You all know that I read a lot more than I review here on the site, right? I read like some people drink--as a daily form of escapism. And while I may churn out some decent sentences, for me to sit down and write is kind of like treating guinea worm disease. Long slow torture of pulling something out of your body, involving frequent rests to get your head together and forget the pain, plus screaming. So a book really has to spark some feeling for me to bother. Otherwise, it just gets filed into a category called Things I Don't Care About. It's a vast category.
This is a book that sparks frustration for me, because it has a good idea but Daswani makes so many poor choices in the telling of her tale that the novel is just mediocre. I have to ask, did she not have an editor or friend read it before publishing and give her critical feedback? Because she cuts her own narrative off at the knees at so many points that she completely lessens the effect of the tale. And the writing and secondary characters clearly show she's got some ideas and skill, and with a little refining this could have been a very, very good novel.
Anju comes from a wealthy Bombay family in the jewelry business, and as befits her social station she's expected to marry a fellow Indian of a good family and have children. Nothing more, and nothing less. Anju has a different path in mind, and persuades her parents to allow her to work and continue her education, first in Bombay and later in the US. She's very picky about her potential husbands when she's younger, but at age 30 she finds that herself in an uncomfortable place. She'd like to get married, but she's considered too old and too independent, if not actually slutty, by most suitors. Anju is faced with questions and doubts--did she make the wrong choices? Has she let her family down? Will she ever meet a nice fellow and fall in love?
The problems I have with this story center on the character of Anju. Her story is told as a first person flashback, so it's essentially a data dump. Classically lazy tell, not show. Then there is the fact that we are supposed to believe that Anju is spirited and ambitious, but she's not shown to be such. She's drab. Her one bit of spark comes when she bribes a fortuneteller to lie to her mother and say that her horoscope does not show her marrying until at least her late 20's so that her parents will be persuaded to let her go to America. We're told she's successful at her job as a "fashion publicist" but there are no details about what she likes about it, or how she goes about her job, or what makes her good at it. She enjoys Western life, but there's no detail about how she struggles to maintain her Indian identity and values. I mean, she doesn't date and she's a virgin! She lives in a bubble in Bombay, and then secrets herself in a bubble in NY. The only difference is that she lives alone in a studio apartment. She's a static, dull character with no voice, and to have her narrate a novel that is supposed to deal with her life and personal struggles--it's just not worth reading.
Then there is a question of the website. At one point, when Anju ramps up her marriage hunt, she takes a last-minute flight to a dinner party where an eligable man who might be interested is supposed to be. She later finds out that there's a website devoted to her attempts to find a husband. But this is never followed up on. It is the equivalent of that old bit of advice credited to Chekhov, that if you put a gun in the first act, it had better go off by the third. How can you put such a detail, ripe with dramatic possibilities, in a story, and not follow up on it? Anju doesn't Google herself to find fellow members of the Indian diaspora making fun of her? Sheesh!
There were a lot of possibilities in this novel, but it's ultimately unsatisfying. I like exploring Indian culture through fiction, and this story conveys the culture well, but the central character drove me nuts.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
The Plain Janes--Cecil Castellucci & Jim Rugg
I bought this last week over at Carol & John's Comic Shop. Carol was doing a handsell to another customer and I picked it up too. If you ever think that just talking about books loudly in public doesn't lead to impulse purchases, you are wrong. (By the way, Carol & John's is the best Cleveland area comic shop--how can you resist a family business run by a geek mom and her firefighter son, a store that is friendly, clean, bright and organized, had a shop kitty until his tragic death from a stroke, and tends to have cookies on the counter? You can't. I'm going to miss them when I go.)
Right--so Jane was a Metro City girl until a terrorist attack left her with a case of PTSD and a fixation on the John Doe beside her on the street. He's lying in a coma in a hospital, and she's writing him letters, since her parents packed up and moved to the safer suburbs. Despite the flee to an illusion of safety, they've become extremely overprotective. Jane misses her old life and is walking around in a fog. She attempts to befriend a pack of fellow Janes--Drama Jane, the character actress wasted in the high school drama club, Brain Jayne, a science geek (and proud!), and Polly Jane, star athlete. Ha, ha, they want nothing to do with Jane until she intrigues them with an idea: P.L.A.I.N.--People Loving Art In Neighborhoods. A series of installations of ordinary objects to shake things up a little. No one gets hurt, and it's easily changed back. Just an attempt to get people to think and feel--it's all good, right? But the Janes learn that sometimes ordinary actions have big consequences as their installations affect people in myriad ways.
I thought the plot and characters were a bit underdeveloped and light, but I thought the artwork looked good. It was worth a read, but not a keeper for me. No emotional impact, and not really character driven. They're all stereotypes! But that's okay within the scope of the book. I saw a book by Castellucci on the YA shelf at work, so I'm going to check out more of her stuff.
This is the first release from the new imprint Minx Books out of DC Comics. Upcoming titles look good--Andi Watson has a lighthearted tale London punk girl solving a mystery in the country on a visit to the grandparents, I like the looks of Good As Lily in which a girl gets a crack on the head from a birthday pinata and is joined by herself at ages 6, 29 and 70, all existing on one plane/timestream/whatever, and a romance n' family tale about a Korean American girl.
I might be getting to buy some graphic novels & manga for the part-time job. Keep those fingers crossed!
