Lately, it seems like everything is making me cry. Not like pregnant someone-ate-my-christmas-cookie or that-stupid-hallmark-commercial cry..no, not e Lately, it seems like everything is making me cry. Not like pregnant someone-ate-my-christmas-cookie or that-stupid-hallmark-commercial cry..no, not exactly like that.
More like watching a bunch of teenagers get all excited singing a hymn mash up at the high school fall choir concert, or watching an episode of Black Mirror where a wife mail orders a textured semi-synthetic-organic compound that is malleable on command husband, or when your boyfriend decides that a puzzle solving section of Fall Out is better than messaging you. That sort of cry.. the heaving, (not in the case of the BF, that was put there to make him feel bad.. and he will), pulsing, visine seeking, leave you aching kind of cry.
Maybe it’s the cry of growing old. I feel old.
“And time is a curious thing. Most of us only live for the time that lies right ahead of us. A few days, weeks, years. One of the most painful moments in a person's life probably comes with the insight that an age has been reached when there is more to look back on than ahead. And when time no longer lies ahead of one, other things have to be lived for. memories, perhaps.”
Ove, the man called Ove, is old. Well, he’s only like 59 but he feels a lot older. He tries to live in black and white in a world that is gray and ends up becoming a ‘veritable explosion of color. A riot of yellow and red and blue and green and orange and purple.' I think he hates it. I get why.
When I started the book I was told to ‘hang in there’, that I would ‘come to love it’.. but I loved it right from the beginning because Ove, bless his gray soul, kicks ass.
Pragmatic. I used to think that word meant stodgy, lacking emotion, detached. Sound it out praaagmaaatic. Praaaag sounds like something a bridge troll would belch while waiting for you to answer it’s riddle. Ugh. Onomatopoeia gets me every time.
Ove taught me to see pragmatism differently.. it truly is practical. No fuss, no frills… git ‘er done. There’s something to be said about those type of men.. “Men like Ove and Rune were from a generation in which one was what one did, not what one talked about.” It sounds---- nice. Sourpuss, sweetheart, tomato, tomahto.
I probably would get irritated down the road. Because I suck… I can’t handle simple. I like broken, and although Ove seems broken… and okay, I will admit it, feels broken… he’s not. He’s just not built for this world.
“Now you listen to me," says Ove calmly while he carefully closes the door. "You've given birth to two children and quite soon will be squeezing out a third. You've come here from a land far away and most likely you fled war and persecution and all sorts of other nonsense. You've learned a new language and got yourself an education and you're holding together a family of obvious incompetents. And I'll be damned if I've seen you afraid of a single bloody thing in this world before now....I'm not asking for brain surgery. I'm asking you to drive a car. It's got an accelerator, a brake and a clutch. Some of the greatest twits in world history have sorted out how it works. And you will as well." And then he utters seven words, which Parvaneh will always remember as the loveliest compliment he'll ever give her. "Because you are not a complete twit.”
Oh, that’s so Ove.
So, yes.. I cried. A lot. And I thought it would be a The Elegance of the Hedgehogcry but no.. it was worse. I know… right?
The words are so gracefully arrranged that it hurts. It really does…
“Loving someone is like moving into a house," Sonja used to say. "At first you fall in love with all the new things, amazed every morning that all this belongs to you, as if fearing that someone would suddenly come rushing in through the door to explain that a terrible mistake had been made, you weren't actually supposed to live in a wonderful place like this. Then over the years the walls become weathered, the wood splinters here and there, and you start to love that house not so much because of all its perfection, but rather for its imperfections. You get to know all the nooks and crannies. How to avoid getting the key caught in the lock when it's cold outside. Which of the floorboards flex slightly when one steps on them or exactly how to open the wardrobe doors without them creaking. These are the little secrets that make it your home.”
Or…
“She laughed and laughed and laughed until the vowels were rolling across the walls and floors, as if they meant to do away with the laws of time and space.”
Breaks. My. Heart.
