, really am sick and tired of pretending to go along with the rest of the extroverted world.

Weirdly, because I'm introverted and nervous in social situations I used to simply babble and expend huge amounts of energy trying to appear to fit in and say things I wish I hadn't later..... Now I don't do that as much, I turn down most social events and when I do go to something I remind myself over and over that I don't have to say anything at all if I don't want to, people love to talk and all I have to do is ask them questions and they'll do all the work. I only used to be a terrible listener not because I didn't care, but because I was so nervous that I couldn't shut up! So I like to think I've become more of what I am, better at being what I actually am! I can't help snorting at the description 'behavioral leakage' -- not the meaning, just the choice of words, very funny! My goal with every social event I can't avoid is to maintain a little distance and quiet inside. For the most part it works! I am intrigued by this book though, so onto the list it goes.

I can deal if there's a structure or protocol or task, but get anxious in amorphous socializing. I recall when I was a kid and my mother hosted a holiday gathering, she would list conversation topics, e.g. ask Jane about her job, ask Joe about his trip. I'm not so extreme, but I do something similar mentally, turn the amorphousness into a sequence of steps. I've been told that with a slight alcoholic buzz I appear almost normal, but I can't sustain this for long, and I pay for it in exhaustion. I've become over the years less apologetic about opting out of "fun" events that I won't enjoy, and more inclined to seek situations that are inherently interesting and may have a side effect of social interaction.

so those of you who are reading 105-page novellettes so that you reach your 75 goal by the end of the year--this isn't for you
Heh. Me. Though more like 200-250 pages, and I'm aiming for books that I might not otherwise read and that will stretch me a bit into the unfamiliar. Quickly.

Becky, I think one of the reasons I love your thread so much is because you say out loud - well, I mean post online - the exact same things I feel inside and don't have the nerve to share. I have put my foot in my mouth more times than I can count. Probably more times than I even know, since I am often so clueless that I don't even realize that I have said something wrong. I love your edgy comments.

One thing I love about socializing with certain other couples, is that it seems that most successfully married couples (at least the ones we know) have one outgoing person and one "quiet" person. I remember going on a cruise together with another couple - she and my husband are business colleagues and friends. Those two would sit and chatter about heaven only knows what for hours, while her husband and I just sat back in our chairs and let all their words just wash over us. We'd sip our drinks, listen to the music in the bar, watch the people around us, and occasionally smile and nod at the two of them. It was so lovely not to have a single social demand.

Can't wait to find out what you think of this book.

Oh, I vote for The Help - having recently finished it and loved it, now I think everyone else needs to read it, too.

Last night I started The Help. I absolutely love books like this one: great characters, an interesting story, and a writer who seems in control of her materials. The books is structured with three point-of-view characters. The author, Kathryn Stockett, switches from character to character quite simply: a new pov character is indicated with her name at the top of a new section--the same thing done by George R.R. Martin in his books. I'm not very far into it yet, but I'm so happy to be reading this one.

I also started Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, my ER book for November. I've always hated it when people have called me shy--as in some knowing adult who would say to me when I was a kid, "Oh come on now, don't be shy." Of course no one ever told me how I was supposed to accomplish "not being shy."

Susan Cain is the first person who has explained shyness in a way that makes sense to me. I've always pushed back and said that I wasn't shy, but maybe I am: "Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is the direction of attention inward. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not" (12). If this is true, then I would say I'm a shy introvert; my DH, on the other hand, is an introvert without an ounce of shyness.

I can remember when I was a kid feeling humiliated if I was caught by an adult in the act of pretending. Other kids would happily play, pretending to be superman or "the mother" or playing pretend games with their dolls. I would do that too, but if any adult came on the scene, I would instantly stop, embarrassed to be caught in the act. I think I had a hair trigger for picking up on condescension from adults. I just couldn't seem to lose myself in those sort of group games the way other kids could. Maybe that's why I was so attracted to reading when I was young, an activity that went on totally inside my head. I could stare at my book with a blank face and no one could know what sort of fantasies I was playing out inside my mind.