Right--so Jane was a Metro City girl until a terrorist attack left her with a case of PTSD and a fixation on the John Doe beside her on the street. He's lying in a coma in a hospital, and she's writing him letters, since her parents packed up and moved to the safer suburbs. Despite the flee to an illusion of safety, they've become extremely overprotective. Jane misses her old life and is walking around in a fog. She attempts to befriend a pack of fellow Janes--Drama Jane, the character actress wasted in the high school drama club, Brain Jayne, a science geek (and proud!), and Polly Jane, star athlete. Ha, ha, they want nothing to do with Jane until she intrigues them with an idea: P.L.A.I.N.--People Loving Art In Neighborhoods. A series of installations of ordinary objects to shake things up a little. No one gets hurt, and it's easily changed back. Just an attempt to get people to think and feel--it's all good, right? But the Janes learn that sometimes ordinary actions have big consequences as their installations affect people in myriad ways.
I thought the plot and characters were a bit underdeveloped and light, but I thought the artwork looked good. It was worth a read, but not a keeper for me. No emotional impact, and not really character driven. They're all stereotypes! But that's okay within the scope of the book. I saw a book by Castellucci on the YA shelf at work, so I'm going to check out more of her stuff.
This is the first release from the new imprint Minx Books out of DC Comics. Upcoming titles look good--Andi Watson has a lighthearted tale London punk girl solving a mystery in the country on a visit to the grandparents, I like the looks of Good As Lily in which a girl gets a crack on the head from a birthday pinata and is joined by herself at ages 6, 29 and 70, all existing on one plane/timestream/whatever, and a romance n' family tale about a Korean American girl.
I might be getting to buy some graphic novels & manga for the part-time job. Keep those fingers crossed!
A Childhood Issue? Ask A Librarian
Cool article in the NY Times Region section today about how librarians are information providers to parents and children on everyday issues. Makes me proud to be in the profession, sniff.
My new job (which I'm sure I'll talk about in broad details here as I settle in) has me working in the children's room at least part of the time. It's a little weird for me because I didn't experience children's services as a child, and I never thought working with kids would be where my career would ever remotely land me. Matter of fact, I never set foot in a library until I was 6 years old. My mom thought we had to pay--I had a crumpled fiver that had gone through the wash to pay for my card and was shocked to find the library was free, and all I had to do was write my name and address on the card application. And happy, because $5 is a lot of money.
I mention this not to make my family look like uneducated boobs (because we're not), but because I find there's not a lot of talk among the profession about diversity of background in terms of information access and use. It's assumed that we all got the message early on that Library=Good Public Institution To Use In These Ways and we're all so in love with the public service mission that we'll work for less money and feel the love. Oh and the idea that The Library Is A Must Have For The Community. We really don't understand the whys and hows of nonuser populations and are shocked when levies don't pass or libraries close. And in a lot of ways we are a middle class profession. It's not a question of how do we market the library to the population, but understanding the hows and whys of nonusers to see what they think about the library.
My new job (which I'm sure I'll talk about in broad details here as I settle in) has me working in the children's room at least part of the time. It's a little weird for me because I didn't experience children's services as a child, and I never thought working with kids would be where my career would ever remotely land me. Matter of fact, I never set foot in a library until I was 6 years old. My mom thought we had to pay--I had a crumpled fiver that had gone through the wash to pay for my card and was shocked to find the library was free, and all I had to do was write my name and address on the card application. And happy, because $5 is a lot of money.
I mention this not to make my family look like uneducated boobs (because we're not), but because I find there's not a lot of talk among the profession about diversity of background in terms of information access and use. It's assumed that we all got the message early on that Library=Good Public Institution To Use In These Ways and we're all so in love with the public service mission that we'll work for less money and feel the love. Oh and the idea that The Library Is A Must Have For The Community. We really don't understand the whys and hows of nonuser populations and are shocked when levies don't pass or libraries close. And in a lot of ways we are a middle class profession. It's not a question of how do we market the library to the population, but understanding the hows and whys of nonusers to see what they think about the library.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
Triple X Librarian
On the young librarian listserv, there's someone who posted up in a tizzy that when she Googles her (rather distinctive) name, there's a link to some sort of triple X site on the last page of results. Oh no! Personally I don't see the reason for fuss.
I have to say, were I in a hiring position and I had any hint that my potential hire had a career in p0rn, I'd bring them in for an interview right quick if they had the qualifications. The chance to see that mythical creature, the hottie librarian, cannot be passed up. Plus, the p0rn industry is considered to be on the forefront of both technological innovation and meeting client interests and needs. A career as a p0rn star shows gumption in my book, and skills that are transferable. Plus, they might have a stash of cash and be willing to accept the low librarian salaries.
Hmmm. Maybe ALA should refocus its recruitment efforts and partner with the strip club.
I have to say, were I in a hiring position and I had any hint that my potential hire had a career in p0rn, I'd bring them in for an interview right quick if they had the qualifications. The chance to see that mythical creature, the hottie librarian, cannot be passed up. Plus, the p0rn industry is considered to be on the forefront of both technological innovation and meeting client interests and needs. A career as a p0rn star shows gumption in my book, and skills that are transferable. Plus, they might have a stash of cash and be willing to accept the low librarian salaries.
Hmmm. Maybe ALA should refocus its recruitment efforts and partner with the strip club.
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