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October 09
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New comment on Julia's review of
Going Down South: A Novel
(see all 2 comments)
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Julia
added:
Going Down South: A Novel (Paperback)
by Bonnie Glover (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in September, 2008
Julia said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
The first two sections of the book constitute the Going Down South itself. They use a car trip from Brooklyn to small-town Alabama as a frame for a series of flashbacks setting up the story, first from the point of view of Olivia Jean, a teenager whose unplanned pregnancy is the cause of the trip (her parents want to hide her away until the baby is born), and then of Daisy, her mother, who hasn't been back to see her mother in Alabama since she was a teenager herself and left home under unpleasant circumstances. The third section is told from the point of view of Birdie, Daisy's mother and Olivia Jean's grandmother, reflecting back on Daisy's childhood and her own as she waits for her family to arrive. This car-trip flashback structure is an interesting idea, but in practice, I found that it seriously screws up the pacing of both the reference-time story and the backstory, and I got frustrated with it very quickly.
The second half of the book is structured rather differently, with a floating point of view but a much straighter narrative thread. There are still plenty of flashbacks -- the three central characters are all working through their issues with themselves and each other, which requires much delving into the past -- but they are spaced in a more conventional fashion. This improves the pacing, and various other aspects of the storytelling improve as well. The characters -- all of whom come off as rather stock toward the beginning -- seem more nuanced and original, and the humor rings truer. (There is also less of the repetition and narratorial summaryishness that further bog down the first sections.) The ending is satisfying, if predictable, and rounds off the plot arc nicely.
As well as the book-group discussion questions, this edition of Going Down South also includes an interview with the author. Mostly nothing unexpected, but I did find one thing about it interesting: When the interviewer asked Glover to describe her characters and how she wrote them, she immediately pegged Olivia Jean as a gutsy and intelligent girl who just needs guidance, and said she didn't have any difficulty writing her or imagining her life, whereas she found her mother Daisy -- passionate, bitter, and pretentious -- much harder to understand and to write (though in the end she empathized with her more). However, from the reading side, I found Olivia Jean something of a cipher, while Daisy's inner life and motivations come through much better (at least in the second half). There may be a lesson in that, more than in what can be found in the text of the book....less
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October 02
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Julia
is currently reading:
California General Election: Tuesday, November 4, 2008 - Official Voter Information Guide (Pamphlet)
by Debra Bowen
bookshelves:
currently-reading
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended for: All California voters
Julia said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Proposition 1 (High-Speed Rail Bonds -- which I kept reading as 'High-Speed Bail Bonds'): Rather vague about the specifics of the projects, but since this is a plebicite about funding, not actual project legislation, I gu...more
Of what I've read so far:
Proposition 1 (High-Speed Rail Bonds -- which I kept reading as 'High-Speed Bail Bonds'): Rather vague about the specifics of the projects, but since this is a plebicite about funding, not actual project legislation, I guess that makes some sense. Text of the bill indicates there's more oversight than the opponents would lead one to believe but less than the proponents would. The opposition arguments are clever and even somewhat respectable despite involving the Howard Jarvis Taxpayer(')s Association, but neither side does any rebutting in the rebuttals.
Proposition 2 (Farm Animal Confinement Regs): It really actually does what the Legislative Analysis and the Argument For says it does; the Argument Against is just lying. I wonder what percentage of people actually read the text of the law and would know that? Legislative Analysis felt kinda like the Analyst was restraining herself from saying something, though I don't know what. Argument Against uses waaaaay too many caps. Rebuttal to Argument Against is actually slightly rebuttish.
Proposition 3 (Children's Hospital Bonds): I wonder why it's for hospitals focusing on certain illnesses -- pork, or to tug more heartstrings and get more votes? The opponents do the only thing they rhetorically can in being cleverly 'realistic', I guess. (Well, they could fail to lie, but they don't.) The Argument For opens itself up to that, though, with the 'Imagine' thing. The backdoor-for-treating-undocumented-folk thing is true, and I think they should just be open about that in all the arguments for the thing so they don't look sneaky. Both rebuttals actually rebut, yay! In the text of the law: It says the state auditor 'may audit' the use of the funds. 'May'?!?
