childcare

Earlier today in Barnes & Noble, after peeking through Zadie Smith's new essay collection, I noticed Lorrie Moore's new book A Gate at the Stairs and decided to read the beginning. By the end of the first paragraph, I knew I had read it somewhere before. It is such a peculiar feeling to read something that you know you've seen before, but not be able to place how you know it if it's your first time reading this particular work. I placed it soon enough, though. Moore's new novel is an expansion of a short story called "Childcare" that she published in The New Yorker this past July.

Having liked the story when I read it a few months ago, I'm now more interested than ever in reading the complete novel. It's always a strange sensation to know there's more to a story than has been presented as a complete work previously. Just a reminder of how fiction is really fictional, and can be added to in any way the writer wishes.

At the top of this post is story's cover photo published in the July 6, 2009 issue of The New Yorker. After all, the title art is the first thing we notice.

and then the music touched her, making her skin prickle and her throat hurt

I am home! Sitting in my light drenched family room, listening to my mother's Ipod blast over the spacious hardwood floors. I am playing Annie Lennox, music of my childhood permeating through my childhood home.

So it is Thanksgiving break, early for me, because I came home to attend a wedding that was just perfect on Saturday. And here I stay. Anyways, over college breaks, I try to do some reading for fun. As I've mentioned before, winter break is the time to tackle the long projects. After visiting my sitster's bookshelf yesterday, I'm now considering attempting Swann's Way this winter break, but I'm not sure how feasible that is yet.

At any rate, last week I picked up two short story collections at Carnegie to read this week. As soon as I got home I immediately started catching up on the months of missed magazines (an ongoing project, as I will probably resume Entertainment Weekly back-issue reading over lunch today), so it wasn't until last night in bed that I read the first of those stories.

The collection is called Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love, and though it's not as potentially corny as the title suggests, it definitely is light reading, though Lara Vapnyar is a talented writer. I've never succumbed to the pleasures of "chick-lit," but I do sometimes enjoy high quality fluff reading. Two of my favorite somewhat mindless reads are The Girls Guide to Hunting and Fishing and Kissing in Manhattan. Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love is not as much fun as either of those two. But the first story I read did indeed contain many promising passages about the joys of vegetables. Which is why I chose this collection in the first place. I love food. And I love love.

While artistic attempts to combine the two powerful forces before have proved worse than uninspiring to me (see the unfortunate 2000 Penelope Cruz film "Woman on Top" for one example), I think that Vapnyar's collection has the potential to satiate my craving for fun, throwaway romantic and tasty reading this week. And what better week to read about food during. Thanksgiving is, after all, the most awesome food holiday of all time!

So I'll post again on my other collection of short stories soon... But now it is time to make lunch (reheating my mother's superb pasta carbonara with a side of broccoli rabe and a slice of banana cake for dessert).

it is the love that is the problem, people treat their lovers badly

More Zadie! My darling mother, knowing my affinity for Zadie Smith, was kind enough to forward me this NPR story about Smith's new book of essays: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=114173942&sc=emaf called Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays.

This new collection is exciting, because it's Smith's first major release that is not a novel. As a huge Lady Z fan, I'm nervous about her writing a book of essays. There is no doubt that I will read them. If anything, a book of personal essays about her various influences and how her upbringing with her father shaped her as a writer and a person should be more thrilling to me than a new novel because it allows a closer look at her life.

Even the interview filled me with appreciative exclamations as I was reading. "Oooooh, she's so smart" I kept alerting my roommate. It's true, though. Smith is exceptionally well-read. Here is an excerpt from the story that reveals her habits as a reader:

In "That Crafty Feeling," she confesses that, unlike novelists who avoid reading others' books while writing their own, "My writing desk is covered in open novels.I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are too baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka as roughage."

Awhile ago one of the essays from this new book was published in The New Yorker. I was thrilled when I saw her name in that issue's table of contents, and reading about how her father's very British sense of humor impacted her taste was exciting. A whole book of those essays is bound to keep me enthralled.