So, if you want to read about a foul speaking, Saab loving, white shirt fighting, heart too big, grumpus. Ove is your man. He is highly recommended by his Cat Annoyance. And Me.
“The very sort of smile that makes decent folk want to slap Buddhist monks in the face,”
Wow. That was harsh. No, worse than harsh, that was brutal. I am wretched, shattered, ausgespielt even. Have to give credit to the Germans for such an Wow. That was harsh. No, worse than harsh, that was brutal. I am wretched, shattered, ausgespielt even. Have to give credit to the Germans for such an onomatopoeic word for how this feels. Yay, Germans.
It’s 4:30 am, I’m on my 5th cup of coffee and trying to counteract the caffeine shakes with graham crackers, my eyes are bleary, words blurring, my jaw is clenched, throat sore and there’s a hollow space above my rib cage, I think that’s my soul.
Wow. I did not think that this was going to be like this. I thought what a sort of lovely fairy tale; my fellow goodreaders have recommended it, why not. But this, this was like a story your mom might tell you as you curl into her lap, feeling all safe and sound wrapped in a Grimm Brother’s morality lesson, then drenched in a Thomas Hardy tragedy.
Now that I’ve set the mood, let’s talk.
“The earth’s lungs, coated in green ooze and thaw, breathed out blossom-scent and sour rot and fungus-must, wet and warm and aware, where before the air had been cold and blind, remote as the moon.”
Exactly.
Life can be cold and blind. We all have our grievances, our wrongs, some are trivial, some truly heinous, but the emotion is there nonetheless (is that too many commas in one sentence? Whatever. Carry on.) I am not going to tell you the plot, but I’m going to relate my feelings about the events and do with it what you will, this is MY space.
I totally get the feeling of wanting to escape. The pain is too much, the work is too hard, the results are too little. I cannot blame Liga for wanting to create her own heart’s desire, her version of heaven and wanting to stay in that zone and raise her daughters free from all the harm that befell her. Yes, I say, BRING ON THE SHEEP FARM FROM BABE (without all the heavy like farm work, of course). Liga was totally screwed. Good for her. Let the boring safe life prevail. Score one for Team Liga.
And yet…. It can’t last. Right? The pumpkin returns, the apple is eaten, Heathcliff is actually an asshole. ‘There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start.’ –Sorry Shel, we aren’t even worthy of that.
Yes, we have happy times but they are almost always dwarfed by misfortune. This book will give you so many great starts that will just devastate you. And this is why I love it. It’s real. It’s got magical worlds, and sorcery and true love and then it just tears you a new one.
“Now you are in the true world, and a great deal more is required of you. Here you must befriend real wolves, and lure real birds down from the sky. Here you must endure real people around you, and we are not uniformly kind; we are damaged and impulsive, each in our own way. It is harder. It is not safe. But it is what you were born to.”
Suck that. You know what really gets me? The give and take. It’s never equal is it? I might be speaking from not such a great place and who knows, next week I might be bitch slapping myself for writing this, but yeah, I feel like I’ve been dealt a crappy hand. I have wonderful children, I have daily laughs, not always the belly type, but still good moments, but it’s a constant struggle and why is that? Why can’t we sometimes just get a break, you know?
Liga, I get it. I wish to be your conduit. I wish to take all the injustices dealt to you and let you be truly happy. Don’t be happy for someone else, there’s a time and a place for that, I know.. but just for you. The last line of the book kills me because it just seems so unfair:
“They all looked to Liga, seated by the window with her face to the light, to the faint midsummer air, which moved the tendrils of hair at her temples. She turned and slightly smiled at them all, and titled her head most graciously, accepting the witch’s, and the woolman’s compliments, and her daughters’ pleasure in them, as no more than she deserved.”
That’s it. Goal Met. Challenge conquered. I do not need to read any other book this year. I am satiated.
You know how I have that groupie mentality? Y That’s it. Goal Met. Challenge conquered. I do not need to read any other book this year. I am satiated.
