A.M.’s Comments (group member since Jul 09, 2020)

A.M.’s comments from the DUCKS reading support group group.

Stopping at "the fact that what's kind of funny is how, the whole time Ronny was here, I was trying to talk to him over James Mason, hoping Ronny wouldn't notice Bigger Than Life was on, in case he thought I was just sitting around watching TV, or it led to a big discussion of Hollywood, and all his favorite actors and action movies, and anything else that occurred to him," (which is preceded by quite a lot about Ronny, actually).

Norma wrote: "I won't comment further because I've finished the book--and no spoilers allowed."

Definitely come back in a couple of weeks and give us your overall thinking on the last post!

Sandra wrote: "Angel I love your Haiku!"

tee hee ;)

Sandra wrote: "Even though this is book is totally different this reading experience reminds me of the Karl Ove Knausgard series of books."

I haven't read these! Thank you for the tip.

Norma wrote: "When I began the book, I thought I would go mad with every thought beginning with, "the fact is." I wanted to scream. Sometimes the word play, the lists, also maddened me. I wanted to get on with t..."

I thought that too, but now I've got into the rhythm I barely even notice.

Welcome! Thanks for joining. I hope we can keep you moving through it. I'm personally enjoying it even more than I thought I would, and I think it's tremendously readable and relatable.

Oh wow! I'm more like this:

"fith" (fifth) - yes
"sickth" (sixth) - no
"lie-berry" (library) - no
"cran" (crayon) - yes
"mannaize" (mayonnaise) - yes
"carmul" (caramel) - yes
"scwurl" (squirrel) - yes
"meer" (mirror) - yes
"tal" (towel) - yes

BUT I code-switch; I'll happily eat carmul in Arkensaw while lookin in the meer dryin my hair with a tal, but in the UK I will absolutely notice the skwih-rill climbing the tree or the cray-on my child left on the floor.

Bigger Than Life
North by Northwest
Mr Blandings
There’s Always Tomorrow
The Lady Eve
Fantastic Voyage
Bringing Up Baby
All That Heaven Allows
Holiday
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
His Girl Friday
Towering Inferno
Magnificent Obsession
Imitation of Life
Network
Marnie
Summertime
You Can’t Take It With You
It’s A Wonderful Life

In terms of the Narrator’s life, she’s making and latticing cherry pies in this part. She’s hoping these pies will impress her client Cathy, who usually bakes her own cherry pies for customers, but who typically focuses on meat pies. Narrator wants to supply all of Cathy’s fruit pies, including the cherry ones.

There’s a little in here about self-defense, which then leads on to police brutality. Narrator is worried about Stacy’s vulnerability at the age where she is young enough to be pretty vulnerable, but old enough to be in vulnerable situations. A bunch follows about school shootings and generalised people-being-horrible-to-people stuff.

And not just people, but also animals. In addition to passing references about racehorses and other racing/fighting animals, there’s a horrible little passage about an egg factory that had two tornadoes, and the effect afterward on the hens, just crammed into buildings and left to die. It’s so overwhelmingly awful that Narrator thinks to herself she explicitly has to change the subject, which I don’t think has happened before—I mean, obviously she’ll say “dear or dear” or “no no no” when things get a little racy, but has she explicitly told herself to pick a different topic? The chickens are clearly very dear to her. There also is a later mention of cow brutality which I found rather difficult to read.

Perhaps the most worrying bit in this whole piece is Leo’s assessment of the country’s bridges; they’re all structurally unsound and you MUST NOT LINGER on them.

We see the lions again. This time we see them in explicit contrast to humans—they are learning to stay away from people—and in other situations where they have to learn how to live safely, to catch food, to respect other animals.

We’ve been having a little discussion about the lions as a comparison and even potential foreshadowing for Narrator’s real life. From this little section, I don’t know. It seems to me that Narrator really does love Leo—and like him, and fancy him—so seems unlikely to follow in the fantasy footsteps of the lion in the interludes. But she is definitely concerned about teaching her little cubs how to be safe in life.

Oh yes—Narrator reckons red velvet cake should be velvet because of beets. This is a BRITISH CORRUPTION and it will not stand.

Homework: read what happened to the White House vegetable patch.

Welcome Sandra!! Yes take your time; the topics will just be here when you are ready. It's so readable you may even overtake us!

I'm behind AGAIN, but listen, I have a great excuse: I did a writing workshop this morning and wrote just under 5k words on my now newly-plotted WIP (and I don't even think "the fact that" featured as a phrase anywhere). So I'll be here to walk about Day 3 tomorrow, and Day 4 on Sat, and Day 5 on Sun (kind of like last week), and then Week 3 day 1 on Mon. SORRRREEEE

Edited because today is apparently Thursday hahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa *dies*

Ending at "the fact that I should tell her about Ronny, the fact that maybe he and her dad would get along well, the fact that maybe her dad would like a guy like Ronny turning up all the time," which follows some thoughts about her client Cathy and the fact that Cathy is a carer for her elderly father.

