This is part 6 of my portion of a book review series brought to you by The Latter Day Bohemian via Middle-Aged Woman.
Holy fun. Clearly I've been blocking a key part of my childhood - the one where I watched 3000 hours of Little House on the Prairie, obsessively read the books, wore prairie skirts, and played out endless Little-Housian stories with my staff of dolls and toys.
Last night it all came roaring back as I read Alison Arngrim's snappy autobiography about growing up playing Nellie Oleson in the wildly successful prairie TV (melo)drama. This is a fun, quick read, and Arngrim definitely keeps everything fresh - light-handed with the serious stuff and laughing companionably (and often) at the histrionics of actors everywhere.
There's not a lot to pick apart. Her narrative is quick-paced and sweet. Arngrim had eccentric, fairly bohemian parents who were bent on their own and their children's success. Money was iffy and her family's coping mechanisms - which could easily sound bleak and sad in other hands - come across as upbeat and quirky.
Even the heaviest piece of her childhood - long-term sexual abuse at the hands of her also-famous brother - is dealt with matter-of-factly. Not dismissively, but not overly sentimental. I had to admire her ability to say "I will share this with you, stranger, and give you the summary. But keep your pity out of my way." It's certainly good for the sake of her mostly comic memoir, and keeps her overall persona glib, humorous, and slightly detached.
Arngrim clearly could write another story about her life, interpreting her odd parents, her brother, some post-Little House life experiences in a much more untangling, wallowing way. But she chooses at every point to make the glossier, humorous punchline. And it works. It IS a memoir and she IS an actor, but for all the layers of narcissism inherent in those two things, it's a good, candid, non-precious read.
Arngrim knows she's writing a book that will primarily be read by fans of Little House, and uses that as her motif, despite the many non-actor things she's done since Nellie (most notably AIDS activism and campaigning for the rights of incest survivors). And she isn't all sunshine and lollipops: she's candid about a few people, including the (scandalous!) rudeness of Melissa Sue Anderson (Mary) and Katherine MacGregor (Mrs. Oleson)'s infuriating habit of directing other actors. But (aside from Anderson, who sounds difficult to know), Arngrim's voice is generally fair and loving, even when she describes some of the most difficult situations in her life.
Given that, it's tough to call her to task for her glib, defensive humor. Lots of people use humor as a wall, and Arngrim at least acknowledges that her humorous shield has saved her. She calls it bitchiness, born from playing a well-known girl-you-love-to-hate. But, you know, not so much. I'd call her direct and humorous and admirable - not much of a bitch at all.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
More challenge!
I'm attempting another book challenge through Locus Magazine. The list of possibles is LONG and DELICIOUS! I've been wanting to read Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal (squee! I know her!) and the new Jasper Fforde... wish me luck!
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Book of Johns: 12 books, 12 months #5: Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
This is part 5 of my portion of a book review series brought to you by The Latter Day Bohemian via Middle-Aged Woman.
I can't do it. Much as I believe the payoff would be pleasurable, this book is the most difficult to enjoy audio-book I've yet tried.
I own 2 hard copies, so I WILL try again with the bound copies, so I can make mental notes as to the page upon which someone named John appears. That way, when the eleventy-seventh John says something dry and witty, I can remember which effing John it is - or at least page back to figure it out.
8 hours into an approximately 32 hour audio-book, I throw up my hands.
The good: It's a fun capture of regency-era stiffness and linguistic quirks in a parallel universe where magic lurks in the shadows. The bad: the cast of thousands, the interchangeable stuffiness of address, and the footnotes, OH, the footnotes...AAAAAHHH! I can't do it. I drift off into a deaf mental fugue whenever I try to sit and listen. Or jog and listen. Or anything and listen. A few paragraphs into the narration and I'm completely bored AND have to cull my brain to remember if this is the John who wrote the treatise on Magic in Britain, or the John who is the selectman, or the John who is going to marry the fussy Miss R, apprenticed to the fussy magician Mr. Norrell. Or possibly it's the one married to the brought-back-to-life Miss C? And by the time I've figured it out, I've once again lost what may be critical information to the book's plot.