You know how I have that groupie mentality? Yeah, well… Ilovejohnsteinbecksomuchit’skillingme.
“It happened to so many of my friends. The lecture ends, “Slow down. You’re not as young as you once were.” And I had seen so many begin to pack their lives in cotton wool, smother their impulses, hood their passions, and gradually retire from their manhood into a kind of spiritual and physical semi invalidism…. And I have searched myself for this possibility with a kind of horror. For I have always lived violently, drunk hugely, eaten too much or not at all, slept around the clock or missed two nights of sleeping, worked too hard and too long in glory, or slobbed for a time in utter laziness. I’ve lifted pulled, chopped, climbed, made love with joy and taken my hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment. I did not want to surrender fierceness for a small gain in yardage.”
They should put that on a t-shirt. Girls would flock. Seriously, this guy is hot. What’s the opposite of cougar because that’s what I am. Or maybe I should just move to necrophilia since we’re going on 40 years since he met the daisies. Still, all through this book I was OMG THIS IS THE MAN OF MY DREAMS. He names his truck Rocinante! And Charley? My god… don’t even.
I’ve never really had the itch to travel across America. I’m a northeaster, I can’t handle people who don’t talk as fast as me, don’t walk as fast as me, eat clam chowder that’s red, use the word ‘pop’, don’t have basements, have tornado warnings, you know… those people. I’ve tiptoed out of my comfort zone a few times but usually rush back to the elitist, bitter, hmphing bosom of my kind. John has given me a bit of a rash.
The first few parts of the book center on country that I am familiar with… he drives from Long Island to the tip of Maine and back down across New Hampshire and Vermont. He stops at roadside diners, encounters sad souls and men of few words. This is 1960, when plastic covered everything was in and politics was best left to the city folk. He absorbs so much. “ And the Aurora Borealis was out. I’ve seen it only a few times in my life. It hung and moved with majesty in folds like an infinite traveler upstage in an infinite theater. In color sof rose and lavender and purple it moved and pulsed against the night, and the frost sharpened stars shone through it. What a thing to see at a time when I need it so badly!" And to the sad soul who served him his plastic meal that night he says “ I wondered for a moment whether I should grab that waitress and kick her behind out to look at it, but I didn’t dare. She could make eternity and infinity melt and run out through your fingers.” Yes, I realize that’s an insult, but how freakin’ beautiful.
I want to breathe that air, to feel that rising, so glorious that words are not enough (except with him, they can be and that’s amazing). I want to sit by a fire with canucks passing as seasonal potato pickers; I want to sit in the Vermont church with him listening to the hellfire promising preacher damn us.
“Having proved that we, or perhaps only I, were no damn good, he painted with cool certainty what was likely to happen to us if we didn’t make some basic reorganizations for which he didn’t hold out much hope…. I began to feel good all over. For some years now God has been a pal to us, practicing togetherness, and that causes the same emptiness a father does playing softball with his son. But this Vermont God cared enough about me to go to a lot of trouble kicking the hell out of me.”
My OTP. My BFF, the fly to my soup, the lox to my bagel, my everything. See, John is.. JOHN in this book, he says he’s not.. he says he doesn’t want anyone to recognize him, that he wants to know America, to understand but he comes across so vividly, full Technicolor, that I found myself responding to him. I felt the manic depressive moments like the hills and valley of a rollercoaster. He bares himself to strangers, tries to pry the life out of them. He studies voraciously—and this isn’t a newbie rambler---he’s been EVERYWHERE and you still feel lost with him on the shores of lakes in the back woods of Indiana.
“My wants are simple. I have no desire to latch onto a monster symbol of fate and prove my manhood in titanic piscine war. But sometimes I do like a couple of cooperative fish of frying size.” I would fish with you my friend. Even in Indiana.
If I were to step out of my comfort zone and travel this America, I know that I wouldn’t see the same way that John sees. I know that this is a different America from 1960 Steinbeck as much as it is to 1930 Steinbeck. Perhaps even more so… we are consumed with posthaste and irritated with impermanent. I would want to take the unknown but know that I would fall prey to the interstates and their humdrum. I am not a patient woman (I am a northeaster). I wonder how many have taken the travels with Charley route and what they discovered.
