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

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

Lee wrote: "You can't beat "the fact that you assume everyone's essentially kindly, and then you find out they happily poisoned everybody for the sake of profits" for disillusionment with your fellow man."

Ahhh that is a really good illustration of the Narrator's state of mind. I think she's been fairly naive throughout her life and has been watching the "recently" (really more visibly) horrible state of the world wondering how on earth it happened.

Lee wrote: "I was intrigued by "the fact that Hillary Clinton claims she's always got hot sauce in her purse", which fact I had never heard. Turns out she did indeed say this during an interview on an Urban radio station, which could be cringey, except that apparently her love of hot sauce is well-established."

I knew this and I have Opinions. It was a bit cringey for Hillary despite her love for hot sauce being long-established; it was somehow not cringey for Beyonce (despite Hot Sauce perhaps being the name of her baseball bat!). There's a lot to talk about: shared southern culture that is indifferent to race, what we "expect" from someone we read as white versus someone we read as BIPOC, oh lord just so much that is well beyond the scope of this book--which was not written by, for, or about Southerners (but is obviously good and valid nonetheless). I have a whole thesis in my mind about how the modern idea of "black American culture" is actually rooted in Southern culture as a whole, and how messed up that is for so many reasons--and not just because it makes it look like Hillary Clinton was engaging in black cultural appropriation when in fact what she was engaging in was Southern cultural appropriation--making herself look like a down-home gal to smooth off her Yankee edges.

Lee wrote: "I did not know you are supposed to think about sex at the dentist. No one ever told me this. Those poor hygienists and dentists."

My cousin is a hygienist; I wonder if she thinks she has to think about sex all the time at work. I'll ask her!

Rory wrote: "I loved this section, especially the abominable snowpeople, but I think that's because it has the closest we've come so far to story. (don't get me wrong, I'm not jonesing for story, it's just my l..."

How did you feel about how it ended, though, with basically a lion cut scene?

North by Northwest
Heartburn
Bigger Than Life
Now, Voyager
Chattanooga Choo Choo
Casablanca
Brief Encounter
The Wizard of Oz
The Sound of Music
The 39 Steps
It’s Complicated
Sideways
The Odd Couple
Fail-Safe
The Apartment
Being There
The Accidental Tourist
Sleepless In Seattle
Broadcast News
The Birds
Mr Smith Goes to Washington
Sleeper
Raising Arizona
Shane
Groundhog Day
The Fugitive
Witness
White Christmas

Can we call this one “succulent chicks”?!

We return to find the narrator stuck in the cold, ruminating on why nobody will stop for her, and wondering if people can tell that she’s middle-aged and therefore no longer young and beautiful, with all the attendant thoughts that idea brings up.

We are learning more about Stacy, who is a conscientious vegan environmentalist teen (except when she eats poffertjes and bacon), the kind you imagine you will want but who in actuality will probably be a massive pain in the ass. Narrator makes the point that there is no public transport(ATION, am I right, Americans?!) and that they can’t get rid of their car and just walk around, because they might get shot, which is SO TRUE and one of the primary reasons I couldn’t wander around in the woods that were very near my house when I was a kid. A real shame.

As Narrator freezes, we get another lion interlude, a SEXY lion interlude, where we learn how the little lion cubs were conceived. The mother lion did not mate for life; she enjoyed their time for a while then left him. This is obviously very unlike Narrator, who wouldn’t leave Leo (HANG ON, LEO, LION, OMG) after conceiving her own three cubs with him . . . but maybe she would fantasize about it briefly—and then tell herself off for doing so.

After the interlude we find Narrator back home the next morning, warm and with her children, making breakfast. Jesus saved her—Jesus López Pérez, that is. It's a little vague, but I take it she’s delivered her pies, but worries about whether she overdid it with her client Cathy--did you infer that too?

This section is wide-ranging with themes we’ve already touched on (pollution, American history, purple martins, the Amish), but one of the things that starts breaking through quite a lot is that Narrator was broken by her mother’s death.