I really like Clarke's voice. But this is a book to be careful over, and my life, full as it is of job, family, and etc. is not allowing the careful, note-taking reading required.
My vote: A- for Clarke (I don't care for the narrator choice, and think his dry voice contributes to my dilemma) and an F- for me for the realization that my life needs books with more spoon-feeding.
I can't do it. Much as I believe the payoff would be pleasurable, this book is the most difficult to enjoy audio-book I've yet tried.
I own 2 hard copies, so I WILL try again with the bound copies, so I can make mental notes as to the page upon which someone named John appears. That way, when the eleventy-seventh John says something dry and witty, I can remember which effing John it is - or at least page back to figure it out.
8 hours into an approximately 32 hour audio-book, I throw up my hands.
The good: It's a fun capture of regency-era stiffness and linguistic quirks in a parallel universe where magic lurks in the shadows. The bad: the cast of thousands, the interchangeable stuffiness of address, and the footnotes, OH, the footnotes...AAAAAHHH! I can't do it. I drift off into a deaf mental fugue whenever I try to sit and listen. Or jog and listen. Or anything and listen. A few paragraphs into the narration and I'm completely bored AND have to cull my brain to remember if this is the John who wrote the treatise on Magic in Britain, or the John who is the selectman, or the John who is going to marry the fussy Miss R, apprenticed to the fussy magician Mr. Norrell. Or possibly it's the one married to the brought-back-to-life Miss C? And by the time I've figured it out, I've once again lost what may be critical information to the book's plot.
I really like Clarke's voice. But this is a book to be careful over, and my life, full as it is of job, family, and etc. is not allowing the careful, note-taking reading required.
My vote: A- for Clarke (I don't care for the narrator choice, and think his dry voice contributes to my dilemma) and an F- for me for the realization that my life needs books with more spoon-feeding.
Monday, January 31, 2011
Grammar slammer: in/out or on/off
This past Saturday I had a chat with a Jordanian barista with AMAZING English. He said he'd been in the US for 6 months and had studied the language conversationally in Jordan with other English-speakers for only a few months prior to that. I'm always amazed by people who are adaptive linguists. I am not. Like many things in my life, I can be clunkily adept at something only after a lot of repetition and even then am best when I can do one thing over and over again until it comes "naturally".
Aaaaanyway, my new barista friend was joking about all the painful English idioms he'd encountered that make no sense nor do they follow language rules that are uniformly enforced. Having (briefly) studied his native Arabic, I can see his point.
My favorite of his idiomatic head slappers: We get in and out of a car, but on and off of a bus, train, or airplane. Why?
I have it on good authority that Brits say things like "on" line instead of "in" line for a queue. (Also, they use the word queue.)
I know there are English idiom books and studies out there that would, at length, answer any query I encounter, but it's more fun (for me) to ask you what you think?
Aaaaanyway, my new barista friend was joking about all the painful English idioms he'd encountered that make no sense nor do they follow language rules that are uniformly enforced. Having (briefly) studied his native Arabic, I can see his point.
My favorite of his idiomatic head slappers: We get in and out of a car, but on and off of a bus, train, or airplane. Why?
I have it on good authority that Brits say things like "on" line instead of "in" line for a queue. (Also, they use the word queue.)
I know there are English idiom books and studies out there that would, at length, answer any query I encounter, but it's more fun (for me) to ask you what you think?
Monday, January 10, 2011
12 Months, 12 Books: #4 - The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
This is part 4 of my portion of a book review series brought to you by The Latter Day Bohemian via Middle-Aged Woman.
Sometimes you think you want something, and then - shaZAM! - you find it right there in front of you – at home! And sometimes that thing is a big treasure chest full of gold!! And you can find it using Ruby Slippers! Or maybe if a bell rings on a Christmas tree… Whichever, be assured that it is your DESTINY to find the treasure, and the UNIVERSE will help you find it!...sigh...
A few months ago, my niece wrote a review of The Alchemist, a book I was, until then, sure I’d read (I hadn’t). I wanted to read it until I did; I now I wish I hadn't.