There are so many more scenes that I want to share with you. I want to follow you around and read this out loud with boisterous glee. I cannot however, dinner is due and laundry is waiting.
Please, PLEASE read this book. Scratch the itch. Tell me all about it. ...more
“Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.”
This is my “Soon enough the days will close over their lives, the grass will grow over their graves, until their story is just an unvisited headstone.”
This is my worst fear. I got goosebumps when I read it. To be forgotten… erased from memory. But, I don’t think that is what this book is about. (I just liked that quote). I think this book is about love and choices and damned be all who judges.
This is not a book I would have read on my own. I will start with that. But, I am glad that I did. I’m not sure I was changed by it, but the quick time that I spent in Janus with Tom and Isabel and Lucy.. well, it was precious.
I’ve always wanted to live in a lighthouse. Who doesn’t? I pity the landlocked. The sound of the ocean, the breaks in the water, the tidal pools… I miss it. You see, I have become one of the landlocked. Yes, I have a large lake, but it’s not the same. Not by far.
This is the lighthouse I want to live in.
[image]
I have since I was eight years old on vacation with my family. I love the pulley system, I love the little house, it’s close to land, but it’s not. I spent a lot of my teens here, I still visit at least yearly and I still want to live there.
In 1874 President Rutherford B. Hayes appropriated the sum of $15,000 to build a lighthouse on this “Nub” of land. On July 1, 1879 construction was completed on what, at the time, was known as the Knubble Lighthouse with a 4th order light began to protect our men and women on the sea. The men and women serving in the Lighthouse Service were the first guardians who provided great care for the light and its surrounding buildings… Eventually this service became short of resources and funding to care for our majestic beacons.Because of this in part, as well as the growing development of technology, the Lighthouses became automated. Nubble Light was automated in July, 1987
The lighthouse in this book is nothing like Nubble Light.
[image]
It’s its own little world and just as beautiful and just as important a character as anyone else. This is where Tom Sherbourne feels the safest. He’s been through WWI and likes the rules, the continuity, the sameness. He is a thoughtful man, one that holds the horrors of what he’s seen close to him. He meets Isabel who is light, quick to laugh, fierce in her love. I truly enjoyed these characters.
The life on the lighthouse seems to suit them and soon they become pregnant. Good people, who have much to offer, much love to share… and what happens? Life is a bitch. It is cruel and cold and unfair. Dammit.
But, what do they do? They persevere. They suffer through 3 miscarriages until the ocean brings them a gift. A baby in a dinghy (oh and her dead dad). What would you do? 100 miles from land with little contact with the outside world, just having buried your third child? I don’t blame them… they are good people.
“When it comes to their kids, parents are all just instinct and hope. And fear. Rules and laws fly straight out the window.”
Yep. This is the one thing in this book that is familiar to me. This and that life is a bitch. I don’t fault them their happiness and if it wasn’t for that damn onus. That stupid (view spoiler)[rattle. (hide spoiler)] I knew it was their downfall… they would have been FINE.
Well, except for the whole guilt feeling. That can get to some people and I truly wonder if I were in their place, would it bother me. Sad to say, I think not. Not after the life they were dealt.
“Perhaps when it comes to it, no one is just the worst thing they ever did.”
Word. I don’t believe that these actions cause these people to be bad. I understand that it left a hole in someone else’s life and yeah, that makes me sad, but really… the aftermath seems much worse.
Maybe I am going to hell. Maybe I am a rotten person.
“You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day.”
If only it were that easy for me.
This book is a tug of war of contradictions for me. I would do that and I would do that, but not that. I would feel guilt but I wouldn’t change.
Lately, a lot of what I’ve read has led me to these self doubts. Judging my own character against these fictional ones. Is this a book nerd’s midlife crisis?