On the other hand, activities that one would think a shy person would shun have never bothered me. Teaching is all about performing, and I loved it. I also have no trouble giving a speech or reading an academic paper in front of a crowd. What does bother me as an adult is putting on a party or an event. I have the hardest time with that. What if nobody shows up? Oh Lord. I've worried in advance about my son's wedding for the past 5 years (which so far has never happened). What if I screw it up? So yeah, I guess I am shy.

A thought, something I would plead with people not to do to children: Please don't ever tell a child "not to be" shy. Also, don't automatically assume that a child who is quiet is therefore shy. Any child who tends towards being quiet is probably also a child who is sensitive and/or introspective. I didn't need to be told I was shy (which I always heard as a negative and judgemental); what I needed from an adult would have been some cheerful words about how introverts experience the world. That would have saved me half a lifetime of grief.

All of this is very interesting. I don't really have anything to add, but I thought that it had been so long since I dropped out of lurk that I should say so. "Hi, Becky."

Brave post about yr. shyness, B. I am not shy, I don't think. In fact, it is all very confusing, really, figuring out what one is or isn't!

I'm loving The Help, which I guess is no surprise.

This comes from Miss Skeeter rather early on in the book. She's younger at this point in the book than we saw her in the movie, maybe about 13 or 14.

Mother ate her breakfast early in the dining room, then moved to the relaxing room to do needlepoint or write letters to missionaries in Africa. From her green wing chair, she could see everyone going almost anywhere in the house. It was shocking what she could process about my appearance in the split second it took for me to pass by that door. I used to dash by, feeling like a dartboard, a big red bull's-eye that Mother pinged darts at.

"Eugenia, you know there is no chewing gum in this house."
"Eugenia, go put alcohol on that blemish."
"Eugenia, march upstairs and brush your hair down, what if we have an unexpected visitor?"

I learned that socks are stealthier transportation than shoes. I learned to use the back door. I learned to wear hats, cover my face with my hands when I passed by. But mostly, I learned to just stay in the kitchen {where "the help," Constantine, would greet her with, "Good morning, beautiful girl!"}.

So glad you're enjoying The Help! I'm looking forward to a chance to see the movie now, and can see this as a book to be re-read in the future.

I've been pondering that definition of shyness every since you posted it the other day. Like you, I was less likely to lose myself in fantasy or pretend in the presence of others - even other children - than most kids were. But maybe not the extent you describe. What I remember was staying glued to my mother's side when we went anyplace that I was unfamiliar with, even when there were other children present. I'm sure she hated it and just wanted to relax and visit with her friends without a kid hanging from her skirts, but I couldn't bear to leave the security of her. I especially hated the petting and adoration that adults always greet children with "what beautiful hair she has" or "look how big you've gotten" - I just wanted to be invisible. Even now, I have to be careful not to cling to my husband at parties the same way I used to do with my mom, but would really prefer just to stay by his side and let him do all the socializing for both of us.

I think the reason you are able to teach or lecture is that those really aren't social situations. You are the authority in those situations and you know it and your audience knows it. If you were less certain of you expertise, you might have felt differently.

I'm off to check the library catalog to see if they've ordered that book.

>86 sjmccreary:. Great insight! Yes, it's probably the socializing that does me in. Like you, I used to hang around my mother when I was little. When she would be out in the yard talking to a neighbor, I would be standing right beside her. I think she thought I was a strange child because I wouldn't run off and play. I remember when I was really little having an almost constant stomachache whenever I was away from my home. I have a photo of me at the age of 5, along with my brothers and a group of about 20 young cousins. I don't remember the occasion, but I can read the look on my face like it was yesterday: When can we go home?

#79 -- Lucy, i suspect we were twins separated at birth...

OK, I'm going to take a stab at that dystopian question from waaay back: "I find it odd and wildly inconsistent that so many people who, on the one hand, vote Left because they believe more and more government involvement is a good thing their lives and because they believe that bigger government is the answer to society's ills (eg: like the government will decide what we can or can't eat or what kinds of light bulbs we can buy), yet on the other hand are drawn to dystopian books like this one that show the destructive effects of "big brother" government and that laud personal independence. I don't get it. Isn't this inconsistent?"