The story follows a poor shepherd named Santiago who has a specific dream about a treasure. Lots of mysterious strangers help him follow this dream. Many years, adventures, and magical powers later, he finds the treasure back at home where he started. The end.
The Alchemist is set vaguely back in time far enough to strip away all modern contrivances like ease of transportation or communication – or literacy. Throughout the book, speech and exposition walk a thin line of fake-o ethnicity, sort-of Tonto-meets-Swami-meets-Yoda: "in heart one will find truth!". This is maybe one of the drawbacks of anachronistic writing, and not universally true of the novel, but true often enough to grate on me.
Clearly - CLEARLY - I’m disinclined and sarcastic when it comes to modern books of spiritual allegory, which generally have the appeal of Christian tracts. When I was in college, or maybe even in High School, somebody recommended to me Illusions by Richard Bach; at the time, I thought Bach’s desire to allegorize his anti-materialist world-view very interesting and enlightening. That was probably the last time an allegory made me feel more enriched than condescended to. As with my feelings about self-help books, allegorical novels have to be especially terrific in both premise and form to not make me roll my eyes. And I don't think The Alchemist has either going for it.
Coelho is not a bad writer. In fact, one of my favorite reads in 2009 was The Witch of Portobello, a sort-of mystery novel about politics, gypsies, adoption, parenting, death, and love. And I really savored that book and Coelho’s writing. And although I set myself up to not enjoy The Alchemist once I realized the overall conceit, I must acknowledge that it’s also written in a sparse, pleasing way, despite the occasional dips into caricaturizing:
Sometimes you think you want something, and then - shaZAM! - you find it right there in front of you – at home! And sometimes that thing is a big treasure chest full of gold!! And you can find it using Ruby Slippers! Or maybe if a bell rings on a Christmas tree… Whichever, be assured that it is your DESTINY to find the treasure, and the UNIVERSE will help you find it!...sigh...
A few months ago, my niece wrote a review of The Alchemist, a book I was, until then, sure I’d read (I hadn’t). I wanted to read it until I did; I now I wish I hadn't.
The story follows a poor shepherd named Santiago who has a specific dream about a treasure. Lots of mysterious strangers help him follow this dream. Many years, adventures, and magical powers later, he finds the treasure back at home where he started. The end.
The Alchemist is set vaguely back in time far enough to strip away all modern contrivances like ease of transportation or communication – or literacy. Throughout the book, speech and exposition walk a thin line of fake-o ethnicity, sort-of Tonto-meets-Swami-meets-Yoda: "in heart one will find truth!". This is maybe one of the drawbacks of anachronistic writing, and not universally true of the novel, but true often enough to grate on me.
Clearly - CLEARLY - I’m disinclined and sarcastic when it comes to modern books of spiritual allegory, which generally have the appeal of Christian tracts. When I was in college, or maybe even in High School, somebody recommended to me Illusions by Richard Bach; at the time, I thought Bach’s desire to allegorize his anti-materialist world-view very interesting and enlightening. That was probably the last time an allegory made me feel more enriched than condescended to. As with my feelings about self-help books, allegorical novels have to be especially terrific in both premise and form to not make me roll my eyes. And I don't think The Alchemist has either going for it.
Coelho is not a bad writer. In fact, one of my favorite reads in 2009 was The Witch of Portobello, a sort-of mystery novel about politics, gypsies, adoption, parenting, death, and love. And I really savored that book and Coelho’s writing. And although I set myself up to not enjoy The Alchemist once I realized the overall conceit, I must acknowledge that it’s also written in a sparse, pleasing way, despite the occasional dips into caricaturizing:
"Hmm…" said the old man, looking at all sides of the book, as if it were some strange object. "This is an important book, but it's really irritating."The Alchemist had a lot of my own anti-authority, anti-dogma issues to overcome, at which (naturally, perhaps) it failed. It might be a pleasurable book – it certainly has been very well received both critically and in overall sales – but I found myself frustrated with the moralizing intent. Like Richard Bach or O. Henry, I was unwilling to open myself to the homily-laden language to find the path to the obvious Higher Power (Love, God, Faith, or, in this novel, the Universe within). Overall, I found it simple and elegant in its way, but more irritating than compelling.