Proposition 4 (Parental Notification on Abortion): Same thing we voted down a couple of years ago, except without that obnoxious sneaking in of defining a fetus as 'a person not yet born', so one can actually evaluate the proposition on its merits this time. Except I think a lot of people (including probably me) will still be taking more account of where it puts the trend of the law than of what it would do in itself. I think I'm reading some partiality in the Fiscal Analysis, but maybe not. The Argument For gets a real, bona-fide, straight-up Rebuttal. But for all the wrong reasons, and not having anything to do with the proposition; everything in the Arguments is all about questionable events Planned Parenthood may or may not have had anything to do with years ago, not about the merits (or the facts) of the proposition in general. What the hell does 'sufficiently mature and well-informed to decide' mean?
Proposition 5 (Drug Offense Sentencing and Rehabilitation): A smorgasbord proposition, though not as bad as some -- a mix of rehab program design and funding, parole rubric redef, and reorganization of the Dept. of Corrections (obviously some power struggle going on). You can tell it's a peoples' prop because of the pages of Whereases. Urgh. Interesting the citing and counter-citing of opposing studies in the Arguments. Also interesting that the proponents harp on 'science-based drug education programs' (sad that they need to harp on the science part, but damn do they). Argument Against is lying about drug dealers being eligible for any of this lenience; the legislation says at the beginning that nothing in it applies to dealers. (But again, how many people are going to read the thing and know?) I think it could do without the definition of harm-reduction as being 'free of judgment or blame' -- good luck finding angelically unjudgmental social workers. Still reading the (looooooooong) text of the law, still trying to figure out what the Argument Against means about 'allowing defendants to continue using drugs while in rehab' (because it includes (as redirect-to-rehab programs always have) methadone programs? because they can be prescribed antidepressants or antipsychotics? because the consequences of failure aren't considered severe enough to deter? or because there's a bit about it not being a violation if you're not in treatment yet or are only in a temporary non-personalized treatment program?).
And I will take this opportunity for a great general BLAAARGH about a political setup that is so allergic to admitting it might have to raise taxes to accomplish something that it has gotten in the habit of doing it by selling bonds instead, which means it ends up paying twice as much, but any associated tax raises to pay off all the bonds can just be called general rather than anyone's having to admit that they were raised for any particular reason. BLAAAAAARRRGH!!!
...less
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September 22
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Julia
added:
Tomato Girl (Hardcover)
by Jayne Pupek (Goodreads author!)
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended to Julia by:
Jayne Pupek
read in August, 2008
Julia said:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
But it's that 'usually' that makes all the difference; Tomato Girl is a thoroughly almost-good novel. On so many levels, it reaches for and almost achieves something special, but falls just short. The experience of reading this author's first published novel was, in fact, rather like watching someone play a sport they're just good enough at to have gotten onto the team; you can see so many ways they could fail, but they succeed just often enough that you still get the feeling of having your hopes dashed when they flub it. And unfortunately, being able to see the author's process so easily kept me from really getting absorbed in what might otherwise have been quite a captivating novel.
The novel begins with a prologue from the point of view of the narrator, Ellie, as an adult, then jumps in near the end of the main story arc for the first chapter, then begins at the beginning in the second chapter. I assume this time-layering and difficult, stuttery distance is supposed to give us a feeling of what it must be like to be an early-middle-aged woman trying to face the events of a traumatic childhood, but it is not skillfully enough done, and merely serves to make the book difficult to get into. Likewise, I can see why the author chose to tell the reader nearly everything that's going to happen in the story in that first chapter (Ellie's father will fall in love with a teenage tomato-grower, get sick of dealing with Ellie's crazy mother, run away with the tomato girl under unpleasant circumstances, and leave Ellie to deal with the increasingly out-of-control mother (who keeps a baby in a jar) on her own, with emotional support only from an elderly psychic with the wrong color skin) -- it gives us a sense of the narrator and her direct matter-of-factness, and a proper feeling of impending doom -- and, done right, I could see it working very well. But in this case, it merely serves to rob the book of suspense and make any foreshadowing that happens later seem irrelevant.
There are enough good things about Tomato Girl to make it worth reading if you're into emotional twistiness. The narrative is reasonably evocative, if a bit repetitive, the setting is thorough, and the characters have some depth and grab. Tess, the tomato girl, is interestingly portrayed and recognizable -- even if you don't really want to recognize her -- and the narrator's unusually-but-humanly flawed parents and friend(s) make a good supporting cast. (In fact, I found Ellie to be the weakest character, though I assume she is meant to be the strongest.) Most of the emotionally-charged images make the lasting impression they're supposed to. However, there are just too many amateurish mistakes for the novel to get away with the out-of-the-ordinary structural and dramatic choices that ought to have made it truly special and memorable.
