Banned Books Week, part II

I'm still mulling over yesterdays post on Banned Books Week.  The comments the post  got were thought provoking and worth posting on their own.  Christina of Reading Through the Night wrote:

I guess before I start sharing my opinion, I'm curious about why you would think this book (Whistle Me Home by Barbara Wersba) is objectionable for middle school students? Is it the alcohol abuse? The implication of someone "coming out"?
If those were the two crises that would concern you, I'd probably have it on my bookshelf. As of now, I have most of Julie Ann Peters there. I have Smack by Melvin Burgess (subject matter: heroin), Cut by Patricia McCormick (subject matter: self abuse; cutting); the various "anon" books: It Happened To Nancy (where a teenage girl has sex for the first time and gets HIV), etc. All of these subject matters are extremely controversial. Most are in our school library so I feel very little stress defending them in my classroom.

But why are they there? After all, I also teach middle school. Perhaps we have a difference of opinion for the books on our shelves because of the type of middle school? I believe that books should be both forms of escapism and cathartic. The middle school I'm at is Title I, primarily Hispanic, and less than 40% are on grade level. Although we have seventh graders who are 12 going on 13, we also have seventh graders who are 15 going on 16. We have some who go home to a family, but we have just as many who go home to a house void of adults only to babysit their three or four other siblings. They are in gangs, their families are in gangs. They go to church every Sunday.

 Some of the books I have on my shelves reflect their lives. Of course there many who are "normal" tweens with a "normal" family life. But overall, even in the "normal" situations, our families are not terribly involved in academics.



Would my position be any different if I was in a completely opposite school environment? Who knows. But right now, I still stand behind the young adult books that have been banned in my classroom. Most of the books are not banned because of gratuitous sex or language. They have a point to their mayhem. Finally, I don't believe books hurt; rather, it's ignorance that causes the destruction.

First off, Whistle Me Home does contain scenes of sexual activity.  I don't think they are gratuitous, but I do think they're more appropriate for older readers which is the market the book is aimed at. I know the chapter that my students would point to as they passed the book around during study hall when my back was turned. (Chapter 13.) 
 
By classroom use, I mean a book that is required reading either as a whole class or as a possible selection for book clubs.  I see classroom use as a more restricted category than library use.   Middle school library use is more restricted than high school library use which is more restricted than public library use.   That said, I have many "banned books" my classroom at present. (Honestly, I don't see how anyone could have a library greater than 30 titles and not include books that have been challenged somewhere in America.)  I will stand behind the use of every one of the "banned books"  in my classroom.
 
This is what teachers and librarians do.  We are gatekeepers.  Part of our job is deciding what books are appropriate for use with our students.  What I wish Banned Books Week did more of, is make this process transparent.  Teachers select books based on criteria that include the needs of our students, the lives of our students and what books we think will be best for them.  For English teachers, the number one and number two criteria are usually literary merit and reader interest, not always in that order.  We also want books that  reflect the lives of our students and seek to influence them in positive ways.  None of us would ever include a book about controversial subject matter like coming out or cutting unless it also sought to improve the lives of students dealing with these issues.  I think most teachers, and probably most librarians as well, have a bit of the missionary in us--at heart we all want to change the world for the better.
 
Another commenter, Alexandra pointed me towards a post about Uncle Bobby's Wedding, a children's book about same-sex marriage that has been getting a lot of attention lately.  The post by Jamie LaRue is wonderful, much better than anything I've ever written.  I think everyone should read it.  One thing I like about it, among many, is that it lays bare the process by which books are selected for the children's collection in his library.  While he doesn't call himself a 'gate-keeper,' it's clear that he knows he is one.  I might add that he appears to be an excellent gate-keeper and  I'd love to have him over for dinner.  If I weren't already married, I might ask him out.
 
My good pal Saucy Wench has two perspectives of this issue.  She wrote:
 
I left my first teaching job, and "ran-away" to Georgia after a year-long, state-wide battle over my right to teach The Chocolate War to the freshmen of Missouri high school. My department chair supported my right to teach it and parents, after receiving information regarding its use in the classroom, could determine if they felt it appropriate for their child and if they did not, another option was given. All was fine until a fellow teacher raised an objection that became an issue of debate for the local school board, that I eventually won.



This being said, my son, who is only 8, reads at a 6th grade level. He is obviously not ready for the topics present in most literature of that level. I would be concerned if he was reading such content without my prior knowledge and consent.

