Rebecca

Rebecca Daphne duMaurier

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

So, the main reason I wanted to read this was because of the Mrs. Danvers clones that show up in the Thursday Next books.

For those who don't know the story, our nameless narrator is young, shy, and naive. She's a lower middle class girl who has a job as a paid companion to a vulgar, but rich, American. It's while Mrs. Van Hopper is vacationing in the south of France when our narrator meets Maxim deWinter.

She claims to fall in love with him, but their relationship is seriously messed up. Her feelings are that of excitement at his wealth and dashingness, he treats her like a child, or more precisely, like his beloved pet. Once they get back to his estate, Manderley, our narrator feels haunted and suffocated by the presence of Maxim's late wife, Rebecca. She's convinced Maxim still loves her and that his friends are always comparing her to him. And then there's the creepy housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who keeps Rebecca's memory alive, her clothes set out on her bed in her closed-up bedroom (although it's a room that Danvers spends an unhealthy amount of time in.) Mrs. Danvers makes no secret about the fact that she wants the new Mrs. deWinter gone.

And then there are the pieces of Rebecca's death that don't quite add up...

This is one of those classic romances where I just don't see the love in the romantic relationship. I mean, the relationship is seriously messed up and that's part of the book, but for the fact that the narrator tells me she loves Maxim, I would never have guessed. Lots of things about the narrator are things she tells us, but never shows us. Some of that is that the book is told in flashback, so she has a different perspective on the person she was. Some of that is that she's just weird. I never liked her. I never took to her and I alternated between pitying her and wishing she would grow a spine and do something about what was going on around her.

I have to admit, I'm a little unsure why this is a classic of literature. Is it pretty awesome? Yes. Is it the stuff I remember from English class (and I enjoyed the vast majority of what I read for English class.) No. It's a little um... trashier? than that.

But oh! Mrs. Danvers. What a perfect villian! The housekeeper with a hidden agenda who is super-creepy looking and acting. And Jasper Fforde is right-- nothing is scarier than an army of Mrs. Danvers clones. *shudder*

Also, you should go back and read Leila's posts when she was reading it!

Book Provided by... my local library

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Re-reads of Childhood Favorites

Now Reading: An Abundance of Katherines

This summer, I reread some of the books I remember most fondly from my elementary school days. Luckily, most of them lived up to memories of their greatness.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle The classic adventure of what happens when three witches appear and tell Meg that they can help her find her missing father. Her younger brother Charles Wallace, and new friend Calvin come along as they travel through time on wrinkles in the space-time continuum. Still weird. Still brilliant. And still giving me hope that even unpopular, dorky girls like Meg can end up with someone like Calvin. When a literary crush lasts this long, you know it's forever.

Half Magic by Edward Eager In which we have four children during a boring summer who discover a magic coin that grants them wishes. Kinda. The coin's a little faulty, so it only grants half of your wish. The siblings each get to make a wish a day and go off on many adventures. It's a little dated in a way I didn't notice when I was young-- it seems very quaint. I now also know that it's heavily based on E. Nesbit's Five Children and It (to be fair, Eager gives Nesbit full credit and even makes her the favorite author of the children). That ruined it for me a little, but I still highly recommend to anyone who hasn't read it, especially if they're under 12.

The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen I have yet to see the Kirsten Dunst film version of this because I love this book so much that I would hate to see it differently than it is in my mind's eye. Hannah can't understand why her older relatives are so upset about a war that happened long ago. She's not keen on spending Passover with them. But, when she opens to the door to look for Elijah during Seder, she's transported back in time to a Polish shetl that's about to be deported to Hitler's death camps. Even though she knows what's coming, she can't make it stop and she can't make anyone listen to her. Even when I knew the ending and the surprise twist, even when I have since read and learned a lot more about the Holocaust, I found this book to be just as gripping and heart-breaking as it was in seventh grade.

From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweilerby E. L. Konigsburg I love art-based mystery thriller novels such as The Da Vinci Code The Girl With Boticelli Eyes. (Seriously-- this is a bit of a super-niched genre, but if you have any other titles, let me know.) I fully blame this book for starting it in me. Anyway, in this lovely little book, Claudia decides that she's not really loved and her family would not miss her if she ran away. She takes her little brother with her (because he's good at saving his allowance, and she needs someone to bankroll this operation) and they head off to the Metropolitan Museum of Art (because Claudia wants to live somewhere nice. While at the Met, they get caught up in a mystery taking the art world by storm when the Met acquires a new statue that may or may not have been a Michelangelo.

My only complaints are that the story no longer seems plausible (shut up-- when I was in 5th grade, I totally believed this could happen). But in such an age of high tech security, can one really spend the night in an antique bed without setting off some laser alarm? *sigh* I wish. Also, Chasing Vermeer, which owes A LOT to Mrs. Basil, is more gripping and a smarter read all around for today. Still, a classic, but one I probably will not pick up again until I can read it to my own children (who, at this point, are totally hypothetical-- don't get your hopes up Mom).

