Large Print Blues

I have needed reading glasses for a while now. So recently I thought I would try large print editions of books, available at my local library. Strangely enough, reading the large print novels made me feel both old and childish at the same time. Old, because of all the associations with old eyes and old people, but childish because it reminded me of children's books, with their chunky, blocky print; somehow these editions even made the sentences seem shorter and simpler, absurd as that sounds. As much as I believe in the pure power of words, experiences like this remind me that the packaging and the media do make a difference in one's feelings about a book. Reading a mass market paperback with a gaudy cover feels a bit different than reading a sturdy, plain-covered hardback edition of the same book. Reading online is definitely different than reading print. Listening to books-on-tape is different from reading books. Even a book's size and the font used can make a difference. Somehow reading large print books has been a bit unsettling. I do want to acknowledge that they help a lot of people, so I am glad that they exist; in addition, I may well need them myself someday. In the meanwhile, I may have to get stronger reading glasses, but I think I will postpone the large print editions for a bit longer.

No, Thanks, Really!

I had seen a couple of reviews of Scottish writer A.L. Kennedy's new book, "What Becomes: Stories" (Knopf, 2010). I had heard she was an excellent writer, and this story collection sounded intriguing, but it also sounded very intense and depressing; I couldn't decide whether I wanted to read it or not. I kept thinking I would read one or two more reviews and then decide. Then today I read in the San Francisco Chronicle's review by Carmela Ciuraru that "One English critic has compared the experience of reading Kennedy to being 'being beaten in the groin with a hammer' - intended as a compliment - and it's an apt description. Her books are tough." Um, I think I will pass....

Another Great Day at the Literature Conference

I spent another wonderful day at the American Literature Association conference today (see also my post of 5/27/10), and heard talks on more of my favorite women writers: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Kate Chopin, Flannery O'Connor, Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Gertrude Stein. It was both intellectually stimulating and a joy to revel in hearing such interesting talks about such great writers! An added bonus was hearing Emily Toth speak, and meeting her after the session; she is a leading scholar on women's literature - especially Kate Chopin's work - and women's issues, as well as the author of the Ms. Mentor book and columns, in which she gives astute advice to women in academe. She was very funny and very friendly. Another thing I liked about the conference was the speakers' obvious dedication to, and even love for, the authors they spoke about. Yes, they are doing their scholarly work, but their sense of connection to "their" authors was palpable.

Bad Marriages, Limited Lives: "The Pumpkin Eater"

"Peter, Peter, Pumpkin eater/Had a wife and couldn't keep her./ He put her in a pumpkin shell/And there he kept her very well." I imagine you remember this nursery rhyme; Penelope Mortimer chooses to title her novel "The Pumpkin Eater" (McGraw-Hill, 1962) after it. And yes, it describes a very bad, very dysfunctional marriage. But it also illustrates the larger issue of dissatisfied women in constrictive marriages and limited lives. This novel was published in England about the same time that Evan S. Connell's "Mrs. Bridge" (which I posted about on 5/3/10) was published in the U.S., and both address these limitations on women's lives in the 1950s and 1960s. The main characters in the two novels are very different. One is English, one is American. One is urban, one is small town. One isn't very concerned with morality; the other is very proper. One is a careless housewife and mother; the other does everything correctly. But each is confused about why she doesn't feel fulfilled or happy, despite having material comforts, a husband, and several children. Both feel oddly lost; both at least briefly consult therapists (at their husbands' suggestions) who are completely useless and even harmful; both have husbands who can't or won't understand what their problems are (although in different ways: Mr. Bridge is clumsy and rigid, whereas Jake Armitage is self-centered and unfaithful). In other words, both women have the condition described by Betty Friedan in "The Feminine Mystique" -- lack of fulfillment and lack of opportunity for fulfillment.

Susan Glaspell

Today I went to the American Literature Association conference here in San Francisco, and attended wonderful sessions all day. I mostly chose talks about women writers, such as Willa Cather, Louisa May Alcott, Margaret Fuller, H.D., and Carson McCullers. One of the best sessions (a set of three talks) was on Susan Glaspell (1876-1948), which reminded me of how she is yet another author who was well known in her time, but then much less so, until feminist scholars in the 1970s brought attention back to her writing. Her powerful, very feminist one-act play, "Trifles," is now frequently anthologized. However, her longer plays and her novels are still neglected. It was encouraging to hear the talks this morning, and to find that there is a Susan Glaspell Society, a group of scholars who study, speak about, and write about her work. Long may her work live!

Thank You, Alice Walker

I stopped reading Alice Walker's work some years ago. I admit to sometimes being a bit dismissive of some of her seemingly "out there" ideas of recent years. But I recently heard a radio interview with her, and was - once again - so impressed with her commitment to important causes related to gender and racial equality, and to alleviating suffering around the world. I started thinking about how important and influential some of her work had been over the years. For example, the novel "The Color Purple," read by so many, spoke so passionately of the pain and destruction caused by prejudice and ignorance. And another novel, "Possessing the Secret of Joy," was one of the very first books to bring wide public attention to the issue of genital mutilation of girls and women in many places in the world, including the United States. These novels, and other works by Walker, remind us of the power of fiction to raise consciousness in a large audience in a way that editorial page essays, or publications of political and social organizations, may not be able to do so widely or effectively. So thank you, Alice Walker, for your tireless dedication to making the world a better and more equitable place.

"After the Workshop"

I have trouble resisting novels about writers' lives. "After the Workshop"(Counterpoint, 2010), by John McNally, goes one better: The novelist writes about a novelist who is writing about a novelist. Very "meta." The main novel's main character, Jack Hercules Sheahan, is - like John McNally, and like Sheahan's protagonist - a graduate of the famous Iowa Writers' Workshop. Twelve years later, he still lives in Iowa City, hasn't published anything since his big success - a story in The New Yorker - and now earns his living as a media escort for more famous writers visiting Iowa City on book tours. The book is satirical, funny, and sad. The workshop, writers, and aspiring writers are all skewered. Yet the tone of the novel is, on another level, affectionate as well, and the main character is oddly good-natured despite all his disappointments and the embarrassing things that happen to him. The world of writers and writing still seems the highest calling to McNally and to Sheahan both.