So I guess my point is that consideration needs to be given to age appropriate content and understanding.
 
Where does this leave me.  Firm in the belief that whether or not a book is appropriate must be decided on a book by book basis and that decision must reflect the students who will be reading the book.  There is no one-size-fits-all solution.  It's a bit nostalgic to believe that literature has power in this day and age, but I believe it does.  The power to help and the power to hurt.  That literature remains contested space is a testament to this power.  
 
 
 
 
Full Disclosure:  When I finished writing this article and scheduled it for publication, I only had three comments.  I was not able to include the others for this reason. I would like to thank everyone who left a comment.  I appreciate all of your views here. 
 
Tomorrow, Dakota's Favorites will feature a review of Candide by Voltaire.  Not only was Voltaire's work banned, he was driven out of Paris in fear of his life more than once because of what he wrote. 

Banned Books Week: Whistle Me Home by Barbara Wersba

T.J. Baker is coming down the street towards her, wearing ragged blue jeans, boots, and an white T-shirt--and his face is the face of an angel in a painting Noli saw once in a museum.

Opening to Whistle Me Home by Barbara Wersba

This post may get me into trouble.

I support the intention of Banned Books Week.   Even people trying to remove or restrict access to certain books oppose "banning books."  However, I believe the issue is too complicated to reduce to a simple slogan, certainly when talking about  books for children and young adults. 

What it's really about is where to draw the line between what is acceptable and what is not. Everyone draws this line somewhere.  Certain things are pornographic or dangerous and therefore not acceptable for school libraries.  Would you allow a school library to display the Hemlock Society's book Final Exit which gives detailed instructions on ending one's life?  What about The Anarchist Cookbook which describes how to build bombs? 

A common response to book banning goes along the line of "that's how it is in the real world so it should be okay to include in books."    Sometimes I feel that I am alone in the belief that a classroom should be a shelter from the real world.  There are many things in the real world, many words used, that I do not allow in my classroom.  Why should I allow them in the books I bring into my classroom? 

My position is that there should be a good answer to that question.  That's where I draw the line.

I have many banned books in my classroom:  The Sledding Hill, Bridge to Terabithia, The Call of the Wild, The Chocolate War, A Day No Pigs Would Die, The Giver, The Great Gilly Hopkins, How to Eat Fried Worms, Julie of the Wolves, The Lord of the Flies, The Outsiders, The Pigman, Whale Talk, A Wrinkle in Time.  I'll stand before any court in the land and defend the classroom use of these books. 

Others, not so much. 

All English and reading teachers make this decision.  All librarians do, too.  Failure to consider how appropriate a book is for the children we serve borders on malpractice.   Libraries and schools all have policies in place, quidelines to follow when selecting books as well as procedures to follow when books are challenged.  But in the end, it's a decision that must be made book by book.

I found Whistle Me Home by Barbara Wersba  at my local library as part of their Banned Books Week display.  Whistle Me Home is about Noli, a high school student who has fallen in love with T.J. the new boy at school.  Noli dresses like a boy, walks and acts in non-feminine manner, and does not consider herself beautiful.  T.J. is an Adonis.  The perfect boy in every way.  That he is interested in her, shocks T.J. as much as everyone else.  That he turns out to be gay will come as no surprise to any but the most naive reader.  T.J. likes poetry.  He goes to old movies.  He never makes a move on Noli.  Once Noli discovers T.J.'s secret she slips into alchohal abuse endangering her chance to graduate high school.  With the help of Alcoholics Anonymous, she is able to put her life back together and to come to grips with the sexual assault she experienced as a child that is the reason why she dresses the way she does.

There's a lot to object to in Whistle Me Home.  Is there enough to praise to justify keeping  it  on the shelves of school and public libraries? Public and high school libraries, yes.  It's my belief that public libraries should have the widest possible range of material available, even books like Final Exit and The Anarchist Cookbook, and I think sheltering high school students from the issues in Young Adult fiction is inadvisable.   If high school students are old enough to face the death penalty, they're old enough to read YA novels.

Middle school, I'm not so sure.  There's nothing in the book that makes me want to prevent 7th and 8th graders from reading it, though it might lead to some conversations their parents are not ready for yet.  But 6th graders are still little kids.  While I doubt any sixth grader would pick up a book with this cover on it,  I do think some of the subject matter is too mature for them.  Final answer--I would not approve Whistle Me Home for classroom use in a middle school, but I would allow it in the school library. 