Classics I Should have Read at the Time

Now Reading: Madame Chiang Kai-shek: China's Eternal First Lady
Just Finished: George Washington, Spymaster: How the Americans Outspied the British and Won the Revolutionary War, Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction, Shug

I was really looking forward to finishing up Madame Chiang Kai-Shek this weekend, but I left it at work, because I'm smooth like that. Ah well. Here are some great, classic works of children's literature that I really should have read when I was 12.

The Boggart by Susan Cooper

The Volnik family has inherited an old, Scottish castle. They can't keep it, but they go off to Scotland to see it and get it ready for sale. They decide to have some of the furniture shipped back to Canada, but that's not all that comes--the castle's Boggart, a practical joke playing spirit, has gotten trapped in one of the boxes and has landed in a modern, large city.

The Boggart is full of good-natured mischief and he does like some things about modern living--pizza for one, and electricity. Where the youngest Volnik, Jessup, enjoys this behavior, the older one, Emily, gets blamed for it-- the Boggart's well meaning actions often land her in trouble. Eventually, she is accused of causing psychic disturbances and it looks like she will have to be hospitalized. The Boggart feels terrible, but everything he tries to help just makes things worse. All he really wants it to go home, but how?

I would have loved this book when I was 12. I liked the portrayals of small village life in Scotland and how the Boggart tried to fit into his new surroundings. I liked the kids, too. Part of the problem is that it's a high-tech solution, but, given that this book came out in the early 90s, the technology is so horribly out of date that it seems a bit laughable now. The Boggart's mischief also would have been a lot more humorous at the age of 12 then I found it at the age of 26.

Tom's Midnight Garden by Philippa Pearce

Tom is shipped off to spend the summer at his aunt and uncle's flat when his brother comes down with measles. Not only does he have to live there, but, he's confined to the flat because he's been exposed to the disease. One night Tom hears the clock downstairs strike 13 and finds a garden that only exists in this lost hour. During his time in the garden, Tom befriends a small girl, Hatty, who is often ignored by her older (male) cousins. Tom knows that Hatty doesn't exist in his time plane and has to find a way to stay with his aunt and uncle.

I think the thing that got me the most was the timing in this book. There are a a few scenes of Tom and Hatty meeting and then you see Tom no longer missing his brother and being distraught at the thought of leaving his aunt and uncle's (and therefore the garden). I thought that these scenes were just representative of a long and building friendship, but then you find out that Tom's only been there for a little over a week (and he didn't get to the garden the first few nights). It just didn't make sense. I also found the ending twist painfully obvious, but I think that Pearce was a pioneer in this respect. This is, however, one of Silvey's 100 best books for children. When I was 12, the wonder and magic of the garden would have captivated me a lot more and I would not have noticed the weird timing and I don't think I would have figured out the ending so soon.

Five Children and It by E. Nesbit

Five children are staying at a country house and are enthralled by all the freedom it has to offer. While playing in a nearby gravel pit, they find a Psammead (a sand fairy) who will grant them their wishes, but everything they wish for goes horribly wrong.

This was disappointing, because it became painfully obvious that my childhood favorite, Half Magic, completely ripped off the plot from this book (but totally did it better). Edgar gives full credit and props to Ms. Nesbit, but still, completely heartbreaking.

War is Hell

FYI, Flickr and Blogger aren't playing nice at the moment, so book covers should come later...

Before I get to the reviews, FYI, the new Georgia Nicholson book, Love Is a Many Trousered Thing, is slated to come out in May and available for pre-order now on Amazon. Woot!

Also, dear, dear Amazon. I have told you how much I am in lurve with Jasper Fforde , why then, did you fail to tell me back in August that he had a NEW Nursery Crime book out, The Fourth Bear: A Nursery Crime. I depend on you for such details!!!! And I didn't know! And I feel sad. Well, I was sad that you had betrayed my heart in such a way, but then I got a copy at the library (which was easy to do, given that, you know, I work there.)

Anyway, y'all don't want to hear me, you just want to dance.

First off, this August, my plan was to read Barbara Tuchmann's Pulitzer Prize winning book, The Guns of August, about the first month of WWI. Well, I started it in August but with all the other reading I've had to do for work and school, I didn't get to actually finish it until Saturday. Given that Saturday was Armistice Day, I find it appropriate. This book has been critically acclaimed a million times and I don't have much to add. It was well worth the read and an immensely fascinating look at how paranoid the Kaiser seemed and how steadfastly those in charge committed to a plan and refused to be swayed, despite the consequences.

Interestingly enough, when outlining the causes of war, the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand barely garned a sentence. To be fair, when outlining the scope of the book, Tuchmann states that she wasn't going to touch the Balkan question, as to address it fairly would be a whole book in and of itself.