One of the common elements in these books is that the dystopian systems aren't just "more government", they are totalitarian government. Studying political science back in college, when I was reading a lot about the 1930s and the evolution of Stalinism/Fascism, what became very apparent is that any political system, regardless of its starting point or philosophy, could end up in a totalitarian state, or one with totalitarian powers exercised selectively. So I don't really view the societies such as those portrayed by Collins and others as being a product of either extreme, but more of a post-crisis absolutist/totalitarian regime, the kind that people take comfort it because it provides bread and circuses, offers easy answers to tough questions, etc. These could evolve from either Left or Right, but aren't specific to either. (In Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the totalitarian regime may have left-like all-encompassing powers, but it has right-like social policies, taken to the extremes that dystopian lit requires.) In Fahrenheit 451, the nature of the system is left unexplored -- it is the technology that enables it. And that is what makes me worry today -- it's not just a matter of more or less government, it's the fact that government of any kind now has the ability to track whatever we do via technology, and for any government, using that power is going to be too much of a temptation to relinquish. The only question is what they would be trying to track -- that would probably vary depending on political agendas.

Muddled, a bit, but hopefully clear enuf. Still emerging from weeks of health problems, so brain still a bit fuzzy!

The Help is a thumping good read. The movie is good, too, if not quite as good; it doesn't quite capture all the subtleties.

I'm really looking forward to seeing the new movie version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy...

No real opinions on wussification of kids, although I am not comfortable with the fact that my brother doesn't like the fact that his younger son has fun cooking... What I do find very, very disturbing are all these violent video games, including war games. The idea of violence without consequences?? That you can "die" and live to play again? We shouldn't make something as serious as war into a game, IMO. Have you read Karl Marlantes's book, What it is like to go to war? If not, highly recommended. He is an ex-Marine, who has, I think, some very wise and thoughtful contributions to make to the dialogue. I had hopes of Chris Hedges based on his first book, War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, which was also thoughtful, but he has relapsed into a left-wing polemicist whose pre-conceptions are so transparent it makes his books unreadable to me.

Hi Suzanne. Thoughtful post.

I'm making my way, slowly, through this ER book that I'm reading about introverts, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain. I don't normally read self-help books, but I thought this one would be interesting.

In the first part she's making the case that sometime at mid-20th century the culture made a commitment to the cult of personality, which in turn made people value extroversion over introversion. The schools picked this up in the 1950s: a "quiet" child was unacceptable, and children were sent to school at increasingly young ages with the main assignment of learning to socialize, with introverted children being singled out as "problem cases." Parents believed they were preparing their children for the "real world," and it all seems to have become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In the chapter titled "The Myth of Charismatic Leadership," Cain paints what to me is a rather horrifying picture of the Harvard Business School. A lunchroom where "everyone eats" which one grad describes as "more like high school than high school." Other "social pressures" like late afternoon happy hour, group meets "several nights a week" etc.: "'Socializing here is an extreme sport. People go out all the time. . . . I go out at night like it's my job.'"

Of course HBS's graduates are very employable and fit in easily into the extroverted business community.

Even businesses that employ many artists, designers, and other imaginative types often display a preference for extroversion. 'We want to attract creative people,' the director of human resources at a major media company once told me. When I asked what she meant by 'creative,' she answered without missing a beat. 'You have to be outgoing, fun, and jazzed up to work here.'

Cain then goes on to make the case that the kinds of good talkers created by a place like HBS aren't necessarily the people with the best ideas, but the culture often confuses schmoozing ability with talent. Someone who is a good presenter of his/her ideas and easy to get along with is rewarded; however, too much of a premium is put on presenting and not enough on substance and critical thinking. Amen to that, brother.

Funny description of the HBS lunchroom! I have eaten there and as an outsider, it reminded me of college rather than HS, but then I wouldn't have picked up on the competitive HS vibe among personalities. But I didn't see people hanging out just to be social or score social points -- rather, it seemed a way to eat & connect efficiently -- networking in its early-onset stage??

