"Tiny Beautiful Things," by Cheryl Strayed

"Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar" (Vintage, 2012), by Cheryl Strayed, might as well be titled "Tiny Jagged Pieces of Heartbreak." Strayed wrote the "Dear Sugar" advice column for the online literature-oriented community, The Rumpus, and this book is a collection of some of the questions and answers published there. There is nothing mundane or light about these questions; they are of the heavy-duty, worst-that-life-can-bring-you type. Sad and abusive childhoods and relationships, horrific losses, and terrible dilemmas are common themes. Strayed, also the author of the wrenching but ultimately inspiring bestselling memoir "Wild" (about which I posted here on 8/4/12), writes the most amazing answers to these questions. She is full of empathy, shares her own experiences generously, and gets to the hard truths of the matter. She always find some hope, some possible way out, but it is honest and hard-won hope, not easy comfort. The online and then the book format allow for long questions and answers, so each of Strayed's answers is a mini-essay, rather than the short, clipped answers provided in most advice columns. Readers will leave the book with great admiration for the way Strayed always -- although not indulging in Pollyannaism -- finds common humanity in every situation. This book is sad and hard to read, yet compelling and life-affirming as well.

The Fun Side of Feminism

Who says feminists don’t have a sense of humor? Gender studies graduate student Danielle Henderson, appreciative of but overwhelmed by the density of much of the feminist theory she was studying, took a break and went to the movies, and then started posting photos of Ryan Gosling on a blog, just for the fun and distraction of it. Soon she started melding her notes on feminist theory with those photos, and suddenly her original five or so blog readers turned into thousands. So she published a small (clearly stated on the cover as “unauthorized”) tongue-in-cheek book, “Feminist Ryan Gosling: Feminist Theory as Imagined from Your Favorite Sensitive Movie Dude” (Running Press, 2012). She admits that “There’s no way to tell if Ryan Gosling is actually a feminist….He hasn’t actually said anything in this book. But he is charming, talented, and intelligent; he has said some things in the media that can be construed as feminist. He loves his mom and takes ballet….It’s not too far-fetched, right?” The book has a different color photo of Gosling on each page, in each of which he has a different expression, tending toward the intense and/or sensitive. Each photo is accompanied by a short ostensible quotation, always beginning with “Hey girl.” The author likes the juxtaposition of the “Hey girl” meme with feminist-related text, calling it hilarious. “I’m not making fun of feminism; I’m having fun with feminism,” she says. Although the premise for the book is flimsy and whimsical, it is best to go with the flow, leaf through the pages, enjoy them, laugh, and maybe at the same time absorb or be reminded of some important feminist points as well. Following are a few quotations to get you started (unfortunately I can’t reproduce the photos of Gosling to accompany the quotes!). “Hey girl. All I want for my birthday is a subscription to Ms. Magazine.” “Hey girl. Is there a merit badge for transcending normative cultural beliefs about femininity?” “Hey girl. I believe Foucault’s theory of marriage is a governmentally developed tool that interferes with the appropriation of land rights and normalizes heterosexuality, but I still want to spend the rest of my life with you.” “Hey girl. Betty Friedan called it ‘the problem with no name,’ but I call it the patriarchy.” “Hey girl. We’d be more successful in reclaiming public space for women if we were willing to address the patriarchal fixtures that made it unsafe in the first place.” “Hey girl. Just listening to you talk about Patricia Hill Collins’ matrix of domination as an ideological tool that reveals the hegemonic social structure makes me thank my lucky stars for you.” Some of the quotations contain literary allusions: “Hey girl. You built a room of your own and a room in my heart.” Other quotes are as much popular culture as feminist theory. For example: “Hey girl. Being a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show might be a pipe dream, but it’s my happy place.” OK, so maybe this is dorky feminist humor, but I got a kick out of it.

Not Quite Sure What This Novel is Really About...

Is it a family story? A glimpse into Washington history? A suspense story? A love story? A portrait of a community that is just a little too involved in each other’s business? A psychological portrait? “You Are the Love of My Life” (W. W. Norton, 2012), a novel by Susan Richards Shreve, is a “good read,” but a little confused and a little contrived. Lucy, the main character, someone with several secrets in her life (about what happened to her father, and about her own children’s father), moves from New York back to her childhood city, Washington, DC. Others in the close-knit neighborhood have their own secrets. Gradually Lucy and her children become more enmeshed in the neighborhood; towards the end of the novel, the secrets gradually come out. I won’t say more, so as not to give any surprises away.

Finally, the Details of Rushdie's Life in Hiding

I can’t imagine what it must have been like for Salman Rushdie to have to hide, in fear of his life, with limited contact with his family, friends, and literary connections, for the many years he was under Khomeini’s fatwa condemning him to death for what was perceived, in his book “The Satanic Verses,” as blasphemy against Islam and its prophet. Now we have a fascinating, gripping and detailed glimpse into Rushdie’s experiences in his current New Yorker (9/17/12) essay titled “The Disappeared.” We read with mounting dread and sympathy of how Rushdie’s life was turned upside down in 1989; he was in hiding (protected by the British government and police) for over nine years, and continued to receive threats even after that. Rushdie’s book, “Joseph Anton,” describing this whole experience, will be out later this month. I have followed this story from the beginning, was fortunate enough to hear Rushdie speak in the San Francisco City Arts and Lectures series a few years ago, and look forward to reading the new book.