This book was obviously written in a time when the average reader had a more extensive knowledge of European History. Now, I'm fairly well trained in history, but I've only had two college classes in European history (one was focused soley on England and the other was just general Europe) and I was constantly looking things up. (For instance, there were all these references to animousity between France and Germany in 1870, but never gave it a name, which made it hard to look up. It was the Franco-Prussian war. Luckily, I live with a British History scholar, and he knows a lot more about general European stuff than I do.) Also, the maps are very focused and it can be hard to see where the area of detail was in the greater European context. (At point I was looking at a map of airport routes in my inflight magazine trying to figure out what bit of German coast I was looking at.)

That said, this book is the perfect reason to buy yourself an Historical World Atlas.

Also, Tuchmann is very funny. She often slips in dry little comments, such as this one from p. 267

German soldiers, posted as informers, were found dressed as peasants, even peasant women. The latter were discovered, presumably in the course of non-military action, by their government-issued underwear.

But for now, let's talk about some YA war books, shall we?

By far, the hands-down best YA war book I've read recently is Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen. A fiction account of John Kipling's (Rudyard Kipling's son) last moments, it tells the story of a young man desperate for the glory and honor of war.

Rudyard had always wanted to serve in his Majesty's service and was denied entry due to his poor eyesight. His hopes and dreams trasnfered to his only son, John. His grades weren't good enough to go to the best naval academies, but his gets into an acceptable army school. But John has his father's eyes and the lifestyle befitting the priviledged sons of Britian's elite...

When war breaks out in Europe in 1914, Rudyard Kiplin is one of the loudest voices calling for British involvement. WHen England joins, he leads the recruitment calls. It breaks his and his son's hearts that John cannot be in the first wave, especially as his friends keep going over. He still feels this way even as his friends start dying. Rudyard pulls every string he can to get his son a commission.

John's first battle is also his last. This heart-breaking tale is framed as his life flashes before him somewhere in Belgium.

Spillebeen grew up near Flanders and has written several YA novels about the oft-neglected WWI, but as far as I can tell, this is his first to appear in English. There are several aspects that set this book apart from the rest of the genre. The bulk of the story takes place before the war and before John deploys, but because of how the story is framed, it transports you to the battlefield horror on a regular basis. Because Kipling is killed so early in his army career he never loses that pre-war optimisim--life never gives him the chance to turn battle hardened and cynical--which is rare in war books.

Another difference between Kipling's Choice and most others lies in John's societal status. He is not a grunt. He's not escaping an impoverished background--even in boot camp he takes his friends partying in London's most exclusive clubs. His father's wealth and status and fame means John starts as an officer. He is not an everyman, but he'll still die like one. The book also follows the reaction of John's parents in greater detail than the standard epilogue. I highly recommend this book and hope that we'll see more translations of Spillebeen's work.

Another WWI book--also with interesting framing--is Michael Murpago's Private Peaceful. Thomas (Tommo) Peaceful grew up living on an estate (but the son of a worker, not fortune like Kipling) in England. His older brother Charlie has always looked out for him. The first half of the book deals with the day to day struggles of being poor and the estate owner is mean and Charlie and Tommo fall in love with the same girl... WWI breaks out and the brothers join up, Tommo lying about his age to be eligible.

The story then shifts to the general horros for war and the specific horros of trench warfare. The story is told as Tommo stays up all night (for a reason we find out at the end--he's not on watch, despite wahat the book jacket says!) The chapters are labeled with the time of night as he stays up and remembers.

Unlike Kipling's Choice, Private Peaceful follows the more common form of "bright-eyed poor boy becomes a hardened man by witnessing the horrors of war" but Peaceful is much better than most. My main complaint is the relationship between Charlie and Tommo. At it's worst, Tommo gets pissed off when he realizes that Charlie has one Molly's heart. But these emotions are fully explored and seem to quickly fade away. Generally, Tommo idolizes Charlie and Charlie can never ever ever ever do wrong. It just doesn't make sense, nor does it ring true and sours the rest of the story.

The other complaint, which is not my own by I'll pass it on anyway, comes from a fellow librarian, and that is that most of the pre-war plot is supposedly lifted directly from some classic mini-series. Now I haven't seen it and can't even remember the name, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

Final verdict? Good, but no Kipling's Choice.

Skipping ahead a generation, we land in WWII with B for Buster by Iain Lawrence.

The Kakabera Kid lies his way out of his small Canadian town and into the British Airforce. Instead of being the 16 year old son of an abusive drunk, he is now an 18 year old orphan. He loves to fly and one day dreams of being a pilot, not just the wireless operator. He also sees his adventure as parallels to his comic book character heroes.