The boy was shocked. The old man knew how to read, and had already read the book. And if the book was irritating, as the old man had said, the boy still had time to change it for another.
"It's a book that says the same thing almost all the other books in the world say," continued the old man. "It describes people's inability to choose their own destinies. And it ends up saying that everyone believes the world's greatest lie."
"What's the world's greatest lie?" the boy asked, completely surprised.
"It's this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what's happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That's the world's greatest lie."
Thursday, December 30, 2010
12 books, 12 months: Room, by Emma Donoghue
This is part 3 of my portion of a book review series brought to you by The Latter Day Bohemian via Middle-Aged Woman. I originally posted this on my personal blog, and then moved it.
Pssst: This post contains book spoilers. It's not that I don't get why reviews don't contain spoilers, but...you know, half of this book takes place after a major event, and not ONE of the reviews I have read reviewed the entire book because of that thing. And that isn't journalistic integrity, exactly, it feels like journalistic truncation. Or something. So, as an amateur, armchair reviewer, I'm too interested in the whole book to give you half of a review. But if you haven't read the book already, I speak to a few major plot points - be warned, 3 readers!
Anyway. This book is tough. It takes on a lot of hurdles, some sensational, some psychological, and some imaginative. It's a book that could so easily falter that I kept expecting something bad (literarily speaking) to happen.
Among a series of other, generally tight conceits, Room is built on the premise that a 5-year-old boy, Jack, is the narrator. As the parent of 2 kids, ages 7 and 3, I was pretty skeptical that Donoghue could really get into the weird phrasing and idiosyncratic voice of a 5-year-old narrator. But...she did. Very very well, I think. FAR better than any other adult book I've read where a child narrates in the first person (Carson McCullers, if you aren't dead - probably you are - take note! Charles Dickens - definitely dead - would be shamed).
Not once did I want to rip my headphones out and yell "ARGH!!!" (and YES, I "read" this as an audio book - again - which may have contributed to the overall believability of Jack's voice, as I had an actor reading me lines that may have been more awkward on paper).
There are multitudes of small points where Jack is spot-on. His interchanging verb tenses, his attempt to ferret (flawed) logic from a situation he half understands. It's an amazing portrayal and worth every second of this book for that achievement alone.
So...straight from the worst, most sensationalized news, Room (as you, 3 readers probably have already heard) is about a mother and son who live in a tiny, fortressed, 1-room garden shed, held captive by a man, "Old Nick" who kidnapped the mother when she was 19 and put her in the room he had already created for that purpose. Jack is their son.
Many other reviews have spent a lot of time talking about the weirdness/cleverness of Jack's world scope (they don't sleep on a bed, but on Bed; other inanimate characters include Duvet, Wardrobe, Plant, and so forth...). And more time also (elsewhere) has been devoted to the sense of "real" or "not real" that Jack has, growing up in a world where the only "real" people he has ever seen is himself and Ma.
While I like the attention paid to those details by Donoghue, I was most impressed by her portrayal of characters. Like Jack, Ma (she is not given a real name) has an intent, unique personality that scrabbles off the page. This story survives on Ma's ingenuity and strength, and also on her crushing depression and stress. When Ma is not on the page, the narration limps along a bit lifelessly.
In the first half of the book, while they are in captivity (this is the big spoiler - they escape!), Donoghue establishes a well crafted, subtle relationship between the two. Once their situation becomes more apparent, there are hundreds of little touches that both reveal and give shape to the two characters. Donoghue invests Ma with a wealth of creativity inside a world of deprivation, and the two characters re-write their situational poverty through a series of daily, innovative rituals.
In my favorite of these, they set up the room to have an obstacle path, and then they "hike" around and around their tiny room, talking about the things they would see on a hike: "a tree", "a bear"...While Donoghue, through Jack, is never explicitly complimentary or descriptive about Ma, the effort Ma puts into parenting Jack well and carefully in that impossible situation is repeatedly breathtaking.