"Matrimony," by Joshua Henkin

The title "Matrimony" reminds me of 19th century novels, which in my view is a very good thing; I treasure novels that look deeply into the lives of a small group of people, exploring their relationships, their values, and the events that change them (or don't). This novel (Vintage, 2007) is by Joshua Henkin, author of the more recent novel that I posted (very positively) about on 8/19/12: "The World Without You." It was because I liked that novel so much that I went back and found "Matrimony." The two novels share -- unsurprisingly -- a certain tone and sensibility that I find attractive: thoughtful, modest, probing, understated. "Matrimony"'s subject matter reminds me of that of Eugenides' "The Marriage Plot," but the styles of the two novels are very different. There is something brasher about "The Marriage Plot" that -- although I generally enjoyed the novel -- was a little off-putting to me. (See my post about it on 11/26/11.) I also like the main characters in "Matrimony" better than those in "The Marriage Plot." The four main characters met in college, and the novel follows them for some years after. Julian and Mia fall in love and marry, but suffer some upheavals in their relationship. They also have an ambivalent relationship with their friend Carter. Most of the novel takes place in various college towns. I like the everydayness of the lives described. Big things happen, yes, but somehow the small events of daily life are as interesting as the big ones. Although the novel is of medium length, and covers about 20 years, there is a somewhat leisurely, unrushed quality to the telling of the story, another quality I value.

Sloppy Proofreading

The novel I am reading now contains many errors. In the first few pages, the name of the neighborhood that the main character moves into is spelled two different ways, alternating between the two. The name of another important character is also spelled two different ways. There are other annoying errors, such as an extra space between the last word of a sentence and the period. I know that publishers have had to cut costs, and that there is much less hands-on editing going on than in the past. And I know that at the proofreading level, no matter how carefully a book is proofread, errors can creep in. But there shouldn't be as many errors as there are in this book already, when I am only a quarter of the way into the book. The publisher is a longtime, well-known and respected one (W. W. Norton), so this is no fly-by-night outfit. I have to say, these frequent errors bother me. The more errors I see, the more they bother me, to the extent of interfering with my enjoyment of the novel. Am I being too picky?

Teenager Delivers Books on LGBT Themes

Brava to San Francisco Bay Area teenager Amelia Roskin-Frazee, who at age 15 is the organizer of the Make It Safe Project; she donates and delivers boxes of carefully chosen fiction and nonfiction books on LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender) themes to schools and youth homeless shelters. Amelia remembers when she herself could not find such information in her school library and, as quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle (8/25/12), says “When there are no books with LGBT characters, it gives LGBT (and questioning) kids the message that it’s not normal, that nobody else is like them, that something is wrong with them. And that’s a really dangerous thing.” The Chronicle article goes on to point out that “nonfiction books are also crucial for basic sex education as well as advice on how to come out in a positive way.” I am sure that it took courage for Amelia to embark on this important work, and I truly admire her for it.

David Foster Wallace: "Empty Cleverness"?

Was David Foster Wallace "obsessed with empty cleverness"? Caille Millner, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist, thinks so, as she wrote yesterday (9/1/12). She cannot understand the high regard Wallace is held in; for example, she tells us that the Guardian called him "the most gifted and original American novelist of his generation." Millner, in contrast, says he "represent[s] the worst of everything in contemporary literary fiction....His novels are long, plotless, obsessed with their own cleverness, and a cacophony of styles and voices minus character development." She also feels his popularity is gendered. She writes that "his audience isn't just an audience but practically a cult: a walking army of the kinds of upper-middle-class boys who collect vinyl records, all of whom speak of him...with three breathless letters...: D. F. W." She writes, further, that most people who read novels want plots and characters, rather than "slogging through 1,200-page novels whose chief purpose is to demonstrate the author's superb understanding of the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein." All of this is strong stuff -- extremely critical, even harshly so. I tend to agree, but have mostly thought of my lack of interest in Wallace's work as my own preference. I have even wondered if not liking or even always understanding the little of Wallace's work I have read was my own shortcoming, my own limitation. (Not that I have ever stayed up nights worrying about this!). My main response to Millner's arguments is that I mostly agree, but on the other hand, any (iterary, at least) author that gets people to read has value, and I am glad that there is a variety of types of novels out there.

"The Secret Life of Objects," by Dawn Raffel

We all have certain meaningful objects in our lives; most often their meaning comes from who gave us the objects, and/or from the circumstances in which we acquired them. Each essay in Dawn Raffel's collection of very short (from a half page to three pages each) essays, "The Secret Life of Objects" (Jaded Ibis Press, 2012), focuses on one such meaningful object in her life. She describes the objects and -- especially -- the circumstances of acquiring the objects, and her feelings about them. As we read these short pieces, we learn about the author's history, family, and character. In the brief introduction to the book, she writes that "Surveying my house I found myself surrounded by surfaces and vessels, by paper and glass, by cloth, wood, clay, paint, and also my late artist mother's renditions of things....Objects are intractable. We own them. We don't. All memoir is fiction. We try to fit the pieces together again." The titles of the approximately 50 pieces include "The Mug," "The Moonstone Ring," "The Wedding Gift," "The Tea Set from Japan," "The Bride's Bible," "The Rocking Chair," "My Grandmother Bern's Recipes," "My Father's Hat," and "The Dictionary," to name just a few. Many of the essays are accompanied by lovely, evocative black and white drawings by Sean Evers. Each piece is a sort of meditation. Although this book is short (158 pages), it is best savored over time, a few selections at a time. It is certain to remind readers, as it did me, of meaningful objects in our own homes and lives, and of the histories and feelings attached to them. I highly recommend this unusual and beautifully written book.