In fact, I'd stand before any court in the land and defend it.

 

Short Story Monday: Hemingway vs. Lessing

This is a tale of two stories.

Earnest Hemingway's "A Day's Wait" is a slight piece, something so subtle that it's importance is easy to miss.  A father and son on a winter day in Minnosota.  The son, Shotz, is sick, running a fever.  His father is worried but his son reassures him, tells him it's okay, encourages him not to be concerned.  The father goes hunting.  (It is a Hemingway story.)  He talks to the boy afterwards and learns that the boy thinks he is going to die.

It can be difficult to see what's happening in a Hemingway story.  Little things become important, common words become meaningful.  Hemingway's stories look like they should be easy to read, but they're really not.  I have been using "A Day's Wait" with my 7th graders  for years with mixed success.  While I think it's a wonderful short story, it's a challenge for 7th graders.  I'm sure the editors who put out literature text together thought they would understand a story about a seven year old, and that they would appreciate how the child tries to act like a grown-up in the face of death.  But I've found both of these are a tough sell.

This year I started using a new literature series that includes "Through theTunnel" by Doris Lessing.  In "The Tunnel"  Jerry, a young boy slightly older than the boy in Hemingway's story, decides he is old enough to spend his summer days swimming with the bigger boys instead of playing on the beach he and his mother have shared for years.  The big boys make a sport of diving under the water and swimming through a long, rocky tunnel.  Jerry decides he will do this and begins training, diving down the bottom of the sea and holding his breath for longer and longer amounts of time, until his head begains to ache and his nose to bleed.  On the last day of their vacation Jerry makes his attempt and swims through the tunnel to the other side.

In the closing paragraphs of each story, both boys return to a childish state, Shotz cries "easily over things of no importance" and Jerry jumps around his mother bragging about how long he can hold his breath.  Both literature series's instruct the teacher to discuss how the boys are both more grown up and still just as childish as they ever were.  Both stories do an excellent job of illustrating this odd part of childhood, the way a person can be both mature and immature at the same time.  They both do a wonderful job of it, too.  But it's a difficult concept for middle schoolers, who are both childish and grown-up, to appreciate.  It's a lesson one learns afterwards, an observation a parent makes.

If you back me into a corner, I'll tell you that "A Day's Wait" is the better story, but I'll also tell you that "Through the Tunnel" is the best choice for inclusion in a middle school literature series.  The seventh graders have always been a bit lukewarm with Shotz's story, but the sixth graders loved Doris Lessing's tale of Jerry and his swim through the underwater tunnel.

You can find the complete text of "A Day's Wait" here.
The complete text of "Through the Tunnel" by Doris Lessing can be found here.

Sunday Salon: Memoirs of a Midget

I had such fun with the animation last week that I decide to make another.



Link to Mrs. Dalloway's Books.

Friday Picture Reading with Babar the Elephant

Babar Reading by Laurent de Brunhoff. Available at Allposter.com.

Zeitoun by Dave Eggers

On moonless nights the men and boys of Jableh, a dusty fishing town on the coast of Syria, would gather their lanterns and set out in their quietest boats.

Opening to Zeitoun by Dave Eggers.

Zeitoun is the true story of a gross injustice perpetrated against a fundamentally decent man, some would say a heroic man.  100% of the profits from sales of the book go to charities dedicated to preventing injustices like those suffered by the books protagonists. 

I wish I could say I liked it.

Abdulrahman and Kathy Zeitoun were successful New Orleans business people prior to the advent of Hurricane Katrina.  Good marriage,  good family,  good neighbors, good citizens both.  Abdulrahman, called Zeitoun (Zay-toon) by those who know him, stays behind to keep watch over the family's home and their numerous rental properties when his wife Kathy insisted on leaving with the children ahead of the hurricane.  Afterwards, Zeitoun paddles his canoe through the flooded city, helping those trapped inside their homes and taking care of the dogs that had been left behind when their owners fled the storm.  One day, he is arrested and imprisoned on suspicion of being a terrorist and member of Al-Queda.  His wife and family spend weeks trying to find out what happened to him and then trying to win his freedom.

It's an incredible story.  But I have two problems with it.  First, Mr. Egger's writing style is so sparse, so simple that I began to feel like I was listening to him read his children a bedtime story.  There are so many simple declarative sentences in Zeitoun that I began to long for a semi-colon just for the visual variety.  I believe I could use his text as the basis of a sentence combining activity with my own students.  Here's a random sample:

Zeitoun dropped his paddle and jumped into the water.  He held his breath and swam to the porch.  The steps came quicker than he thought.  He jammed his knee against the masonry and let out a gasp.  When he stood, the water was up to his neck.