I've been a volunteer with trauma-survivor service agencies for almost 20 years, mostly as a peer-to-peer support person. Subsequently, many of the ways in which Ma is some days strong, some days catatonic, some days angry really resounded for me. I don't know what kind of research Donghue did with trauma victims, but I do know she created someone who could believably have been one of my clients. And her moods, linked so tightly to Jack as she is, were best reflected in the tragedy of a child who couldn't understand, but had learned to cope on days when Ma was "gone", wrapped in a catatonic state of blankness.
I think the strangest reaction I had to this book was my inability to finish it immediately. I was gripped by the story, and felt tremendous (reader) anxiety about how they could escape. Donoghue set up the tension and the exposition of how Ma had tried to escape over the years in a greatly paced way, so that as I pieced together Ma's history and helplessness (such as her discovery that Old Nick had reinforced the foundation of the shed with chain-link fencing), I was caught - brainstorming more ways in my head as I read.
And then...about 2/3 of the way through the book, after they've escaped and are living in a psych hospital for evaluation and "re-integration", Ma attempts suicide. And I was devastated. It was one of the most clinically believable, tragic moments I've hit in a book in a long time, and I had to stop. It took me almost 2 months to come back and see what happened. It ended tightly, but I was still raw from thinking about what led Ma to that place. And so even though I didn't want to finish it, I think even that speaks to Donoghue's unerring skill.
Overall, Room is one of the best researched contemporary novels I've read. While there were stumbles, they were quite possibly stumbles of my own understanding, such as my disappointment in Ma's parents' response to her return to them after 7 years in captivity. I think Donoghue wants to show that Ma was disconnected from her parents before she was kidnapped, or maybe more that Jack, narrating that reunion, didn't understand the experience. Whichever, I was left feeling empty about something that had so much potential for resonance. And the grandparent/family characters felt weakly drawn and not-quite-real. Which perhaps circles back to that point of, maybe they just weren't quite real to Jack.
Pssst: This post contains book spoilers. It's not that I don't get why reviews don't contain spoilers, but...you know, half of this book takes place after a major event, and not ONE of the reviews I have read reviewed the entire book because of that thing. And that isn't journalistic integrity, exactly, it feels like journalistic truncation. Or something. So, as an amateur, armchair reviewer, I'm too interested in the whole book to give you half of a review. But if you haven't read the book already, I speak to a few major plot points - be warned, 3 readers!
Anyway. This book is tough. It takes on a lot of hurdles, some sensational, some psychological, and some imaginative. It's a book that could so easily falter that I kept expecting something bad (literarily speaking) to happen.
Among a series of other, generally tight conceits, Room is built on the premise that a 5-year-old boy, Jack, is the narrator. As the parent of 2 kids, ages 7 and 3, I was pretty skeptical that Donoghue could really get into the weird phrasing and idiosyncratic voice of a 5-year-old narrator. But...she did. Very very well, I think. FAR better than any other adult book I've read where a child narrates in the first person (Carson McCullers, if you aren't dead - probably you are - take note! Charles Dickens - definitely dead - would be shamed).
Not once did I want to rip my headphones out and yell "ARGH!!!" (and YES, I "read" this as an audio book - again - which may have contributed to the overall believability of Jack's voice, as I had an actor reading me lines that may have been more awkward on paper).
There are multitudes of small points where Jack is spot-on. His interchanging verb tenses, his attempt to ferret (flawed) logic from a situation he half understands. It's an amazing portrayal and worth every second of this book for that achievement alone.
So...straight from the worst, most sensationalized news, Room (as you, 3 readers probably have already heard) is about a mother and son who live in a tiny, fortressed, 1-room garden shed, held captive by a man, "Old Nick" who kidnapped the mother when she was 19 and put her in the room he had already created for that purpose. Jack is their son.
