You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2008.
I bought this book thinking of Jesse, and how it would be a great book to read together. And then I remembered that Jesse is MIA, on this blog but also in real life. No worries, he’s alive and well but apparently distracted from blogging for the moment. I will send him this link and perhaps I can guilt, I mean, lure him back in.
This book was indeed the perfect book for us to have read together. So much so that I will probably be mailing it to him with the demand that he read it, like, immediately and report back. In the meantime I’ll be on to something else.
In other words, exactly how we used to be about books. I would recommend a book to Jesse and he would read it, many many months later, at which point I would have forgotten entirely what it was about or what my feelings or thoughts on it were.
Sigh.
I think it’s a neat phenomenon though, this idea of buying books with other people in mind. It certainly broadens one’s experience to pick up a book that you would choose for someone else and to read it yourself. I have done this with many times with Jesse and it has never led me astray (with other folks it has. Beware, you have to chose your reading muses carefully). It’s different too, than reading a book and thinking “So and so would like this very much.” It’s sort of a premeditated book choice instead of a referral.
It’s another way that reading can be a social, communal activity, even though the other person might not even know you are thinking of them. I’d advise if you do this, to let the other person know – “this book made me think of you.”
Unless of course it’s something along the lines of Tuesdays with Morrie.
That’s just mean.
I was worried about one of my pets, as I always do, when my mother said to me in frustration “Why don’t you just give away all your pets and. . .”
“Be miserable?” was my reply. Because despite my anxieties on their behalf (are they sick, are they happy, are they getting all that they need????) I can’t imagine living a life without the little critters.
Though I am not one of those delusional people who thinks of my pets as kids, they are certainly an important part of my family. I smile even while getting mauled by the dogs each day when I get home (what human would ever greet you with such happiness?). When away from home I cannot sleep, ironically, because it’s too quiet. Though a purring cat can be loud, it sure is comforting. Being flanked on either side by warm felines bodies leaves some folks cold, but I’ll take the subsequent crick in the neck for a few glorious moments of a group cat nap.
Though I spend a lot of time attending to my pets’ needs, as an chronic worrier, it’s nice to have a respite from my own issues, even if it means worrying a little about someone other than myself. When the dogs need to be fed or walked or the litter box cleaned, there is no time for self involvement – and that’s ultimately healthier than the alternative.
I’m not the first to delight in the soothing affect of pets. Ask any pet owner and you’ll get a litany of reasons why their pets are good for them (you may even get melodramatic or just highly dramatic accounts of noble acts and miracles, depending on the pet owner). And more recently science has supported such anecdotal evidence with studies that show pets lower blood pressure, decrease depression and increase feelings of social support in those who live alone.
So it’s not surprising that Bruce Goldstein’s therapist suggested that Goldstein, a manic depressive, get a dog. Where medicine and therapy failed, a tiny black lab puppy named Ozzy succeeded.
Jane Austen presaged the current obnoxious teenage girl, equipped with walks down country lanes rather than cell phones, and letters instead of text messages, in most of her stories. Clearly part of her popularity today is due to the fact that movies (like Clueless) can be made from her work that appeal to the modern teenage audience. She’s certainly the least painful of high school reading assignments.
Though Emma is her most finely drawn version, Northanger Abbey gives us Catherine, who is probably the worst uber-teen there is. She would have done well with Bratz dolls and Juicy sweatpants. Without a wit of commonsense and a lack of wit to boot, she’s the epitome of flighty, willfully silly girl. She’s got a brain she just won’t use,even when her future husband points the obvious out to her. One wonders how quickly the appeal of this student/teacher relationship will last. Poor Henry (and poor Catherine) in the age of no divorce, once her girlish charms become churlish wifeliness.
Jane Austen is famously attributed to have said that girls are no use to anyone until they grow up. And though she illustrates this opinion broadly in Emma and specifically in Pride and Prejudice (especially with Lydia) there is no other book that tops the sneering, snarkiness of Northanger Abbey. It is called her most lighthearted book. But I think it her darkest, in the sense that she lets her real opinions on girls out. It is humor, but humor at someone’s expense.
This is the book in which I wholeheartedly embrace what I see as the real Jane Austen. The girl who saw other women’s mistakes and grew up to be the woman who did not repeat them. She chose not to get married to save her self and she chose not to tolerate the foolishness of others, regardless of gender.
Though she makes Catherine likable enough to keep the reader interested (she uses her heavy artillery on Isabella) she is almost certainly laughing at loud at her own creation’s naivete.
And that makes me like Jane all the more.