That's an average of just over nine words per sentence.  The entire book is like that.  The book is 335 pages long.  The sentences are very short.  This  became annoying and remained annoying.  According to my calculations using the SMOG Readability test, Zeitoun is written at a fourth grade reading level. 

My second issue with Zeitoun goes to the reliability of memoir.  Zeitoun is not a memoir, but Mr. Egger's narrative relies almost exclusively on the memory of Kathy and Abdulraham Zeitoun.  I've no reason to suspect their account, in fact I believe they are telling the truth from start to finish, but it would have benefited the reader if Mr. Eggers had built collaborating evidence into the book, instead of adding it on at the end in a few pages.  Footnotes are your friend. 

This is an important flaw because what happened to Mr. Zeitoun ought to indict the American justice system.  It should be a call to action.  But for a call to action to succeed it must provide readers with enough evidence to withstand debate.  Readers who tell this story to a skeptical audience are left with only the word of Mr. Zeitoun.  If I find parts of his story hard to believe, I need more than just his word to convince me his story is true.   Those of us who bought copies of A Million Little Pieces need to remember the lesson we learned. Relying on eyewitness accounts  is a mistake bordering on laziness. 

It is possible to tell a true story in a compelling manner while giving the reader the needed supporting evidence.  Dave Cullen's book Columbine is an excellent example.  So is Rising Tide by John M. Barry  an account of the Mississippi flood of 1927--a far worse disaster than Hurricane Katrina.  As for Hurricane Katrina and it's aftermath, you're better off watching Spike Lee's documentary series When the Levees Broke. 

Cheri by Collette

Give it to me, Lea, give me your pearl necklace!

Opening line to Cheri by Collette

While there is no one to like in Colette's novel Cheri, there is much to like. 

Cheri, young man in his early 20's, is a spoiled child of wealth.  He has spent the last six years as the kept pet of Lea, the much older lifelong friend of his mother.  Before Cheri was old enough to have affairs, Lea went through a series of young lovers, all beautiful men she kept for entertainment purposes-- enjoyed but never loved.  Now, after six years with Cheri, she suspects they may have real feelings for each other.  But their age difference and the scandal it could cause force Cheri to bend to his mother's will and marry a girl his own age.

It doesn't really work out.

Cheri is a spoiled brat who desperately needs a father capable of giving him a good 19th century thrashing.  His mother is a snobbish, overbearing busybody.  His young wife is a prig.  His lover Lea is ruthlessly cold-hearted in spite of her sexual passion. None of them work for a living.  None of them do anything interesting with the unlimited free time their wealth brings them.  So why bother with any of them?  Because just as you're about to set the whole thing aside in disgust you come across a passage like this one.

'It serves me right. At my age, one can't afford to keep a lover six years.  Six years!  He has ruined all that was left of me.  Those six years might have given me two or three quite pleasant little happinesses, instead of one profound regret.  A liaison of six years is like following your husband out to the colonies: when you get back again nobody recognizes you and you've forgotten how to dress.'

Okay, that's pretty good.  I'll stick around a chapter or two more. 

And I ended up not only sticking around until the end, but enjoying the book as well.  I'm surprised to admit this, but Cheri may end up in contention for my favorite reads of 2010 list.  While I wouldn't want to spend any time with any of the characters in Cheri, I enjoyed reading about them and I'm looking forward to reading the sequal, The Last of Cheri.  I kind of hope he dies in it.  That would be a very satisfying ending.

Sunday Salon: Does not liking Dave Eggers's books make you a bad person?

A special video Sunday Salon.

Dakota's Favorites: Resistance by Owen Sheers

Owen Sheers's wonderful book Resistance was one of my top ten favorite reads from 2008.  If you somehow managed to miss it, find a copy somewhere and read it.  It's wonderful. 

"In the months afterwards all of the women, at some point, said they'd known the men were leaving the valley."

Resistance by Owen Sheers is much more than first meets the eye.

The story asks what might have happened had the Second World War turned out differently and ended with the successful German invasion of the United Kingdom. Resistance can be read and enjoyed on this level, that of a speculative adventure story much in the vein of Fatherland and various other books. But Owen Sheers is up to much more than that.