I found one on a website called "Pudge Factor" which is a promising name. It turns out you need a special pan for them, kind of like a cast iron shallow muffin pan, but only if your muffins are very small with round bottoms like me. Here's her recipe, which has been adapted to an American palate (typically they use buckwheat flour where she has used all-purpose):


Poffertjes

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups (12 ounces, 350 ml) milk, heated to about 105° F (See Tip 1)
2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
1 3/4 cups (8.75 ounces, 250 grams) all-purpose flour
2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1 large egg
Unsalted butter (See Tip 2)
Confectioners' sugar for sprinkling on Poffertjes

INSTRUCTIONS
Add yeast to lukewarm milk; stir to combine. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes or until frothy.
Whisk together flour, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add milk/yeast mixture and egg. Beat with electric mixer on high until smooth, about 1 minute. (See Tip 3)
Cover bowl with plastic wrap; let sit until bubbly and doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
Heat Poffertjes pan on medium heat until hot, 3 to 4 minutes. Brush cavities with melted butter. Add about 1 tablespoon of batter to each of the cavities. When small bubbles start to appear and the top starts to look a bit dried out, quickly flip Poffertjes. (See Tips 4 and 5)
Allow Poffertjes to cook on other side until nicely browned, about 2 minutes. Remove from pan. Repeat with remaining batter.
Serve hot with a pat of butter and sprinkling of confectioners' sugar. Yield, about 60 Poffertjes.


TIPS
I used whole milk. However, you could also use low-fat milk. I heated the milk in my microwave on full power for about a minute.
I melted about a tablespoon of butter to use for greasing the cavities of the Poffertjes pan.
I could have also used a whisk to beat the ingredients together to form a smooth batter.
If you've ever made pancakes, you should know how they look when it's time to flip them over - small bubbles appearing and the top looking a bit dried out.
While cooking the Poffertjes, watch the heat carefully. You might need to lower the heat just a little bit to prevent the Poffertjes from burning.

Gone With the Wind
The Wizard of Oz
Dr Zhivago
The Bridge
The Apartment
The Odd Couple
High Noon
Shane
Stagecoach
Red River
Casablanca
It’s A Wonderful Life
Annie Get Your Gun
Fiddler on the Roof
It’s Complicated
Pride and Prejudice (yes, the film!)
The King’s Speech
Bigger Than Life

This section is called “aphid grandma.”

I’m glad Narrator was a history teacher because I’m learning a lot of history from her. I had no idea about the Moravian massacre or the Sand Creek massacre, but it doesn’t surprise me, this extra bit of knowledge about America’s shameful, bloody past, recalled among a madeleine baking session.

There’s something else interesting in that: Narrator can’t remember and claims she wants to forget, but she actively and on purpose taught history: the one subject that is devoted to remembering things.

I’m no good at Latin unless I’m singing it, so what does “Omnes tenebrae videre non possum” (her erstwhile employer's motto) actually mean? A google translate suggests it’s something like “I can’t see in the dark” or maybe “I can’t see because it’s too dark” but that seems unlikely—then again, maybe not so unlikely?

I’m interested to learn that despite Narrator’s interest in clean air and clean water and social justice, she’s not at all into the idea of protest, mainly out of fear of annoying or offending people, which I guess comes out of her anxiety. But speaking as an anxious person who doesn’t particularly want to antagonize my neighbors, I absolutely do want to protest things that are unjust. (Then again, I also have a problem with authority and always have, so maybe this is simply a personality difference.)

She’s all over the place in this, but one main theme is that we learn more about her Daddy: how he intimidated her when she was young, without meaning to; how he was a softie at heart, affected by sappy movies and so on, but how she still always felt she was a disappointment to him. How he died before her Mommy even though Mommy had been sick for far longer. Narrator mentions her dad far less in this than her mother, but she is still affected deeply by the way their relationship was, especially by her desire for his approval.

Great news for Narrator in this section: the cocktail party is CANCELLED. Bad news, though: Ronny is here hauling her feed around (I think? She's certainly thinking about him in any case) and she is trying to keep it formal so he doesn’t keep talking to her.

We get another lion episode, this one talking about the dreams of the lions, with a particular focus on the kittens, who also dream of their future but with no idea what reality really holds for lions. There is an obvious contrast here, especially with idealistic Stacey and bookworm Ben with all his phobias.

UNRELIABLE NARRATOR ALERT: She claims she doesn’t like musicals and indeed has always tried to avoid them! Honey, we've read your mind, and we know better.

Homework: have a look at the crazy Woodrow Wilson portrait she mentions (and more).

Today we are stopping at "the fact that Leo was married to someone before me, an iguana, the fact that she had an iguana, she wasn't an iguana herself," which revelation follows a small discussion about how Ronny (Narrator's admirer/sex pest) is a MAGA dude.

I'm searching desperately for Laura Ingall's Wilder's homemade noodle recipe, but meanwhile I've found one from a grandma:

Vintage Homemade Noodles

INGREDIENTS
4 egg yolks
2 egg whites
1 cup enough flour to roll

INSTRUCTIONS
Beat eggs together and add flour.
Roll dough out on a heavily floured surface.
Cut noodles and then separate.
Boil noodles for 20 minutes in salted water.
Put in sieve and pour cold water over them.
Fry in hot brown butter until very brown.