I did cry. I cried for Tom, for Isabel, for Lucy, for Hannah. I can’t say what is right and what is wrong, only what would make the most joy or cause the most grief. It’s a heavy scale. ...more
Oh. This was good. This knew right where to burrow its pincers and plant that seedling. If that even works that way.
Ten letter word for incorporeal, Oh. This was good. This knew right where to burrow its pincers and plant that seedling. If that even works that way.
Ten letter word for incorporeal, evanescent, imponderable, unsure.
This weed that is growing is deep in my nethers. It hurts. It reminds me that something is missing, something/one that is far away, evasive. That what I consider is true love. True: “You choose your truth and then you build your life around it.”Love: “Greater love has no man than this: to lay down his life for his friends---JOHN 15:13”
This is the true love of friendship. The one that is supposed to be there for you always and forever. Not the gooey lust thing we sometimes mistake for love, but that feeling that no matter what you do, how you do it, if you are banished for doing it, if you become a pariah for doing it, you still have that one person you know has your back. And, they will hold your hair while you puke into a dumpster.. True Love.
Here we have Hannah (“Grace”) and Zoe (“Life”).
Hannah: “You’re a half glass empty kind of girl, aren’t you? No, not really, I just like surprises, so I keep my expectations low.”
Zoe: “We hate labels, but the doctors like to call it a thing that rhymes with hi-molar schmisdorder or zanic oppression. I just think she’s more alive than the rest of us.”
How far would you go for your best friend?
This is a road trip story, much like An Abundance of Katherines and Going Bovine. It’s about discovery, about running away, about learning about the ethereal.
Intangible Things. These are the gifts that Zoe gives Hannah and the belief in the intangible is what she gets in return. Ultimate Trust, even when you have to trust the impossible.
That is the great theme in this book, the intangible.
Zoe’s brother, Noah (“Comfort”): “Zoe’s eight-year old little brother, Noah, has some kind of Aspergery thing. He could read when he was two. He understands Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. He’s read all of Stephen Hawking’s books. He is obsessed with the cosmos and talks about it constantly without ever noticing if you’re listening to him. And yet he cannot process anything at all irrational or intangible. Emotions are elusive to him. Dreaming and imagination, foreign. To help him, and since he loves museums, Zoe created the Museum of Intangible things, for which she creates a new installation in her basement every month. September’s project was “Pride.” In the corner, Zoe created a puffed-out human chest with papier-mache and peach tempers paint. A marionette peacock walked back and forth over a gay pride rainbow, while a video montage streamed footage of a mother watching her son graduate from college, a swimmer winning a gold medal, and an actress receiving an Academy Award. She covered the walls with white paper and asked me to write about when I feel proud."
"Zoe explains that ‘Sloth-Laziness-Depression” will consist of Barbie and Ken in gray felt outfits installed in a shoebox also covered in gray felt. She found an old flowered couch with the foam bulging from the rips of the cushions and on top of it, she flopped her mannequin dressed in a Snuggie. An old TV/VCR will stream infomercials and Zoe will scatter potato chips and empty soda cans around the couch, which will also be sprinkled with cat hair.. For the interactive part of the exhibit, she filled the pockets of an old fishing vest with rocks and will ask Noah to try it on. Behind a screen in the corner of the basement, to distinguish between sloth and sadness-slash-despair, Zoe created a beating heart impaled by a kitchen knife."
"Won’t that scare him? I ask."
“Um. Duh. He doesn’t understand fear.”.
This weed… it needs to be yanked. I need to fill this space with that sort of devotion, give and take. This book reminds me of that. Acceptance...that is intangible as well. ...more
I hate this book. I hate it with..with…HATE. It’s visceral, I mean literally VISCERAL, like affecting me internally. My arms are humming and my legs a I hate this book. I hate it with..with…HATE. It’s visceral, I mean literally VISCERAL, like affecting me internally. My arms are humming and my legs are pounding and my throat has closed and my fingers shake and such hate from the bowels of depth or depth of bowels or whatever you think is right because I can’t think I’m so filled with….