Resistance takes place in an isolated valley in Wales; it's main characters are the women who live and work on valley's rugged farms. As the novel opens, the women wake to find all of their husbands have left the valley without a trace and without a note. The women react in anger, sorrow and fear but they all know that their men, husbands, fathers and brothers, have left to join the resistance against the invading German army. This is the first level of resistance in the novel.

The second level addresses how the various women cope with their husbands absence. They must take over all of the farm work, they must find a way to keep the world outside the valley from discovering their husbands have left or risk being shot as aiding the insurgency, and they must cope with the emotional aspects of their husbands' absence. They have to resist the temptation to leave the valley, to give up on the possibility of seeing their husbands again and the temptation to give in to the emotional trauma of their loss. Mr. Sheers portrays all of this with eloquence, simplicity and subtly. I found the writing in Resistance to be some of the best I've encountered in some time. He is able to make a man's fading indentation in a double bed heartbreaking without making it sentimental.

The war goes on outside the valley and eventually enters it in the form of a German patrol of six soldiers. The patrol leader who speaks fluent English has seen enough of war. He decides to lay low and stay in the valley as long as possible, hopefully avoiding the ending days of the fighting. The soldiers become a third level of resistance for the women in the valley. They are basically, ordinary men, probably would have been good men had Hitler never come to power, but they are the enemy. The longer they remain in the valley, the more comfortable the women become with them and the temptation to stop resisting and begin collaborating by becoming friends grows. Afterall, the war is far away from the valley and the women could use some help with their farms.

Mr. Sheers reminds us that there is a war on through the fourth level in Resistance. He tells the story of a young man, too young to be a soldier as the war opens, who is recruited by the British army to maintain a watch on the valley and report any and all enemy action. He is told that he will probably only have two weeks to live once the Germans arrive, but because the German patrol leader is trying to hide out the rest of the war he survives long into the occupation. Long enough to begin wondering if he should continue with the resistance. Long enough to see the townspeople eagerly accept German customers in their shops.

I can't say much more without spoiling the ending, but I will say that the book's closing events were both shocking and dramatically satisfying and that they added yet another layer of meaning to Resistance.

I'm giving Resistance by Owen Sheers five out of five stars and moving it to the top of my list of best books read in 2008 so far. I give it my highest recommendation.

The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor

The ground was the color of rust.

Opening line to The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor

American fiction is trending towards the streamlined.  Economy is valued in prose; praise is lavished on the sparse.  Writers who can do more with fewer words are awarded awards and hailed as modern prose stylists.  And for good reason, I'll grant.  It is amazing what Cormac McCarthy did in The Road.  But less is not always more.  Sometimes it's just less.

The Marrowbone Marble Company by Glenn Taylor could have used more.  Mr. Taylor's story is certainly big enough to justify it.  Loyal Ledford, a disaffected World War II veteran unhappy with his position in a West Virginia glass factory, sets out to change as his corner of the world by opening his own factory and building his own community around it.  His community will challenge the accepted social mores of post-war West Virginia by treating the workers as partners instead of as employees and by welcoming all races to work and live as equals side by side in all things.  Even dating.

The novel follows the rise and eventual fall of the Marrowbone Marble Company and the community of Marrowbone Cut through the course of several decades of struggle.  Children are born and grow to adulthood.  The Civil Rights movement forces the locals to confront their racism.  Marbles go in and out of fashion.  A large cast of characters move through the novel.

It's all too big for  360 pages.   Events are force to move too quickly for the reader to become immersed in the character's lives.  This much plot requires more time if we're to keep all of the characters straight and become attached to them as well.  600 pages would have made it possible to slow events down enough to develop the characters finely enough to draw the reader into the lives of each one.  As it is, the large cast consists of mostly supporting roles, the memorable characters are very few: Ledford, the soldier who comes to see what is wrong with his country and tries to fix it; his son Orb an autistic savant who wants to be a champion marble player;   a local sheriff who wishes he could leave behind his powerful family and join the Marrowbone community; a gangster who cannot escape the violence of his life.  (While there are women in the cast, none of their characters figure much in the novel.)

Given the time and pages to develop, these all could have become memorable characters and The Marrowbone Marble Company could have become a much better novel.  At 360 pages, everyone seems underdeveloped and a bit short changed. 



Full Disclosure:  I received an advanced reader's copy of The Marrowbone Marble Company.

