The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Julie saw this on my "to read" list and very nicely lent it to me. I had actually given it as a gift a couple of times already to friend's children based on all the good reviews. I have to say I loved how the story would be proceeding along in writing and then suddenly like a person speaking halting English suddenly breaks into their own native language to tell the story better and quicker, the author would break into pictures to tell the story. Sadly though it was not such a great book storywise, things happen too suddenly and with no basis. A mean old man suddenly is a gentle genius, a father is missing and then forgotten. But--hey--it's a kid's book and the drawings are clever.

A Future Blogger

Untold Romance

In Paper Cuts, a blog put together by the NYTBR and admitedly a bit better than mine, last week on Valentine's day someone solicited from it's readership Romance found in books. The readers mention the Fountainhead (!), the Alexandria Quartet, Walden (romance of nature), Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane, Lolita and even from Claire Tomalin's bio of Thomas Hardy with Hardy and his wife living completely separate lives until she dies alone in her room and he suddenly realizes he loves her, has her corpse propped up on his bed and writes mournful poetry about her for the rest of his life.

Romantic? Anyway my perverse idea of romance in books is not much better since what came to mind was John Bayley and Iris Murdoch in Elegy for Iris. Of course it is very depressing with John Bayley watching her dwindle away, but their love affair was very passionate in the begining and whatever it was, however unequal it was, it worked. It reminds me of that book by Ann Patchett about her friend Lucy Grealey Truth and Beauty where she has written it to convince you what a great person Lucy was and all you see is what a good friend she actually was to put up with the insufferable Lucy. John Bayley is competely besotted with Iris and wants you to be too, and in the end you are besotted with him, not her.

Hmm what does this say about romance for me? Well now I have another romantic entry, Untold Stories by Alan Bennett. It's a book of memoirs, thoughts, diary entries etc that he put together while going through chemo instead of writing another play. He is a wonderful writer and the first piece is on his parents and their very quiet love affair. The father was a butcher and the mother is the quiet reserved sister of two vivacious and vulgar aunties. There is something so timid and gentle about the parents and the way they cling to each other through everything, somehow they make a perfect pair and there is something very romantic about it.

When the mother suffers from mental illness the father visits her daily without fail, anxiously arriving right at the moment visitor's hours start and sitting holding her limp hand until the last moment again. There is something very beautiful and quiet in the romance of Alan Bennett's parents, much more so than the arrogance of the love affair in the Fountainhead or the dysfunctional Alexandrian Quartet tangles, and no hypocrisy like Thomas Hardy clinging to his ignored dead wife.

Stay Back in 1942, No Need to Follow Us

Elizabeth Goudge is a 1940's British writer whose books look like something I should be reading. They also look like no one has taken them out of the library in a long time. Maybe she's like an undiscovered Barbara Pym and I could have a happy time reading through her ouevre, I innocently thought. Like back in the first flush of excitement when I discovered Pym and there were like 14 more to go through. So I grabbed The Castle on the Hill and began reading. In the first frenzy of my discovery I even ordered a book of hers off Amazon, The Scent of Water. All boded well.

Alas, however, she should not be dragged forth into the next century with Barbara Pym and Angela Thirkell, let her stay in 1940's Britain where a perfectly noble and giving spinster Miss Brown can offer the elderly Mr.Birley a proposal to be his housekeeper, nurse or wife or all three, "whichever you like" when she finds out the owner of the castle where she is housekeeper is going to be living in assisted living in an apartment for the rest of his life after a bomb and taxes split the castle into bits. Instead of gratitude, he reacts with horror '...astonishment, bewilderment, mirth, dismay, and then again overwhelming the other emotions, horror.' The horror is due to the fact that she is from a different class. Miss Brown sees the horror in his face and gracefully allows him to wiggle out. He is allowed to retire unsullied by her lower caste to be tended to by a manservant while Miss Brown goes on to form an alliance with a homeless street musician who USED to be a gentleman, but was also a JEW (frequent references to the King of Israel in his presence). Not sure what social class this puts him in, but it must be ok since they get to live in the carriage house with the two absurdly named war orphans Moppet and Poppet and he takes in pupils and Miss Brown continues smocking their dresses.

Elizabeth Goudge, you can stay put.

A Not-so-Gentle Reader

A not-so-Gentle Reader (you know who you are) has turned my attention to a recent article listed in ALDaily on the Eat, Stink, Pray, Love, Burp phenomenon where a man who read it retells the whole story as if it were written by a man. Not such a tale of empowerment after all! He calls it Travel Porn for women. Very funny article (click at link below). I rest my case.

(Interestingly enough I apparently have been miswriting the title all along! Mea culpa!)

http://www.worldhum.com/books/item/one_mans_odyssey_into_eat_pray_love_20080211/

A Room With a View AND Audio

Listening to A Room with a View in the car during my commute, so 15 minutes here, 15 minutes there. It's a great listen just as it was a great read a long time ago, just as it was a great film. It's read by someone with a very fruity full British voice who obviously is enjoying himself. I had forgotten the social sin of Mr. Emerson when he mentioned a ladies STOMACH in polite company. I had also forgotten how very faithful to the text the movie was. I'm right before the fatal kiss above. Fifteen minute commute home ought to solve that.