We also figure out that Chuck was her first serious boyfriend (I think we kind of had that before, but now it’s explicitly spelled out), and we hear a little more about their relationship. There’s an interesting link between Chuck and Narrator’s mother’s illness and her current inability to enjoy stuff, and that is the complex her dad gave her about kissing her boyfriend while her mother was upstairs ill.

An accidentally topical quote: “I guess, just because you write children’s books doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the nicest person in the world” :D :D

Weekend homework: book a table at Andre Allard (now "Restaurant Allard"), fly to Paris, eat all the olives.

Rory wrote: "(I think it's useful to highlight the duplicates)"

Ok in that case I'll stop deleting them--from now on I'll just list what I spotted as I went along.

This time we'll stop at "the fact that we would definitely be better off financially if I wasn't so shy, the fact that all my life it's been that way, the fact that I'll get like Miss Havisham if I don't watch it," which follows a lot of thinking about Amish life.

Candy Corn Cob

INGREDIENTS
1/2 c. (1 stick) butter, softened
1/2 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
1 c. almond flour
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
2 (20-oz.) bags candy corn

DIRECTIONS
In a large bowl using a hand mixer, beat butter and sugar together, then add vanilla. Add almond flour and salt and beat until combined. Divide dough into 4 equal pieces. On plastic wrap, form each piece into a log. Refrigerate until solid, 2 hours.

When cookie dough is well chilled, push candy corn into cookie dough in rows. Refrigerate until ready to serve, at least 1 hour.

apples’n’onions

INGREDIENTS
leftover onions
leftover apples

DIRECTIONS
Caramelize the onions, then add big chunks of apple. Flavor with cinnamon and cloves. Let it simmer until the apples are just soft (not mushy).

Yep! and:

Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Hannah and her Sisters
His Girl Friday
Being There
Kramer Vs Kramer
All The President’s Men
Heartburn
When Harry Met Sally
The Apartment
Play It Again, Sam
The Great Lie
Green Card

(Maybe I should be adding these to/editing a single alphabetically-sorted post--I'm sure I'm getting duplicates)

I didn't name the last section, but I'm calling this one "Wake Up Picture Day."

Damn, straight in on this section with yet another relatable thought, that she loves it when it turns blue at twilight, the best time of day there is. I love twilight so much that one of the words I insist on reminding my children about is “crepuscular.” She also thinks angel food is the best cake, AND SHE IS RIGHT, plus she constantly tells herself the Betty Botter bought some butter tongue-twister. I read a review that describes Narrator as “a white woman living in a white world, afraid of everything” so I’m trying not to relate toooooo much, but I’m failing.

Not related to the text at all, I was recently lauding My Year of Rest and Relaxation as one of the few really good books about a Gen X character, but thinking about it, this is one too. I was specifically thinking about representations of Gen X in our youth, because of course we’re all stuck there, but the reality is that we are all middle-aged. Oh no!

We start to see more of Narrator’s self-correction in this little bit, where she starts down a path with “anal” then “oh no no no no”s herself, and then jokes to herself about a dead heiress—then tells herself off. She does this a fair amount throughout; this is definitely a trait that either describes or contributes to her anxiety. It’s amazing that she managed to start her own catering business, since the first couple of places she asked knocked her back, but it seems that her desire to do the right thing—and the fact that she really need the money—trumped her shyness.

She wonders if she’s actually any use, though, which is very sad. She's pretty accomplished! I for one am pretty sure I’ll never attempt a tarte tatin after reading this. I mentioned Doomsday preppers in the previous section, and it's interesting to see she’s talking about them now. There’s another comparison with their very manly approach (they reckon they’ll be ok just hunting and gathering) and her own (she thinks limited) skill-set—maybe when the world ends she can trade pies for firewood. Hey, sounds useful to me.

I’m ENORMOUSLY fond of the whole discussion about Julie and Julia—YES everyone hates the Julie part, and a movie about just Julia Childs would have been so much more interesting. Someone even did an “& Julia supercut” but it got yanked, what a load of bs.