Books on Film: George Bernard Shaw

From 1928, British Movietone News. Mr. Shaw has interesting views on Mussolini.

Sunday Salon: Five O'clock in the Morning

Dakota has a permanent bladder infection.  It's treatable, but it's never going to go away.  This means she has to go outside very early almost every morning.  Since I typically get up at 5:30 to get ready for work, this is not much of a problem.  But on weekends it would be nice to sleep in.  If only she weren't so darn cute.

Today, when I went to let her out the backdoor would not open at all.  It's been sticking forever, but this is the first time I just couldn't get it open.  On went the leash and out the front door.  In the dark cool of the early morning, standing at the bottom of the steps in a bathrobe feeling a bit eccentric.  Like Jane Mansfield, who they say used to wear full length furs while walking her little dogs around Hollywood.

Now, at five in the morning, I'm just about wide awake.  Awake enough to type but not enough to concentrate on reading.  I guess I'll have to take the back door down today and sand a little off the bottom.  I have a large stack of graded papers that need to be put into my on-line gradebook.  Gradebooks are all on-line now.  Then I have to put together a field trip budget for this year and a budget for all of the academic competitions my school will participate in  as well.  These both must be approved by the PTA. 

This week my students will experience some of the material on Canterbury Tales that I developed at Yale this summer.  Wednesday is Back-to-School Night so I'll be working late speaking to large groups of parents.  I've been thinking about those KIPP school teachers who have to take special cell phones home after school so their students can call them for help whenever it's needed.  Those teachers are on-call everyday until 10:00 pm and on Saturdays.  Sounds dreadful to me, but I'll be working on school stuff tomorrow and I spent a good part of yesterday grading papers.  Same difference. 

Still, I'm in bed each night at nine. 

I think I'm awake enough now to do some reading.

Friday Picture Reading: Along came a spider.

Historic poster available at Allposters.com.

When Bad Things Happen to Good Books

This week from Booking Through Thursday:

You’ve just dropped your favorite, out-of-print book into a bathtub, ruining it completely … What do you do now?

Since I am six feet five inches tall and most bathtubs are five feet long, it's unlikely that I'll ever lose a book this way, but I have have lost many over the years to Dakota, my book-eating Basset hound.  While she tends to choose her own books off the lower shelves of my bookcases, she has a very high reach for such a low dog, she has eaten several that I've been in the midst of reading.

I was close to the end of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow when she got to it.  Since I wasn't enjoying the book nearly as much as I thought I would, I went with her judgement and let it go.  I've no idea how it ends, but then I didn't really understand what was going on anyway. 

I pulled together the scattered pages of Niel Gaimon's The Graveyard Book so I cold finish the last few chapters.  I didn't love it, but I'm glad Dakota left enough of it intact for me to finish the book.    The same thing happed with Netherland, In Cold Blood, Half of a Yellow Sun and Saturday.  Since I wanted to know how each ended, I pulled togther the pages, read them and recycled.  I paid the public library for both In Cold Blood and Half of a Yellow Sun, but they let you keep the book now.  I choose to recycle both. 

Bad dog.

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

I haven't laid eyes on the island is several years.

Opening line to Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.

Watching a movie the same week you read the book it's based on is probably not a good idea.  Certainly not when the book relies as heavily on plot twists as Shutter Island does.

Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island is an entertaining, tautly written mystery thriller packed with spooky, paranoid atmospheric writing.  It's an excellent piece of commercial fiction by a solid writer working at the top of his game.  However, I cannot say anything at all about the plot without the risk of giving something away and spoiling the fun of the last person in America to read it. (I, of course, am the second to the last person in America to read it.  It's very popular.)

The same is true of the recent movie directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leonardo DiCaprio.  Mr. Scorsese and Mr. DiCaprio are booth experts in their field and each brings all of his talent to Shutter Island.  Each could have taken the money, phoned it in, and the movie would still have made money.  Instead, they brought their A game to the project.  I don't think either will be remembered for Shutter Island, both have much more significant work, but their collaboration has produced a top-notch piece of entertainment.  The kind of thing Hollywood used to be famous for back in the days when movies were made for grown-up audiences.

(One snarky aside.  I'm please to say that someone took away Mr. Scorsese's steady-cam and bought him a tripod.  It's nice to see a movie that isn't trying to give me motion-sickness.)

The movie is very faithful to the book.  I suspect I could have watched it book in hand and found very few changes.  Movies always have to condense books, since they have less time to play with than a novel does, but I could see not major differences between the two.  Except one.