Reviewed for GUD Magazine. Approximately the same review, and a raffle to win my review copy, can be found at www.gudmagazine.com....less
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September 21
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Julia
gave
to:
Sense and Sensibility (Paperback)
by Jane Austen
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Julia by:
My dad, away back when
recommended for: Anyone who can stand it
read in September, 2008
Julia said:
"Reread this instead of reading another Austen that I haven't read because, well, I've read it before, so that means I won't get sucked in, right? (I always think that.) But of course, that's not the point with Austen -- one doesn't even need to hav...more
Reread this instead of reading another Austen that I haven't read because, well, I've read it before, so that means I won't get sucked in, right? (I always think that.) But of course, that's not the point with Austen -- one doesn't even need to have read that particular book before to know what's going to happen, really. It's about the entertainment of the thing. Well, and the depth that she manages to cram in sideways so you almost don't notice it, though I think there's more of it (and more noticeably) in Sense and Sensibility than in the rest of hers that I've read (probably why it's my favorite Austen). I like thinking. :) Hey, I wonder whether early exposure to Austen influenced my habit of constant social analysis and general social-sciencey outlook (I'd've gone into Discourse Analysis if I'd stayed in grad school)... (And my father, the English Lit professor, despised the social sciences... Heh.)
A line I shall treasure, and use to justify to myself those occasions when I fail to bother arguing with people: 'Elinor agreed with it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.' (Approx.) (Well, really I'm just morally lazy, but it's nice to know some famous author out there thinks one can fail to argue for what one thinks is right and it's okay, or heck, one may even get to feel superior for it...)
It's hard to gauge from the perspective of now exactly how much of what she wrote was consciously critical and how much just looks like satire because the situation looks so ridiculous from our remove, and I think sometimes people do read too much in, but there is a heck of a lot there that I, at least, think really is there. And, as someone just pointed out to me, just because one is pointing out flaws in the system doesn't necessarily mean one thinks anything should be done about them, much less that it should be overthrown. OK, this is getting _too_ vague, but that's the odd thing about throwing reviews out there of very-known, very-written-about books; one isn't going to say anything new about them, one is just entering into an ongoing conversation, but one doesn't necessarily know where one's interlocutors are going to be entering from...
[Actually read as part of a Penguin collected-works edition.:]...less
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September 06
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Julia
gave
to:
Night Train at Normal Illinois, Issue 6 (Paperback)
by Rusty Barnes (Goodreads author!)
bookshelves:
edited
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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read in January, 2005
Julia said:
"I joined Night Train with proofreading this issue, the last print one, and that after a bit of a hiatus. A good mixture of things, of course; generally gritty (mostly in a good way); usually captivating and memorable; always a little something diffe...more
I joined Night Train with proofreading this issue, the last print one, and that after a bit of a hiatus. A good mixture of things, of course; generally gritty (mostly in a good way); usually captivating and memorable; always a little something different....less
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September 05
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New comment on Julia's review of
The Dispossessed
(see all 4 comments)
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Julia
gave
to:
The Dispossessed (Paperback)
by Ursula K. Le Guin
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my rating:
Added to my books!
add my review
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recommended to Julia by:
Zach
read in January, 1998
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Julia
gave
to:
Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-Crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (Paperback)
by Hunter S. Thompson
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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recommended to Julia by:
Mark
read in January, 2004
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Julia
gave
to:
GUD: Greatest Uncommon Denominator (magazine) Issue 3
by Debbie Moorhouse
bookshelves:
edited
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my rating:
Added to my books!
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Julia said:
"Our usual mix of all kinds of stuff for all kinds of tastes; even the on-theme (Mechanical Flight) stuff has plenty of variety, which makes it a good sort of a theme. Though it did tend to lead to pieces that required an awful lot of fact-checking. ...more
Our usual mix of all kinds of stuff for all kinds of tastes; even the on-theme (Mechanical Flight) stuff has plenty of variety, which makes it a good sort of a theme. Though it did tend to lead to pieces that required an awful lot of fact-checking. Personal favorites: fiction by Malcolm-Clarke, Dorin, Connolly, Weinman, Henry, Morganfield, and Antosca; poetry by Jackson and Eastman; and, um, some art. ...less
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I want to apologize for the all the recommendations from me today. I wanted to share the Stoker Award news, and I only pressed the send button once--I'm not sure what happened.
What she said! Do yer laundry!
Bienvenu a Londres!