I do wonder, though, whether Cain might not be making too much of the ability to schmooze at HBS? The case study format does require people to express their ideas and thoughts clearly and cogently, but the handful of professors I know who toil there are smart and have no BS tolerance at all. They are more likely to skewer someone who bloviates (even lively extroverts with great powers of expression) if the ideas aren't there. That's not to say that potential employers in job interviews respond the same way -- I think that's one of the big issues today. It's so terribly easy for a skilled interviewee to do tremendously well in an interview and fail to deliver on that promise once in the job. Or to be seen as collegial (and thus a great hire) even if the critical thinking isn't quite as solid as it could be...

Hi Suzanne. Clearly, Cain may be stretching the point. I enjoyed her description of the campus and students at HBS:

The first thing I notice about the Harvard Business School campus is the way people walk. No one ambles, strolls, or lingers. They stride, full of forward momentum. . . . When they cross each other's paths they don't merely nod--they exchange animated greetings, inquiring about this one's summer with Goldman Sachs or that one's trek in the Himalayas. . . . The students are even better turned out than their surroundings, if such a thing is possible. No one is more than five pounds overweight or has bad skin or wears odd accessories. The women are a cross between Head Cheerleader and Most Likely to Succeed. They wear fitted jeans, filmy blouses, and high-heeled peekaboo-toed shoes that make a pleasing clickety-clack on Spangler's polished wood floors. Some parade like fashion models, except that they're social and beaming instead of aloof and passive. The men are clean-cut and athletic; they look like people who expect to be in charge, but in a friendly, Eagle Scout sort of way. I have the feeling that if you asked one of them for driving directions, he'd greet you with a can-do smile and throw himself into the task of helping you to your destination--whether he knew the way or not.

Heh.

I'm loving this!

I've read a few chapters into The Help and I am liking it very much. I'm in over my head w/ reading though and want to get a little ahead with North and South before diving back into it.

82: Interesting distinction between shyness and introversion. I've always thought of myself as an introvert (someone who gets my batteries recharged through quiet time/reflection), and I am definitely shy in social situations where I don't know many people. However, I also need a certain amount of human contact or I go stir crazy - I'd never survive as a hermit.

Yes, I think you've hit it on the head: all of this introversion/extroversion business exists in a continuum.

Today I made borscht from A Feast of Soups by Jacqueline Heriteau. I've tweaked the recipe quite a bit, using my new juicer to process the vegetables, so I cooked not only the pulp but also the juice. Beets are amazingly intense. I used less beets than any of the other ingredients--potatoes, carrots, turnips, celery, parsnips, etc.--yet the beets overwhelm everything else. It tastes good, but I'm not sure I can enjoy eating something that's so intensely red. I made some pumpernikel bread to go with it from my go-to bread recipe book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I'm hoping the bread will be a happy combination with the soup.

I think next time I'll leave out the beets and use more potatoes.

Last night I finished The Help. This is the kind of novel you can tuck into and happily block out "real life." I gave it 4 stars. I loved it.

One of the things that amazed me about the book was her skillful use of dialect. Too much dialect in a book can really spoil a good read for me. Stockett uses quite a bit of what I assume is authentic Mississippi black dialect, and yet I never felt like I was tripping over her language or getting bogged down. The dialect definitely enhanced the book, IMO. This is just one of the ways in which Stockett shows herself to be a skilled writer.

I started a novel, Sand Creek, by Kevin Kahill, the story of the Sand Creek Massacre in Colorado in 1864. Although the book is technically historical fiction, it seems to be heavier on the history side rather than the fiction. Recently I've been doing genealogy, working on my gggrandfather's family. He was an original homesteader along Sand Creek, coming to the area in 1868. What I like about Cahill's novel, unlike other stories of the massacre, is that he traces the event back to its genesis in the 1850s.

I'm glad you liked The Help, Becky. Finally, a book that lived up to its hype.

I lurk on your thread all the time but thought it was time to speak up and wish you a very Merry Christmas! I hope you get everything your heart desires - like maybe a good woman with child-bearing hips for your son. ;-)

Hi Donna. Merry Christmas to you as well! Thanks so much for your good wishes--ha.

I seem to have fastened on the idea of finishing at least the Tomalin before getting back to The Help, even though I might list that I'm reading five or six books, the truth is, besides my car audio book, two is all I can manage. Which is why I am only sort of lamely reading The Help......I know I'm going to read it fast fast fast, once I'm ready!