There is a line added to the end of the movie that is not present in the book.  This line is easy to miss but it changes everything.  What we think is going on, is not what is really going on.  While the book has only one major twist at the end, the movie has two.  Therefore, I'm ranking it as better. 

If you'd like to join the Read the Book, See the Movie Challenge, you still can.  I'm running it through the end of the year.  To sign up go here.

Congratulations to Starship Sofa

The main reason why I don't listen to audio books is that there are so many excellent podcasts out there, most of them free.  I subscribe to several short story podcasts, which I can listen to in one ride to and from work.  One of my favorites is Starship Sofa, a science fiction podcast/magazine, edited by Tony C. Smith.

Starship Sofa is now the first podcast to win a Hugo award for best fanzine.

Congratulations.

Starship Sofa features at least one short story per episode along with film reviews, coverage of developments in sciene and articles on the history of science fiction.  The genre  history articles by Amy Sturgis are my personal favorites.  She has led me to several, very obscure, volumes of early science fiction.  If you follow this blog, you know I love obscure.

Like most fanzines, Starship Sofa is largely a labor of love, many of the contributors work for free.  But you'd never know from the quality.  The story narrations are as good as anything you'll pay for at Audible.com or anywhere else.  To find out more or to subscribe to their podcast go here.

Sunday Salon: Here a Chick, There a Dude, Everywhere a Lit-Lit.

Laura Fraizer has a fairly dreadful piece about Chick Lit vs. Dude Lit on the Daily Beast.  While she does know her Chick Lit, she has confused Dude Lit with Lad Lit, and does not seem to really understand either very well. 

There's a much better piece at Reading With Tequila and Teresa's piece on last week's Shelf Love is still one of the best.  Author Michelle Gorman had a very good piece in defense of Chick Lit in the Gaurdian earlier this month as well.

I have two points to make, maybe three.  While it's nice to see mainstream book critics raise their heads again, (I miss you all.) it's also clear that some of the best writing about books out there is taking place on blogs run by unpaid amateaurs.  Amateaurs in the sense that they write for love instead of money, not in the sense that they are unskilled or untrained.  If you want to know what's going on in the book world, you can read The Gaurdian and The Daily Beast or you can read any of a growing number of book blogs.  You'll do just as well with either.

Two, the whole controversy reflects badly on American publishing.  Is either category--Chick Lit or Dude Lit--really worth getting this excited about?  European critics often accuse American authors of being interested only in navel gazing.  The Chick Lit/Dude Lit debate adds feul to that fire.  This may be why I've taken to reading so many books in translation.  Enough with the family dramas and the self-discovery and the life lesson learned from failed relationships and mediocre parenting.  There's a whole world out there.  As Starship Captain Jean-Luc Picard says, "Engage."

Lastly, since so many articles on both sides of this debate continue to make disparaging remarks about both Stephen King and Danielle Steele, I just like to post a photograph of their homes.  Homes paid for with money earned from their writing.  For the record, Danielle Steel's property takes up almost a full city block in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco.  It's worth much more than Mr. King's home in Bangor, Maine.  To my knowledge, either author has ever won a prestigious literary award.  I hope they both have been able to put that behind them and enjoy their success.  I know I would.

Living well is the best revenge.

Full Disclosure:  I found the picture of Stephen King's house here.  Danielle Steele's was found here.  The Chicklets are by Ruth Freeman Swain.

Dakota Eats a Book: Bloomability by Sharon Creech

It's been a while, but Dakota ate a book today. 

Bloomability has been in my TBT (To be traded) stack for several months.  I had a small set of books for use in classroom literature circles.  However, in three years only one book club ever selected Bloomability.  So last spring, I took them out of circulation and started trading them on Paperbackswap.com. 

I'm not sure why my students never took to Bloomability.  Sharon Creech is a writer one can count on to always tell a good, entertaining tale.  I suspect the book has serious cover issues.  7th graders are merciless when it comes to a cover they don't like.  If the cover were a glossy black with a single spot lit rosebud in the center, I think the book would be much more popular.

Dakota didn't exactly devour the book, but she did leave enough teeth marks on it to force a move from the TBT stack to the recycling bin.  Meantime, if you've never read anything by Sharon Creech, I recommend Walk Two Moons.  That is a wonderful book--one of the best YA novels you're likely to find.  Probably one of the best novels period.  Not one you or Dakota will find in my TBT stack.

