Archive | March, 2008

red bottomosity and the general horn

28 Mar

Every summer since my last year of high school I have indulged the silly girl in me by remaining absolutely devoted to Louise Rennison’s Georgia Nicolson series. It’s the sort of reading that some of my profs would be loathe to call worthwhile lit, but I love them. A little lewd and crude, every summer I’ve looked forward to a new volume documenting Georgia’s adventures with the Ace Gang at Stalag 14. This series has made me laugh like no other.

And so, the Snogging Scale lives on with Stop in the Name of Pants! Available on July 1st.

book cover

a mind full of wicked design

23 Mar

Was the Wizard a charlatan, a fraud, a despot of merely human power and failure? Did he control the Adepts–Nessarose and Glinda, and an unnamed third, for it surely wasn’t Elphie–or was it only put to him by Madame Morrible that he did, to assuage his obvious ego, his appetite for the semblance of power? — Wicked, p. 326

Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked With of the West is one of those books that I find I cannot read unless I am in the right state of mind — or an appropriately wrong state of mind. I tried to read this book once before, when I was in high school and my Wizard of Oz fanaticism was at its peak (to this day, I regret the loss of my Dorothy watch), but I digress… I remember checking it out, and I remember chucking it back into the return bin because I could not get past the first couple of chapters. I realize now that while some books help you grow, others need to wait until you’ve reached a certain point — whether this be the result of experience, or increased cynicism. For Wicked, it was probably a little of both. Three days of can’t-put-it-down fervor and I found a new favorite.

Reading Wicked is almost like discovering fairy tale apocrypha. With it’s questions on the nature of good and evil and intent, it reveals the world of Oz in such a way that Baum’s series starts to take on a whole new meaning, one that may have just been waiting for Elphaba’s story to shine its green light on. Through Wicked I I found my passion for Oz again, a jumbled world that I shelved away years ago.

postcards from cowboy camp

13 Mar

We convince ourselves that these choices declare WHO WE ARE down to the depths of our souls. But the cruel reality is that these choices serve a different purpose altogether. They act as cheery distractions from the only tragic Truth-with-a-capital-T that matters: We all die alone. I’m in a very bad place, indeed.

I started reading Megan McCafferty’s ‘Jessica Darling’ series back when I was a self-obsessed, 17-year-old smart girl much like Jessica herself. Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings were the sort of books that resonated with on-the-edge-of-adulthood angst and made me remember that maybe I shouldn’t take myself quite so seriously. So, when Charmed Thirds was first published in 2006, another tell-all journal/epistle narrative – the story of Jessica’s entry into “adulthood” and the college experience – I was thrilled to pieces. That is, until I read a bunch of negative reviews on Amazon. Afraid to have one of my favorite series tarnished by a bad sequel, I decided to forgo this one. However, a recent trip to the library put an end to that decision.

Like the first two novels in the series, Charmed Thirds reveals the world according to Jessica Darling. Relationships, weird dorm mates, bottom-of-the-barrel summer jobs, and bad sex, Jessica passes judgment on all with her usual candor. Revealing the inanities of college life, Jessica’s reflections show that sometimes we really are just elitists with no sense of direction.

Illuminating moments aside, I found that the story of Jessica’s four years at Columbia fell short. What was humorous, self-deprecating teenage angst in Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings seems more whine than ironic wit in Charmed Thirds. As Jessica came to realize that Marcus’s t-shirts were all just part of his “shtick”, I came to realize that Jessica’s search for meaning through promiscuity was just not doing it for me.

It was fun, it just wasn’t what I expected.

flirting with disaster (and consumption)

10 Mar

I have no yet determined to seduce her, though, with all her pretensions to virtue, I do not think it impossible [...] If she will play with a lion, let her beware of his paw… – Peter Sanford, The Coquette p.57, Oxford ed.

To associate, is to approve; to approve, is to be betrayed! – Lucy Sumner, p.168

 

After reading far too many early American documents, I have to say that Hannah W. Foster’s The Coquette is one of the most enjoyable books that I have read this semester.First published in 1797, The Coquette; or, The History of Eliza Wharton tells the story of the seduction and betrayal of Eliza Wharton through a series of letters written by Eliza, her friends, and the two men who seek to have her.

Recovering from, or celebrating, the death of Mr. Haly – a lover approved by Eliza’s family and friends, much to her chagrin – Eliza sets out to enjoy the second chance at youthful liberty that the end of her engagement granted her. Staying with friends, Eliza first meets the Reverend Boyer, a single man with a modest income, and Major Sanford, a well-known libertine with a penchant for living beyond his means and affecting a look of affluence. Unwilling to live in gloom, Eliza’s lively and free-spirited manners are taken for coquetry.

Pursued by Boyer and Sanford, Eliza finds herself in an unsettling situation, not ready to give up her freedom for the domestic bliss that Boyer wants, and uncertain of the rakish Sanford’s intentions.

Through the letters, the reader comes to understand Eliza’s true character, her ambivalence to settle down, and her feelings for the two men that pursue her. Also revealing Sanford’s ill-intent and skewed sense of love, the letters provide a multi-dimensional quality to an otherwise simple plot. The cautionary tale – girls guard your virtue – a used and abused motif in the eighteenth century writing, can take a very didactic turn, but The Coquette does not present the reader with a pedantic narrator to tell the “true” story of Eliza Wharton.

Like most cautionary tales, something has to go horribly awry, Eliza’s good intentions notwithstanding, but if you haven’t figured it out, I won’t give away the ending.

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.