As for beets -- my favorite borscht is the one in the first Moosewood cookbook. The beets are not allowed to take total control! For years it was one of my specialties, that soup. (I tend to get stuck on one successful recipe....)

>99 sibylline: Ah yes, I remember a borscht recipe in the Moosewood Cookbook. I don't think I ever made that one. It has more cabbage than I think DH would like, but otherwise it looks good. The proportions look better than the recipe I used. My recipe was a European-style recipe from my juicer cookbook, so everything was in grams. It would have been helpful if they'd said, 300 gms of beets, about 3 small beets, but they gave me only grams. I think I used too many. I was just so taken by their color. Oh well, probably borscht will go to the end of the list of soup recipes I'm going to make in the near future--ha.

I thought, hunh? cabbage? And went back to the book, where I have firmly crossed out the word CABBAGE. I think I eliminated the cabbage from it, from the get-go, since neither of us care for it. There's a note that says to adjust the proportion of liquid. How much? I didn't say.

I'm doing more genealogy than reading these days, so it's not too much of a surprise that the book that has me most fascinated is Sand Creek, by Kevin Cahill. He's written this as a novel evidently so that he could insert dialogue implied by the characters' personalities and events. He's good at dialogue, but the novel's structure is somewhat clunky. However, the information is what I was looking for in this book, and his research is comprehensive.

Some people know about the Sand Creek Massacre only from a recent PBS documentary or the 1970 Hollywood production, Soldier Blue. The movie was released during the Vietnam War, shortly after public disclosure of the My Lai Massacre. The violence depicted in the movie is graphic, although I imagine compared to what we see in movies today, we might view it differently than we did in 1970. I think this movie had more to do with sending a message about Hollywood's attitude toward the Vietnam War than it did about telling what happened at Sand Creek, since much of the movie's story is a fictionalized account of the escape of two white survivors from an earlier massacre of U.S. Cavalry troops by the Cheyenne and had nothing to do with Sand Creek. Cahill is certainly no apologist for the U.S. Cavalry and the events surrounding the Sand Creek massacre; however, Cahill's presentation is multi-layered, depicting the events leading up to the 1864 massacre. The federal government through the Homestead Act of 1862 gave white settlers this land to homestead. It' s not clear to me what our government thought would happen to these people when they started proving up this land.

The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site was dedicated and opened on April 28, 2007. By 2004 the federal gov't had acquired 920 acres of land from private owners. 160 of those acres were originally homesteaded in 1868 by my gggrandfather, Alonzo Baxter.

Evidently the Kindle and paperback versions of the book are quite different. The sample on Amazon starts out differently than the Kindle version. I haven't run across this before. I originally put this book on my Kindle, but since the place and period pertain to my Colorado ancestors, I decided to buy the book as well. I imagine if I asked them to, Amazon would give me a refund for the Kindle version.

Today & tomorrow will be spent in the kitchen, so I'll wish everyone a joyful holiday and go find my Aunt Em's apron.

Merry Christmas, Becky!

Sand Creek sounds interesting. I've put it on a list to consider ILL-ing. My local library sadly didn't own a copy.

The paperback edition seems to be self-published. I'm thinking that probably not too many (if any) libraries own a copy. The ebook edition I got at Amazon for my Kindle I wouldn't recommend because the book has maps and photos and notes and a bibliography that the ebook doesn't have.

Here's an author website with more information about the event and the book.

Hope you have a wonderful Christmas, Becky!

Merry Christmas Becky!

mistletoe smooches!

Thanks to everyone for the Christmas messages and greetings. We're only dreaming of a white Christmas here in Missouri. Actually, it seems more like March. I guess our winter will come later.

Hope you have a lovely day!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Becky!

All the things that make me an off-the-chart introvert also make me a Grinch during the holidays. I simply can't help it, although I guess to my credit I used to try harder when my son was a little binger. Anywho...

I want to discuss this book, Sand Creek, by Kevin Cahill. The issue of what happened at Sand Creek vs. what people say happened at the Sand Creek Massacre has a whole lot to do with the politics of what was going on in Colorado Territory in 1864 and continues to this day with the politics that went into creating our newest National Park, "The Sand Creek Massacre" National Historic site. The controversy is much too complicated to go into here.