Many other reviews have spent a lot of time talking about the weirdness/cleverness of Jack's world scope (they don't sleep on a bed, but on Bed; other inanimate characters include Duvet, Wardrobe, Plant, and so forth...). And more time also (elsewhere) has been devoted to the sense of "real" or "not real" that Jack has, growing up in a world where the only "real" people he has ever seen is himself and Ma.
While I like the attention paid to those details by Donoghue, I was most impressed by her portrayal of characters. Like Jack, Ma (she is not given a real name) has an intent, unique personality that scrabbles off the page. This story survives on Ma's ingenuity and strength, and also on her crushing depression and stress. When Ma is not on the page, the narration limps along a bit lifelessly.
In the first half of the book, while they are in captivity (this is the big spoiler - they escape!), Donoghue establishes a well crafted, subtle relationship between the two. Once their situation becomes more apparent, there are hundreds of little touches that both reveal and give shape to the two characters. Donoghue invests Ma with a wealth of creativity inside a world of deprivation, and the two characters re-write their situational poverty through a series of daily, innovative rituals.
In my favorite of these, they set up the room to have an obstacle path, and then they "hike" around and around their tiny room, talking about the things they would see on a hike: "a tree", "a bear"...While Donoghue, through Jack, is never explicitly complimentary or descriptive about Ma, the effort Ma puts into parenting Jack well and carefully in that impossible situation is repeatedly breathtaking.
I've been a volunteer with trauma-survivor service agencies for almost 20 years, mostly as a peer-to-peer support person. Subsequently, many of the ways in which Ma is some days strong, some days catatonic, some days angry really resounded for me. I don't know what kind of research Donghue did with trauma victims, but I do know she created someone who could believably have been one of my clients. And her moods, linked so tightly to Jack as she is, were best reflected in the tragedy of a child who couldn't understand, but had learned to cope on days when Ma was "gone", wrapped in a catatonic state of blankness.
I think the strangest reaction I had to this book was my inability to finish it immediately. I was gripped by the story, and felt tremendous (reader) anxiety about how they could escape. Donoghue set up the tension and the exposition of how Ma had tried to escape over the years in a greatly paced way, so that as I pieced together Ma's history and helplessness (such as her discovery that Old Nick had reinforced the foundation of the shed with chain-link fencing), I was caught - brainstorming more ways in my head as I read.
And then...about 2/3 of the way through the book, after they've escaped and are living in a psych hospital for evaluation and "re-integration", Ma attempts suicide. And I was devastated. It was one of the most clinically believable, tragic moments I've hit in a book in a long time, and I had to stop. It took me almost 2 months to come back and see what happened. It ended tightly, but I was still raw from thinking about what led Ma to that place. And so even though I didn't want to finish it, I think even that speaks to Donoghue's unerring skill.
Overall, Room is one of the best researched contemporary novels I've read. While there were stumbles, they were quite possibly stumbles of my own understanding, such as my disappointment in Ma's parents' response to her return to them after 7 years in captivity. I think Donoghue wants to show that Ma was disconnected from her parents before she was kidnapped, or maybe more that Jack, narrating that reunion, didn't understand the experience. Whichever, I was left feeling empty about something that had so much potential for resonance. And the grandparent/family characters felt weakly drawn and not-quite-real. Which perhaps circles back to that point of, maybe they just weren't quite real to Jack.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
12 months/12 books: Post #2 "The New York Regional Mormon Singles Halloween Dance" by Elna Baker
This is part 2 of my portion of a book review series brought to you by The Latter Day Bohemian via Middle-Aged Woman. **This is re-posted from my personal blog - not sure why it took me until now to figure that out **
I realized when I picked up this book and paid FULL PRICE for it that I would probably choose to review it. And that I wasn't sure how much I would be able to simply review this book as much as review my own take on Mormonism, "single"-ness, and faith.
That proved pretty true while I was reading it as well: it was tough to hear Elna Baker's voice without filtering her through my own experiences in nearly identical circumstances. She caught me when describing the crepe-paper festooned Mormon gymnasium and nut cups, and I can attest that she is deft at portraying many typical Mormon experiences with a great eye for their intrinsic and myriad loopiness. Unfortunately, the editor in me begged to push her (over and over again) for more personal authenticity than glibness.