I can only listen to audiobooks if the writing is very accessible and clear, with lots of speaking bits. I picked up John Banville's the Sea in the hopes of covering the Booker Prize winner without having to actually read it, but alas it's all description and beauty and----dare I say it---lyricism.

Lyricism is one of my largest pet peeves, any writer described as lyrical is a big stinker in my book (see God of Little Things which is filed right next to Eat Stink Pray Love in my Library of Shame), dream sequences in fiction is another as well as anything written completely in the vernacular or anything reviewed favorably by Salman Rushdie or ---come to think of it---anything written by Salman Rushdie....so when I saw Salman Rushdie's blurb on the back jacket of a Zadie Smith novel "Lyrical!" I knew I was really in for it! Other than that I love to read!

Old Young Movies

Olivia still can't subtract quickly in her head but, like Nero fiddling while Rome was burning, I have decided to follow Ty Burr's advice in his book The Best Old Movies for Families: A Guide to Watching Together. Sick of all the bland Disney fare, endless sequels and all the merchandising in present day children's films he sat down with his two daughters and watched all sorts of old movies with no Coke cans held just so, no 4th retread of the same story, no market survey endings. The results were that his daughters love film in the way he did. The book contains lists of old films according to genre and age group appropriateness. Since we should have started at age 4 we are a bit behind, but the Gentes Girls are always up for a challenge! We started easy with Singin' In the Rain but apparently we'll be watching Now Voyager in no time at all. We will be watching one every Sunday night. And if Liv can make it through How Green Was My Valley without years of subsequent therapy she's made of sterner stuff than me! Who needs to subtract in their head?

Sit Back Down Steve Martin

I always liked pieces by Steve Martin in the New Yorker,he seemed so funny and smart. Shopgirl wasn't bad. I loved Roxanne. Born Standing Up got good reviews. But it was terrible, something about telling the truth sapped all the playfulness out of his writing. Sentences like "Though the audiences continued to grow, I experienced a concomitant depression caused by exhaustion, isolation and creative ennui." are completely serious. Even his art collecting seems to be suspect. What a disappointment.

Trapped in a Cute Sweat Shop

Help! I got Olivia The Cute Book for her birthday and ever since I have been chained to it producing minute little felt figures for her. I had forgotten that I actually used to enjoy sewing. I learned from my grandmother Olivia so apparently I am fated to always be sewing with Olivias. Although Olivia seems to be mainly giving advice and chatting while I hunch over the embroidery thread and needle trying to thread it over and over or while I am cutting little pinpoint eyes out of felt. Which is probably what I did with my grandmother while she churned out doll clothes for me. I think there must be some justice in this.

A Royal Expert is Born

I just finished Laurie Graham's Gone with the Windsors last night. Someone at work brought it in for me to read after I read and lent them Alan Bennet's Uncommon Reader. What is with me and the Royal Family lately? I have read like 4 books in a row. Does this make me an expert?After all my time reading the Kaleed Husseini and the Bookseller of Kabul I felt like an expert on Afghanistan and was ready to appear on Nightline if they had a sudden need for an Afghani expert. Surprisingly, in spite of my expertise, Nightline never actually called me to weigh in on Afghani situations. (Wonder if they have the right phone number for me?). Anyway I suppose my new area of expertise (British Royalty) may get me some calls from Entertainment Tonight. I hope they don't expect me to get Botox with all my TV appearances. I will have to draw the line somewhere.


Now I just read two fictionalized accounts of Royalty. Gone With the Windsors is all about Wallis Simpson and the Man Who Would Not be King written through the eyes of a very dim wealthy American widow named Maybell in the form of a diary. It's actually quite funny with the diarist missing the point of every conversation and of all the political situations. Descriptions of visits to Hitler in Germany describe what everyone was wearing and the great shopping available. Maybell and Wallis Simpson finally part ways after her little dog pees on Maybell's tapestry purse.


The Uncommon Reader I read a couple of weeks ago. Also a fictionalized account of the current Queen Elizabeth who discovers the joys of reading and how it impacts all her day to day activities. Everyone is very annoyed as her reading gets in the way of her duties. She also expects people to read books she gives them. One typical Alan Bennet bit when the Prime Minister's aide complains to the Queen's aide that her Majesty keeps on giving the Prime Minister things to read at their weekly chats.

"Your employer has been giving my employer a hard time."

"Yes?"

"Yes. Lending him books to read. That's out of order."

"Her Majesty likes reading."

"I like having my dick sucked. I don't make the prime minister do it..."

Gods Behaving Badly

I could not resist the title. Gods Behaving Badly rings of "Girls Gone Wild". It's actually quite fun. The premise is that the Greek Gods, almost completely dwindled in power and potency have been reduced to living in an old house in London. Artemis, Godess of Chastity and Hunting is always out jogging in a track suit, Aphrodite works as a phone sex operator, Dionysis runs a nightclub and has his own brand of wine, Hermes is basically a bike messenger....you get the picture. Into this happens the innocent Alice, a mortal who works for them as a house cleaner.
I kept on waiting for it to get annoying ...and then it was over. So she sustained it throughout without me throwing it down in disgust. The writer is British so at least you can count on them to be able to write well. More than I can say for most books lately. Yes you---I'm talking about you---woman who wrote Eat Stink Pray Love, can't remember your name but I know who you are.