two and a half more

The Wordy Shipmates -- Sarah Vowell (2008): This was great! I've never really studied the period in depth, so WS was an eye-opener as to how off base the general Puritan reputation is. Despite more mentions of Fonzie than I would normally expect in a book about Puritans, I did find this book somewhat drier than Assassination Vacation. After consideration, I think it comes down to this: Assassination Vacation was not just about history, but Sarah Vowell's active pursuit of history -- she tracks things down (with accomplices), visits sites, museums and interacts with other obsessives. There was a lot of movement and latitude for that, but Wordy Shipmates covers a topic (the Puritans) which is more confined by geography and chronology. Her subject is interesting and her thinking as sharp as ever, but when you get down to it, apart from one trip with her nephew and sister it's pretty much just Sarah and a stack of primary sources. I love primary sources and I learned A LOT about the early settlers, but for me it lacked the swing of Assassination Vacation.

I did, however, develop a little crush on Roger Williams. "It's one thing for nonviolent nonbelievers to throw up their hands at the way the faithful of various religious faiths seem to come to blows over dogma. But Williams, a diehard zealot, is unflinching in his recognition that other diehard zealots are equally set in their ways. And while he would happily---happily!---harangue any other persons of faith for days on end about how wrong they are, he does not think they should be jailed or hit or stabbed or shot for their stupidity, the eternal flames of hell being punishment enough."

Zealots of today, why can't you be more like your (spiritual) older brother Roger?


Highway to Hell -- Rosemary Clement-Moore (2009): Wheee! this is my favorite Girl vs. Evil so far. [There are three in the series to date: 1) Prom Dates from Hell 2) Hell Week 3) Highway to Hell] I like it because it feels like Clement-Moore has settled into her Maggie Quinn universe, I like it because this one features a roadtrip AND el chupacabra, I like it because it's fun to say el chupacabra and reminisce about that X-Files episode which was totally gross. Anyway, it was fun to see Maggie and friends away from their typical college town setting. This one reminded me of one of my favorite stand alone Elizabeth Peters novels (Summer of the Dragon), even though in that one the girl detective was a big supernatural disbeliever and debunker, and in this one there is mostly believing and bunking... or, uh, something. (the evil is real and has shiny red eyes!) SotD features a second-wave smartass feminist, and in HtH they're third-wave smartass feminists. Hmmmm... other similarities: they're both set in the southwest (although this one is in gulf coast texas and that one was in arizona), and they both feature a ranch. Nothing ties two books together like a ranch! (am I right or what?) I guess I'd better read the other one again and see if I've completely lost my mind, which, as always, is a distinct possibility.

The more I think about it, the more I see the similarities between a certain kind of YA novel and the E. Peters style of comic romantic suspense -- I'm just not seeing titles like that for adults anymore. Why not? Is it because the adults who want it are just reading YA? Adult fiction titles that are supernatural or supernatural-ish seem to skew either to explicit who needs subtext sexy vampires or straight up horror. That can't be right, though! I'm going to have to think some more.

Moby Dick -- Herman Melville (1851): I have made no progress on this since my last report. NONE! those poor sailors are still floating in that boat waiting for me to quit fooling around and get reading so they can do that thing they do. If I leave them much longer, they will resort to piracy or yacht rock. Do I want that on my conscience? No, I do not.

bedside table

This month is getting away from me, but thankfully not in the I Think I'm Going Crazy way of June. (you don't know the half of it! I never wrote up my interior elephant brain theory, a theory which either explains a lot in the "oh, yeah! interior elephant! I get it" way, or it explains a lot in the "interior elephant? what? WHAT?" way.) ANYWAY. July has been full of top quality people and adventures, which continues on through the weekend. (road trip!)

Here are a few things about a few books I've read more or less recently or am currently reading (although Candy Girl was many months ago). I hope to write up more of these in the near future.

The Wordy Shipmates -- Sarah Vowell (2008): finally started reading this -- I'm still at it, so I'll just give you this quote for now: "I'm always disappointed when I see the word "Puritan" tossed around as shorthand for a bunch of generic, boring, stupid, judgmental killjoys. Because to me, they are very specific, fascinating, sometimes brilliant, judgmental killjoys who rarely agreed on anything except that the Catholics are going to hell."

Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper-- Diablo Cody (2005): I read this ages ago and kept getting stuck on what to say about it (it's a gateway book to many discussions including feminism, the sex industry, self-esteem, journalism, sexual power, memoir, how much is too much, how little is too little, etc.) but this tiny capsule review thing is totally liberating! Here's the deal: Juno's infamous hamburger phone, love of retro slang and pop culture references are all over this book; there's also much sexually frank narration. If this knowledge fills you with dread and dismay, it's probably not the book for you. Also in this memoir: more than you ever wanted to know (if you're me) about what goes on in the Champagne Room. Cody's a very engaging writer and gives all kinds of fascinating strip club insider detail (wigs, performance names, clipboards, who gets paid when and for what, the dollhouse, the variable nature of personal dignity, etc.), but she keeps the reader at a distance. I don't think a memoirist is obliged to explain everything to exhaustion, but I did feel like there was a disconnect between what she was showing me and what she was telling me. The obvious comparison is that the book is written with the same kind of transactional intimacy as a pole dance -- you see everything, but she's not really there.

Moby Dick -- Herman Melville (1851): let's check in with the sailors of the Pequod.

current mood: "All was now a phrensey."

Ahab: still crazy.

Ishmael: sly joker. (genial desperado.)

Queequeg: noble savage.

Flask: butterless yet.

Starbuck: a worried man. (has a worried song.)

White Whale: at large.

Also reading: the Maggie Quinn, Girl vs. Evil series by Rosemary Clement-Moore. These YA (young adult) novels are written (with varying degrees of success) to fill a buffy-sized void. Instead of being a vampire slayer, our heroine Maggie has psychic abilities which she is just learning to control. The first book is her senior year of high school, the second has her in college where I expect she'll stay for the duration of the series. Like Buffy, she has a plucky smartass attitude, supernatural adventures, a mentor, friends, boy troubles, and more homework than she'd like. It's an interesting world with appealing characters, but it doesn't have the multi-layered metaphorical richness of Buffy. To be fair, the series has only begun and maybe it will deepen and become more complex as it goes on. These books are fun and fast paced, but I think they work best if you allow a little time from one to the next. I may have something more specific to say after I finish the latest, which is called Highway to Hell. (Road Trip!)

the hyena

I'm now about halfway through reading Moby Dick. I know, I know! I've been at it for months. It's so good, but as I said a while ago, it's also easy to read a couple of chapters and not pick it up again for weeks or longer because I started another book or there is some unswept corner of the internet that I haven't read yet. Another reason it's slow going is because the whole thing is narrated in my head by a brain sailor. My brain sailor talks slow and stretches out his rrrrrrrrs; he sounds like the Sea Captain on the Simpsons and Admiral Croft from the movie version of Persuasion that I like. The brain sailor cannot be rushed! Melville agrees, since he takes his everlovin' sweet time weaving sails and counting feathers on an albatross before getting to "the vast swells of the omnipotent sea." And whales, of course. So far I haven't gotten to THE WHALE himself, but he looms over the whole story -- I'll probably jump out of my skin when he actually arrives.

Anyway, I was thinking that I'd put this aside AGAIN to read another book which I just got and know I won't be able to renew (Arthur Phillips' The Song is You, which I expect I'll either like quite a bit or hate a lot), but now I'm thinking... I've got 3 weeks before I have to take back the Phillips book, there is no reasonable reason why I couldn't finish this book first and still read the other one... we shall see! If my brain sailor skips out to go to some No Landlubbers Allowed convention with the Morton's fisherman or whoever, anything could happen!

I read the passage below today -- it's the first part of a chapter titled THE HYENA, and it's a wonderful distillation of a certain kind of mood -- one of those dangerous, quicksand states of being often found on an adventure. A "genial, desperado philosophy."

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for the small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regard this whole voyage of the Pequod, and the great White Whale its object.

THAT ODD SORT OF WAYWARD MOOD! (has heart eyes for Melville again.)