Dakota's Favorites: Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

There are no lukewarm reactions to Thomas Mann's Death in Venice.  Reactions to it definately lean towards the passionate, one way or another.  Here's my review from April of 2008.


Gustave Aschenbach--or von Aschenbach, as he had been known officially since his fiftieth birthday--had set out alone from his house in Prince Regent Street, Munich, for an extended walk.

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann is a story of obsession and isolation. Aschenbach, a writer of rarefied fictions, takes a holiday to Venice where he sees a beautiful youth of 15 years. He is immediately taken in by the boy's beauty and very quickly becomes obsessed with him. Aschenbach finds he is staying at the same hotel as the boy, so he studies the boy's daily habits, making sure that he is at the beach when the boy will be, ready for breakfast when the boy is, he even follows his family when the boy goes on tours of the city. He never attempts to meet the boy or to speak with him though he does learn his name, Tadzio, and quite a bit of his family history.

Is Aschenbach a man in love or just a man obsessed? He learns as much as he can about Tadzio from secondhand sources like the hotel barber, but his knowledge remains so limited that the Tazio he comes to love is largely a Tadzio of his own imagination. Aschenbach can see what the boy looks like, but he does not know him in any real way. Aschenbach indulges in his obsession, staying on at the hotel as long as he can, in spite of the very real threat of a cholera outbreak in the emptying city.

The city becomes a metaphor for Aschebach. Its decay, its age, its vulnerablity to disease are all mirrored in Aschenbach. The facade Venice puts on to attract visitors is mirrored in the fancy suits the fifty plus man wears in an attempt to make himself attractive. Neither the city nor the man can do much to really attract the attentions of a beautiful youth, those days are gone for both. The city provides attractions for the boy's aging mother and aunt who've brought their children in tow; the man can do nothing more than follow along trying to steal a glimpse of the youth he will not have again in any form.

For all of its melancholy, all of its atmosphere of decay and the fact that the main character never talks to the object of his desire, Death in Venice is a highly readable story. While I did not really like Aschenbach at first, and I honestly can't say that I'm too fond of him by the end either, his story does become compelling. He does become a sympathetic character in spite of it all. By then end our understanding of what is happening to him has deepened making his story a haunting one.

I'm giving Death in Venice by Thomas Mann five out of five stars.

Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares

This is the third time I'm writing to you.

Opening to Asleep in the Sun by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated from the Spanish by Suzanne Jill Levine.

A successful banker abandons his career to open the watch repair shop he has always dreamed of owning.  He runs his new business out of his home which means he spends much more time with his wife than he ever did before.  Soon, it becomes apparent to him that his wife is not well.  Neurotic to the point of overbearing, she is impossible to live with.  Though he loves her, when a friend proposes he have her committed to a local asylum for treatment, he agrees.  Once his wife returns, he soon begins to miss the parts of her that have been cured away.  She is much nicer than before, much easier to live with, but he begins to suspect that she is no longer the woman he married.

A chapter or so into Asleep in the Sun, it becomes clear that the narrator is telling his story while he is a patient in the same asylum that once held his wife.  His story takes the form of a long letter to a friend whom he hopes will help him escape from the asylum.  But how much of his story can the reader believe? 

Adolfo Bioy Casares often collaborated with his lifelong friend Jorge Luis Borges.  Borges praised Casares speculative fantasy novel The Invention of Morel as a work of "reasoned imagination," and Octavio Paz called it "perfect."  Some consider it an important influence on the television series Lost.  Asleep in the Sun contains elements of fantasy but it is much closer to the stories of Nicolai Gogol than to Lost.  The two share a sense of humor and an understanding of how a simple, perhaps twisted, idea can turn reality on its head.  Had the two shared a birth date, one could easily suspect they were twins, separated at birth.  In fact, that would make an excellent story in the hands of either Nicholia Gogol or Adolfo Bioy Cesares.

Asleep in the Sun is a challenging novel to come to grips with.  It's taken me several weeks to come up with a closing paragraph for this review.  What do I want to say about Alseep in the Sun in the end?  I really have no idea.  I enjoyed it.  It's entertaining. It brings up interesting questions about the nature of reality and the nature of story-telling.  It's kind of funny, too.  I expect I'll be reading more by Adolfo Bioy Casares but I couldn't tell you why, not in so many words.  I have the same problem with Nicholai Gogol.  I can't quite explain why I love him, I just do.