He's desperately afraid of being found out as being too young and avoids hanging out with his crew, lest his actions give himself away. (Of course, his flight crew just thinks he doesn't like them.) Once they start flying missions, he befriends the pigeoner as the only person he can talk to about his extreme fear of being shot down and dying.

This book is meant to illuminate a long forgotten aspect of the warr--the role of pigeons in the BAF. Flights carried homing pigeons so if they got short down (and survived) or had to bail out, they could write a message about where they were and get rescued. The problem is that this is where Lawrence take sthe most historical liberaties. These are all countered in his ending historical note, but hte fact that he's writing this book to tell this story but messes with the story? It completely detracts from the story and a better story could have been told without these changes.

However, the best part was the descriptions of burning German cities. Just the sense of fire and destruction and the questions of how anyone could survive such a horror (and they didn't even go to Dresden) are questions that are treated very subtley and well. It really comes to a head when the flight crew goes down to London and gets caught in the Blitz... what makes this show well done (I think) is that it's not overly-dwelled upon.

Another book about a little known episode of WWII, and one that is done much better is Graham Salisbury's Eyes of the Emperor. Hawaii resident Eddy Okubo is sick of hearing about "The Japanese Problem"--if it comes to war, will those of Japanese descent be loyal to the US? Or to Japan? After his family is targeted, Eddy lies his was into the army to prove where his loyalties are-- the US.

After Pearl Harbor, when it does come to war, Eddy and the other Japanese-American soldiers aren't allowed to fight. At first, they're even held prisoner! Eventually Eddy and some of the other Japanese-American soldiers are taken to Mississippi (on the journey, they're not allowed to open the shades because people would freak out at seeing a "car full of Japs".) In Mississippi they're stuck on a desolate island as part of a dog training program. Japanese people, supposedly, smell differently than other people. Eddy and his friends are being used as bait--their service to their country was to be hunted down and attacked by dogs.

Strikingly told in Eddy's voice this is a well-done account of a true episode in American history. My one complaint is that Eddy's speaking voice/grammar/sentence construction doesn't match his inner, narrative voice at all, which can be a bit jarring, but he doesn't talk a lot, so it's a minor complaint.

Jumping back a few more wars, I recently read The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane for the first time.

Um... the coolest part about this book is that I read it through DailyLit, which is awesome. (Currently, I'm slogging through War and Peace.)

Crane paints well the bravado and fear of war as a young boy marchs off to war. It's not as introspective as the other ones I've discusses, and really, what can I say that generations of high school students haven't said already? I have nothing really to add nor profound to say.

Overall these books are all pretty good and I do recommend all of them. Kipling's Choice is by far and away the best, but these are all exemplary titles. ATTENTION TRANSLATORS! I WANT MORE GEERT SPILLEBEEN!

Lots of Reading!

This weekend, I cleaned my apartment, hung out with some people, took my computer into the shop... but mainly, opened all the windows, and laid on my couch in a patch of sunlight and READ.

First off, I (finally) finished Moll Flanders. I kinda liked it? Maybe? I think after awhile, it was just the same thing over and over and over again... I would have liked it a lot more if it had been half as long.





The Fair Garden and the Swarm of Beasts: The Library and the Young Adult by Margaret A. Edwards was phenomenal. When reading it, you must remember how *old* it is and how things have changed since its initial publication. Little things like the use of "Negro" and "gay" (for light and carefree)... Obvious things like the not far-fetched but still a long way off idea of one day ocmputers answering our factual questions... and the weird, like when she was talking about books that we aren't required to read in school but should be reading... like Hemmingway, Remarque, Huxley, and Dostoevsky... all things that you now have to read in high school!

I was also very struck by the change in reading levels. She includes several book lists and there are several titles on the "Adult Titles for Good Readers" and "Advanced Reading" that are now standard fare at the junior high and highschool levels-- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye , and The Grapes of Wrath...

There is also a strong "us" vs. "them" mentality when she discusses the challenges of librarainship in an urban setting (in this case the highly-segregated Baltimore). But it is very much middle class white folk bring literature to poor black people...

But Edwards speaks a lot of truth that librarains, as a profession, still haven't owned up to. We are obsessed with cataloging and not with customer service. In our obsession with processing and cataloging, we see the book more and more as a mere object and forget the ideas in it that are so necessary... "We do everything to the book but read it."

She also hit on some very good points-- do we librarians hate the stereotypical image of a proper old ladying shushing everyone because it hits a little too close to home? AND is one of the main reasons we're so bad at customer service because anti-social bookworms are who is drawn to the profession? I don't think our anti-customer service attitude is nearly as bad as portrayed by Edwards, but I think there are still issues.

But more than anything else, my head is swirling with thoughts on how to improve service, and different types of programming we can do and more than anything-- HOW TO GET PEOPLE READING. Because really, that's what it's all about, right?

Also, The House of Dies Drear just survived a challenge in Rockingham County, VA.