Here's what I want to say about Cahill's book: If you're looking for an account that follows the politically correct scripted line of the event, then Cahill's book is a good resource. Much to my disappointment, and believing that he was going to write a balanced account of the event based on what he wrote in the introduction, instead Cahill has written an account that uses fictionalized dialogue that shows the people involved to be the standard White Hat Angel Indians vs. the Black Hat Devil Soldiers. It's quite disappointing. Cahill's website, advertised in his book, is kclonewolf.com. Lonewolf?? He doesn't tell us where that comes from, but I think the "lonewolf" makes pretty clear where Cahill himself is coming from.

It took me awhile to catch on to Cahill's schtick, since I was suckered into believing he was sincere in his introduction, that "to this day the Colorado Third's Volunteer's attack on the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians camped at Sand Creek is the subject of controversy, accusation, and recrimination. . . . Responsibility for the affair at Sand Creek lies on both sides of the river." It's very clear, reading the book, which side of the river Cahill believes the responsibility lies--really.

If you're looking for a book that might give you something other than the gradeschool PC line about the barbaric actions of the US Soldiers who massacred the peace-loving Indians, then I would recommend Gregory Michno's Battle at Sand Creek: The Military Perspective.

I have no idea how in the world to rate this novel by Cahill. My gut says it's worth 2 stars, so I guess that's what it gets.

My year-end goal is to finish Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. It's definitely doable. I love this book, even more than I remembered. Today I'm about 2/3 of the way through. I'm still making reading notes on the separate thread I created for this book if you're interested.

My other read, which will take me into 2012, is about as far from Cather as is possible to get: Stephen King's new one, 11/22/63. It took a lot of discipline not to set everything else aside and jump right into this one when it came in the mail. Now I think the timing is right. I'll finish the Cather, and there's nothing else terribly pressing that must be finished before I get into King's book.

Happy reading!

The new King is compulsively readable, and I'm enjoying it about as much as I thought I would, already 200+ pages into it. What I would say about this one is this: if you haven't read King before because you're put off by the creepiness factor in his books, then there's no reason to start with this one.

Added: King has gone back to the town of Derry, Maine in this new book, and he's quite brilliantly IMO found a way to also revisit 1958, which I think was about the same time period of his previous Derry novel, It (published 1986)--I guess the events of It are 1957, to be exact, so the first-person narrator has heard about those events and makes reference to them--"All that's over." {Haha, don't bet on it.} King makes slanted references like that one in the new book to what was going on in Derry in the previous book (for the faint of heart: don't ask). I'm not all that far into the book, only about a quarter of the way through, so we'll see how long we stay in Derry--my hope is not long. If you like the new one and you haven't read It, then you might want to go there. I didn't see the movie they made out of it, so I have no opinion about that. If you haven't read It and you're reading this one, some of the references he makes to the previous year when he's in 1958 Derry won't make too much sense, and that's why--King assumes you know. Not knowing doesn't spoil the new book, but having read about Derry in the other novel will add to what you're reading.

I know--clear as mud. Ha.

Good grief. I'm married to a guy who knows everything, AND HE DOESN'T EVEN READ.

Me: When do you think Crisco was invented?

Him: Well, it was probably around the time that the slaughter houses were automated. I'd say 1912.

Good grief. The correct answer: 1911. It does something to your head to live with a guy like this for 40-some years.

Hi Becky!
I just asked Ron that same question and expected him to say Crisco? What's that? But he came out of this pretty well - he said right after the turn of the 20th century. He doesn't read much either. I wonder if they learned this in Boy Scouts? Or do guys that have been married 40-some years fall in the same trivia group?

>119 -Cee-:. That's funny--I have no idea, except that I'm absolutely positive he didn't learn it in Boy Scouts--haha. He did admit that although he got the answer right, it might have been for the wrong reason.

What a great way to finish out the year, with Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop. This was my year of reading "more American literature," and I didn't want to end the year without reading something from Cather. I highly recommend the Scholarly Edition of this work for the notes on the text created by Prof. John Murphy. No big surprise: 5 stars.

That pretty much does it for me here in 2011. Please join me on Jan. 1 at the new thread for 2012.