Elna Baker is a professional comedienne who fits in with the current oeuvre of memoirists who (as it seems to me) are like your funny friend with a lot of ability to build up to a good punchline in a life-of-the-party sort of way, and who then find themselves writing a book piecing together all their funny punchlines. For Baker, sometimes that works, and sometimes it's a mess. However, it's not a terrible thing to say that this book is funny and messy, but unfortunately, it's also occasionally teen-journal-angst-ridden (the format is part journal as well, including a map of whom she's kissed, and where), excessively narcissistic, and generally pretty glossy when it comes to self-examination.
She's no David Sedaris, but she's definitely interesting, even if her best selling point is that she is someone funny from the Mormon world, navigating a life where she doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs, engage in premarital sex, swear, or drink caffeinated beverages. Almost all of her punchlines are related to being Mormon. And that's okay. A little one-trick, but (to me, at least) unique by virtue of being genuinely Mormon in a world FULL of "my weird childhood/life/religion/sexuality/money-making-scheme" memoirs.
Generally, I find that Baker's humor is sharp in the well-edited passages, and a bit of a toss-off in many other sections. Here's one example:
One of the most intriguing things Baker admits in this book is how she complicatedly mixes her suppressed sexuality with spirituality. At one point, she meets a man to whom she is very connected and attracted but who is also an atheist. She likes him, and wants to be with him, but can't reconcile their clashing worldviews. Soon thereafter, she gets mostly naked with him (Major Mormon Taboo), then whispers in his ear "I really want you to pray about whether or not you believe in God".
Ha! So...the build-up to that is great. Awful. Embarrassing and deeply crazy. But the aftermath to that scene isn't "what is UP with me that I am trying to turn this guy on and then get him to pray?" Or even laughably clueless "I wonder why he ran out of here?" It's just...hum. Sort of "That was weird of me, wasn't it? Oooh, toast!" It's probably a situation not many authors could handle deftly, so maybe I could cut her some slack. However, Baker flubs the aftermath of many situations by not giving them the chance to reverberate fully. Like your friend at the party, she's already on to the next funny story, leaving the last story falling apart in her wake.
What I like most about the book is that Baker is generally very good at laughing at herself - something I think most Mormons lack, like a genetic defect caused by all that inter-breeding of Scandinavian zealots. (NB: Not all Mormons are Scandinavian descent, clearly, but look at any Ward phonebook and count how long the J section is "Jensen, Jergensen, Johansen, Jorgensen"...).
At any rate, I think the thing I wanted most from this book is something I may never get from any Mormon memoirist: a thoughtful, intelligent understanding of how their faith functions and how they reconcile the myriad requirements and inconsistencies of that faith with the rest of the world. Baker does an okay job, albeit superficially, of talking about how faith for her is more the feeling of peace with belonging to a group she understands and to which she belongs from birth. And I get that, even if she can't plumb much deeper into her own understanding.
As I stated before, some passages are clearly better edited than others, and it ends in the fraught-with-messiness setting I associate with a contemporary memoir. She chases atheist ex-boyfriend to (seriously) Africa, learning that being connected with someone doesn't erase the months of craziness you've put them through. It's got a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love end-vibe (minus the Love), but again, it ends up being a funny, if overall minor work.
I realized when I picked up this book and paid FULL PRICE for it that I would probably choose to review it. And that I wasn't sure how much I would be able to simply review this book as much as review my own take on Mormonism, "single"-ness, and faith.
That proved pretty true while I was reading it as well: it was tough to hear Elna Baker's voice without filtering her through my own experiences in nearly identical circumstances. She caught me when describing the crepe-paper festooned Mormon gymnasium and nut cups, and I can attest that she is deft at portraying many typical Mormon experiences with a great eye for their intrinsic and myriad loopiness. Unfortunately, the editor in me begged to push her (over and over again) for more personal authenticity than glibness.