In terms of Narrator’s day, her older kids have already gone off to school, but little Jake is finally finishing up his breakfast, so soon he’ll be off to nursery. (Jake only likes O-shaped food. Same, Jake.) She also finally goes to the bathroom! (Oh, and she gets a sneezing fit, and she steps on a toy.) She finally gets Jake out of the house, and they’re off to their first stop, the dentist. She’s absolutely traumatized by the hygienist’s new equipment, which I believe I have also had. It really is like having your whole mouth sandblasted, as she says, and it really is very unpleasant. Jake gets to nursery while she’s still in shock after the hygienist visit, she sets off to deliver her pies and . . . she gets a flat tire, and she doesn’t have her phone. It’s so cold out she reckons the sees the Abominable Snowman, and she wonders about his family.

That flyer they pinned up to advertise her cakes is absolute genius, truly beautiful. By the way, I finally googled fanouropita, and it turns out that it’s a Greek cake that you bake when you have lost something and you need to find it. Apt, for Narrator.

Before I forget, there are a couple of really insulting remarks here that definitely marks Narrator out as a Yankee: 1. no truly American food?! go south, bish 2. an uncooked BBQ sauce made of apricot jam? stay north, bish 3. “nobody eats aspics anymore” oh honey, bless your heart.

Homework: draw a picture as soon as you wake up, based on your dreams.

Stopping at "the fact that it would be like suddenly coming out with something like 'mists and mellow fruitfulness' in the middle of a conversation about raking the leaves," which comes along shortly after a long riff about Abominable Snowfolk.

Rory wrote: "I'm failing with the plan - and not taking part in the discussion - insofar as I am reading ahead and then forgetting where the boundaries between days are."

We can be fluid!

Lee wrote: "I'm seeing the lion interludes as presenting something of a contrast with our narrator, though as you say it's also about being mothers. The narrator's life is restricted, the lioness's life is expansive, the narrator is shy and not confident, the lioness is strong and powerful. The lioness is how she'd like to be more like?"

I think this is right, and I think it also gels (in a slightly different sense) with the way Ellmann thinks about animals, too. I've got more interviews with her (I'll eventually share them) and I've seen her remark more than once that we need to think more carefully about animals. For example, she doesn't like the way we treat pets; I get the feeling she would rather see all animals living wild lives, thereby gaining maximum fulfillment in a manner that is correct for them.

I wonder if she would also like her narrator to have a wilder life--is her Narrator constrained, like a declawed, belled cat?

Lee wrote: "Angel wrote: "turtles getting deformed with six-pack rings."

This part reminded me of a viral tweet recently saying whoever did the PR campaign in the nineties about cutting these rings so animals..."

Lee, you're absolutely right! In fact, I wonder if UK people were as bombarded with this message--and I wonder if this is another Britishism, in the sense that she *didn't think of that* (and she will be about our age).

Samson et Dalila

Mr Blandings
Monsoon Wedding
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
The Three Musketeers
Gone With The Wind
Scaramouche (probably the film, not the book, right?)
The Cabin in the Cotton
The Little Foxes
A Stolen Life (1946 film—seems more likely in context than the Jaycee Dugard book)
The Thin Man
Bringing Up Baby
The Music Man
A Master Builder (2013) (definitely the film in context, though she'll know the play)
Groundhog Day
The Bridges of Madison County
All That Heaven Allows

Ok thanks for waiting! I thought it might be a good idea to let anyone catch up, if anyone is behind, and also I had a super productive work day yesterday (after 16 weeks of homeschool pain) so didn't have time to put my summary notes in order.

On a quick personal note, regarding the early reference to "Safari Park Fire Kills 33 Patas Monkeys: Fun (?) fact, this relates to an incredibly tragic fire at Woburn Safari Park, where we took our kids shortly before the fire. We took a video of some of the monkeys, and after the fire, the Daily Mail stole my video and tried to get retroactive permission to use it. I had to “remind” them several times that they were still using my property without permission before they finally took it down.

Onto the book. WE LEARN that Narrator had a heart defect and operation when she was a baby, and that her family lived in London for a while when she was a child. She associates England with incessant gray skies, but, I mean, it’s not that bad. Possibly it was for a kid, but why it would be any worse than it is in the north part of the USA I’m not sure.