I think Changing My Mind may have to be my winter break reading selection....

my favorite lepidopterist

Thanks to Maud Newton's blog, which I have to thank my professor for this class for recommending to me in the first place, I stumbled upon this really cool project:
http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=11597
21 designers were asked to create new versions new covers for all 21 of Vladimir Nabokov's novels. Called "The Specimen Box Project," because Nabokov was an avid butterfly collector, each book is presented in its own specimen box.
I love this because I'm a sucker for aesthetically pleasing copies of books I adore. Even though I know it's what is inside the cover that counts, I do think one day (when I'm an "adult" with spending money) I'd like to collect gorgeous copies of my most cherished books.
At any rate, looking at pictures of 18 of the 21 novels, I realize how much I need to read more Nabokov that isn't just Lolita - which isn't even pictured among the 18 shown.

My favorite new covers are The Enchanter, Glory, Pale Fire, but my very favorite is probably this one:

and besides, as a rule, things can't go back to what they were

There are many ways for a story to lose its original essence. Translations and adaptations are two common ways for a story to change, not necessarily in a good way.

In the case of The Master and Margarita, the Mikhail Bulgakov classic, various translations and multiple film adaptations have changed the shape of the novel a few times. I read the most recent translation of The Master and Margarita over the summer, and fell in love with it. This semester, after attending an English major advising appointment, I found an old copy of the book on a case in a spare room on the English floor of the Cathedral with a sign offering free books. There it was!
I love books, and I love free things, so free books are especially welcome.

Only upon closer investigation once I made it back to my room did I realize this was a 1967 translation that differed pretty significantly from the version I'd just read.

Because I'm currently lacking the energy to explain how difficult the plot of The Master and Margarita would be to adapt to a film (I am zapped of needed energy by what seems to be a nasty hollow aching in my chest, in conjunction to a burning pain in my throat that my mother insists is the swine flu), I am going to let this funny 70s narrator describe the difficulties as he introduces a 1972 film version of the novel.

I would recommend only watching until his introduction ends. The opening sequence is almost as painful as my symptoms. (Har Har Har)

With such stupid, purely physical, infirmities, that seem to depend on the sunset or something, how can one help doing stupid things?

Dostoyesvsky's 188th birthday on October 30th and I missed it! Thanks to Jessica Crispin at Bookslut, I can now acknowledge it properly. I never knew that he was born the day before Halloween.... But after reading Jessica's funny (and excellent, not that the two are mutually exclusive) post about it, I have an excuse to post about the Pittsburgh Irish and Classical Theater's production of Crime and Punishment that I saw at the end of September and neglected to mention on this blog.

I have read Crime and Punishment twice and, apart from my attempt to read Notes From Underground over this past summer, it is the only work of Dostoyevsky's that I've ever completed. I know how much of a shame that is, and given how much I loved C & P the second time I read it, I know I'd like his other novels a lot. The banter between Porfiry and Raskolnikov is exhilarating and the philosophical questions it raises are profound without feeling trite. And Dostoyesvky's characterization is sharp as all hell.
Take for example, this description of Peter Petrovich, Dunya's fiance:

Peter Petrovich belonged to that order of persons who seem extremely amiable in company and lay special claim to the social graces, but who, as soon as something is not to their liking, lose all their spring and become more like sacks of flour than animated and lively gentlemen.

This humor pervades the entire massive novel, though at parts it's much less funny than others.

The play adaptation I saw two months ago fails to capture many of those moments in the book. It would be impossible to adapt the whole novel to a 90 minute stage play, so the company chose to focus solely on Raskolnikov's meetings with Porfiry, and his relationship with Sonya. Those parts are all done well, but watching the play didn't knock me out as much as reading the book did. That said, the performances are strong and Joel Ripka depicted Raskolnikov's psychological struggles well. Thanks to a photo on the Pittsburgh Tribune site, below are Joel Ripka and John Meyers on stage as Raskolnikov and Porfiry during one of the invigorating interview scenes.

And still, the box is not full

I know that we're supposed to be reaching out into the blogosphere this week, (and I promise, I've been looking into that!), but I've been thinking about East of Eden this weekend and I want to share a passage I loved in it that speaks volumes to the whole idea of this silly blog.
The selection I want to share describes the sensation of barricading yourself in a book. It's a feeling I miss a lot during the semester, when somehow I start viewing all free time as an opportunity to be doing something either more important, or more "fun" than reading for pleasure. That's a ridiculous and embarrassing fact for me to admit, especially here.

I'm looking forward to winter break for a lot of reasons, but one of them is definitely for whatever book I choose to bury myself in.

At any rate, here is the paragraph that triggered all of that:

"Tom got into a book, crawled and groveled between the covers, tunneled like a mole among the thoughts, and came up with the book all over his face and hands."