Elna Baker is a professional comedienne who fits in with the current oeuvre of memoirists who (as it seems to me) are like your funny friend with a lot of ability to build up to a good punchline in a life-of-the-party sort of way, and who then find themselves writing a book piecing together all their funny punchlines. For Baker, sometimes that works, and sometimes it's a mess. However, it's not a terrible thing to say that this book is funny and messy, but unfortunately, it's also occasionally teen-journal-angst-ridden (the format is part journal as well, including a map of whom she's kissed, and where), excessively narcissistic, and generally pretty glossy when it comes to self-examination.
She's no David Sedaris, but she's definitely interesting, even if her best selling point is that she is someone funny from the Mormon world, navigating a life where she doesn't drink, smoke, do drugs, engage in premarital sex, swear, or drink caffeinated beverages. Almost all of her punchlines are related to being Mormon. And that's okay. A little one-trick, but (to me, at least) unique by virtue of being genuinely Mormon in a world FULL of "my weird childhood/life/religion/sexuality/money-making-scheme" memoirs.
Generally, I find that Baker's humor is sharp in the well-edited passages, and a bit of a toss-off in many other sections. Here's one example:
"“Do you guys know what cereal killers are?” he asked.It's a funny little story, but it lays there, sort-of lodged in as a substitute for more information about how her family dynamic works. It needs a framework that just isn't there to strengthen her voice, and the overall effect is that she's weak at painting other people into her single-spotlit world.
We shook our heads no.
“You guys are the cereal killers!” he said emphatically.
He piled us into the van and drove us to Fred Meyer. While he bought us masks, gloves, and squirt guns, we each got to pick out any cereal that we wanted.
From there we headed to several of his friends’ houses, assembling in a clump on their doorsteps while Tina, my oldest sister, rang the bell.
As the door opened we cocked our squirt guns with one hand, and held up our cereal boxes with the other: “Hands up,” we yelled. “We’re the cereal killers!” Then, at my father’s instruction, we went into his friends’ houses and forced them to eat cereal."
One of the most intriguing things Baker admits in this book is how she complicatedly mixes her suppressed sexuality with spirituality. At one point, she meets a man to whom she is very connected and attracted but who is also an atheist. She likes him, and wants to be with him, but can't reconcile their clashing worldviews. Soon thereafter, she gets mostly naked with him (Major Mormon Taboo), then whispers in his ear "I really want you to pray about whether or not you believe in God".
Ha! So...the build-up to that is great. Awful. Embarrassing and deeply crazy. But the aftermath to that scene isn't "what is UP with me that I am trying to turn this guy on and then get him to pray?" Or even laughably clueless "I wonder why he ran out of here?" It's just...hum. Sort of "That was weird of me, wasn't it? Oooh, toast!" It's probably a situation not many authors could handle deftly, so maybe I could cut her some slack. However, Baker flubs the aftermath of many situations by not giving them the chance to reverberate fully. Like your friend at the party, she's already on to the next funny story, leaving the last story falling apart in her wake.
What I like most about the book is that Baker is generally very good at laughing at herself - something I think most Mormons lack, like a genetic defect caused by all that inter-breeding of Scandinavian zealots. (NB: Not all Mormons are Scandinavian descent, clearly, but look at any Ward phonebook and count how long the J section is "Jensen, Jergensen, Johansen, Jorgensen"...).
At any rate, I think the thing I wanted most from this book is something I may never get from any Mormon memoirist: a thoughtful, intelligent understanding of how their faith functions and how they reconcile the myriad requirements and inconsistencies of that faith with the rest of the world. Baker does an okay job, albeit superficially, of talking about how faith for her is more the feeling of peace with belonging to a group she understands and to which she belongs from birth. And I get that, even if she can't plumb much deeper into her own understanding.
As I stated before, some passages are clearly better edited than others, and it ends in the fraught-with-messiness setting I associate with a contemporary memoir. She chases atheist ex-boyfriend to (seriously) Africa, learning that being connected with someone doesn't erase the months of craziness you've put them through. It's got a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love end-vibe (minus the Love), but again, it ends up being a funny, if overall minor work.
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