Naturally I’m totally into this London stuff; if she had a place at Channing School in Highgate and they were living in Knightsbridge it would have taken her like an hour and half to get to school, oh my god! Moving over to Highgate was, yes, obviously better, but the big elephant in the room for me is . . .she didn’t like Rose’s lime marmalade? What’s wrong with her? It’s literally the best on hot toast with salted butter mmmmmm

Speaking of food. Lemon drizzle cake. This ain’t American. We don’t need to drizzle our cakes to make them moist. We just make moist cakes. Check yourself before you wreck yourself, Lucy.

See also: joss sticks. We don’t say this, do we, Americans? I’ve been gone a while, but I’m pretty sure Americans would only ever say “incense sticks.” Then again, these are damn Yankees, so maybe they do things weird up there.

Also, late on in this section—bollards. Do we have bollards? It was a term unfamiliar to me when I came to the UK (but, again, Yankees).

I found it particularly interesting that Narrator thinks she has nothing of her mother’s, then lists loads of things she has that were her mother’s. Of course, what she is really missing is her actual mother.

Ok—the “we all swallowed something bad when we were babies” part hits home so much. I think back to my childhood—which was pretty protected—and I was protected *nothing like* the way I protect my own children. I think I destroyed my intestines forever by happily munching through an entire bottle of Flinstones vitamins with extra iron. We had a loaded gun in our house, never locked up, for heaven’s sake. I mean I never swallowed that, but you know what I mean. The whole thing gives me shivers.

Speaking of guns: we get a lot of guns in this section, accompanied by many statistics about violence, plus some very typical mom thinking about kids and guns and kids maybe not being taught how to use guns, etc. A privilege I have over here is that I don’t need to ask parents what their “gun situation” is before I send my kids to their house to play.

And then guns naturally lead to . . . men (sorry, men), and men massacring their families, and men never paying “child maintenance” (aka “child support,” am I right AMERICANS?). Even Ronny is armed, first thing in the morning (which reminds me of a first date I had in college where 1. it was a breakfast date and 2. I noticed the guy had an ankle holster. There was not a second date).

Speaking of men, there's an extended riff about Daily Carry. This is kind of up my street too. My daily carry is: my keys, which have a tool on them that opens parcels, and my phone, which lives on a kind of string around my neck and has a sticker wallet on the back that holds my cards. I can get away without that a lot of the time, too, if I wear my Apple watch, which can let me do contactless payments (but of course then I wouldn’t have my phone, which I’m addicted to). The Daily Carry guys, though, are virtually Doomsday Preppers. This article about the phenomenon includes the phrase “masculine cosplay,” which, yes.

There’s a lot in this about “doing the right thing"--from actively doing it, to actively avoiding doing the wrong thing, to being shocked and confused when people actively do wrong things. Maybe even our Narrator’s pies are fuelling people who have just committed gun crimes! I love her dreams where she is able to overcome her shyness and demand that people do the right thing, but even in her dreams it seems that she isn't always successful.

She talks more about her mother here, but the emotion really shines through when she talks about Abby again. We also learn that Abby used to hang her toilet paper the wrong way. Oh dear, Abby.

I’m delighted that Narrator repeatedly uses “enormity” correctly (sometimes exaggeratedly, as in describing the drizzle cake mess) after having pointed out that nobody knows what it means.

“Popeye loves ya, Olive” gets quoted. DID YOU KNOW Ellmann wrote a short story about Popeye and Olive? I find it deeply upsetting and wrong, almost as much as In The Night Kitchen by the Where The Wild Things Are guy.

Finally, when Narrator thinks of "Titian mixing rose madder," she doesn't finish the limerick. Here it is:

While Titian was mixing rose madder
His model ascended a ladder.
Her position to Titian
Suggested coition
So he climbed up the ladder and had her.

I have a summary for discussion all ready, but I think I might save it for tomorrow if that is ok!

On Day 3, we’re stopping at WAKE UP PICTURE DAY, the last in a long list of messages that get displayed on a neon sign outside the Narrator’s kids’ school. Can’t miss it. That’s round about location 2631, bottom of page 168 in my edition, and possibly 158 in the American edition (thanks Lee!).