Narrator has lost her recipe for fanouropita cake, and obviously she can't make a fanouropita cake to find it--unless she googles one, like I did (though she might not find the one she likes!). I found this one with 9 ingredients (assuming the salt doesn't count as an ingredient) including nuts and raisins, which Narrator always substitutes.

Fanouropita cake

INGREDIENTS
375 g seed oil
375 g orange juice
300 g granulated sugar
1 teaspoon(s) baking soda
1 teaspoon(s) cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon(s) cloves
540 g self-rising flour
120 g walnuts (leave these out; use thinly sliced olive instead)
75 g raisins (leave these out; use a little splash of brandy instead)
salt

METHOD
Preheat oven to 170* C (347* F) Fan.
Use a hand whisk to beat the sugar, vegetable oil and 250 g fresh orange juice in a large bowl, until the sugar melts.
In a separate bowl, combine the remaining 125 g of orange juice with the baking soda, cinnamon and cloves. Mix with a fork until the baking soda froths.
Add the baking soda mixture to the bowl with the sugar and whisk thoroughly.
Add the flour, walnuts, salt and raisins. Mix until all of the ingredients are completely combined.
Transfer to a baking pan 25x30 cm and bake for 50-60 minutes.

Serve with icing sugar and mint leaves. [these are also not "ingredients"]

It’s Complicated
Bringing Up Baby
The Birds
Mrs Miniver
Fargo
The Stepford Wives (I’ve popped this one into the group bookshelf too)
Groundhog Day
Now, Voyager

Today’s section is called Mind Your Own Brain.

First, before anything else, “shyness” to “Harrison Ford” to “exit wounds” to “anal sex” is more than a few jumps, it’s a few giant gravity-defying leaps for mankind.

In this portion we get a little more of the Jesus saves story: Narrator was stuck for 3 hours before he rescued her, but in the end she wasn’t late for anything important. It also seems that episode was a few days before, not just the previous day—which I should have known better than to assume.

Now, a few days later, she’s off to the grocery store with her kids to get 7 Up and underwear (and a bunch of other things). She gives the kids a pronunciation test [and they all sound like they’re from the South so that indicates that they got all the pronunciations wrong—you think I don’t see you, Lucy?]. At the store there are a bunch of careless jerks, as there always are, including one MAGA guy with a mean dog. Narrator is concerned about the quality of the meat—and would be even if it were organic. This makes Stacy’s point about veganism very nicely for her, I think.

We also get another short lion interlude, where the mother lion is absolutely taking no chances seeing that LOSER again—she changes her den after sniffing traces of his urine in the area. The babies are more than happy to stay close to their mother’s side—they trust her and they want to make her happy. (Why aren’t our kids doing this in quarantine, am I right?)

After the lion bit, we get the first definitive date and time in this story: the first images of Pluto arrived back on Earth on 27 May 2016. Or maybe it was December 2015. Less definitive than you might have thought, really. (Speaking of Pluto, her kids want a dog now, but Narrator would really rather have a little farm.)

We learn that when narrator was small in Italy, her nursery teachers put on an elaborate show at her nursery school, complete with hand-sewn feathery costumes. When she was a teenager, too, the neighborhood kids put on a production of Oliver. (Why aren’t our kids doing this in quarantine either?) Given these are two stand-out memories for her, and given how often operas and stage plays and music in general features in her thought patterns, I do wonder if Narrator—shyness notwithstanding—might have wanted to pursue a career on the stage. Then again, she says in this passage that she was terrible at pronunciation, which may have impacted her inclination to act, if not her ability.

There is also a really interesting short passage about the reality of her parents, how she believes they were real in a way she will never be, and how sad she is that their history has disappeared with them. This book, of course, is one fictional woman’s history over a short period of time, and Ellmann says in an interview (I cannot find the original interview, but I have found a few articles that reference it), that Ducks is "representative of all consciousness."

With that in mind, it’s interesting that Narrator says Laura Ingalls Wilder was wrong to preserve her memory—she says let it slip; there’s a lot you have to blank out if you want to get through life, and she (Narrator) does it on purpose.

There’s a lot about the various polluted local rivers and streams, and how Ben is sampling them and keeping them in their freezer—which Leo points out is probably no worse than their regular drinking water. Oof.

Finally, I’m with Narrator on lighting these days; I hate icy blue new Christmas lamps and the blue-white headlights on cars, and fluorescents in general.

So now that civilisation has ground to a halt within a year thanks to a pandemic, I wonder how Ben is feeling . . .

Am I crazy or did I already post this topic? We are reading to "the fact that Hillary often seems to laugh inappropriately, the fact that maybe she can't help it, that fact that she's friends with Kissinger,". It follows a discussion of pollution in the Ohio River.

What I had said before is that I am a day behind, but don't let that stop you from going ahead and talking about it! I'll be here tomorrow.