Want. Need. Loss. Despair.
This is a love story. It’s a story of two young people falling in love.
“Romeo and Juliet are just two rich kids who’ve always gotten every little thing they want. And now, they think they want each other.” “They’re in love..” Mr. Stessman said, clutching his heart. “They don’t even know each other,” she said. “It was love at first sight.” “It was ‘Oh my God, he’s so cute’ at first sight. If Shakespeare wanted you to believe they were in love, he wouldn’t tell you in almost the very first scene that Romeo was hung up on Rosaline… It’s Shakespeare making fun of love.” She said. “They why has it survived?”….”Tell us, why has Romeo and Julie survived four hundred years?” Park hated talking in class. Eleanor frowned at him, then looked away. He felt himself blush. “Because…” he said quietly, looking at his desk, “Because people want to remember what it’s like to be young? And in love?”
See? Rainbow Rowell is making fun of us. We should all be storming her door with torches and yard rakes.
It’s not like books haven’t done this to me before, but maybe just maybe I’m wiser now.. maybe I’ve gained some distance from that ‘When he touched Eleanor’s hand, he recognized her. He knew. Eleanor: Disintegrated. ….. If you’ve ever wondered what that feels like, it’s a lot like melting—but more violent.”
Or maybe not.
Because this isn’t REAL. It doesn’t LAST. You can’t NEED a person like that forever. It FADES, it withers and dies and if it doesn’t outwardly die, it limps along begrudgingly muttering bits of snarkyness under its halitosis laden breath.
And that is why I hate it so much, it stirred up all that stale oxytocin that is mixing with my gastric juices and flung it around right back into circulation... visceral and made me feel weak, made me cry. Made me wish for that.
But, it only happens in books. I have to keep reminding myself of that. The good never lasts. And it’s never the big dramatic orchestra laden climax that does it. It’s just life. And the memories are there and they sting and a glimmer of hope of having that again rises up until you put down the book and know that there really isn’t an Eleanor or a Park and it’s the end of Say Anything all over again when Lloyd and Diane are on the plane and they look at each and you know… you just know that they’re not going to last.
Maybe you cry for that old self. Or maybe you let the bitterness eat at you. All’s Fair..
I’m trying to remember the first time my parents let me down. I’m sure that there was some Barbie accessory that I wanted, the Dream House most definiI’m trying to remember the first time my parents let me down. I’m sure that there was some Barbie accessory that I wanted, the Dream House most definitely. But, damn, I was spoiled!!! What a freaking brat… how could anyone stand me?
Now, what about the times I let them down? The time I swallowed a penny and sat at the end of their bed staring at them until one of them woke up? The time I ‘lost’ my little sister? (She only walked to the store, like 4 blocks away, when she was 3) The time our dog Dusty had to go away because his ‘real’ parents missed him. Noope. None of those. I didn’t question their actions at all. They were my parents after all.
Now you might get the impression that I’ve got the 1970s Cleaver edition of parents. Far freakin’ from it. We were blue collar, alcoholic dad working 3 jobs, chain smoking mom working 2, deep in debt like I wouldn’t be surprised if that nice man with the briefcase was actually someone wanting to take our house away. I, of course, being so self-consumed, did not see it.
Ask me when I first realized when my parents were human and I’m there, in the moment, vivid Technicolor. It was like a tellanovella, complete with infidelity and the big ‘C’ and the absolute WORST trip to the county fair when my father told me he was moving out. Yep, bubble sufficiently burst.
Yes, Kim, TMI. T.M.I. Get on with it. Tell us why we should read this damn book. Okay, but first, I have to kind of argue that this is a ‘novel’. I mean really, it’s like under 200 pages… So, I asked Siri ‘What is a novel?’ and after giving me pictures of some anorexic, stiletto wearing, pre pubescents, (NOVEL, Siri, not MODEL) this is what dicitionary.com gave me: a fictitious prose narrative of considerable length and complexity, portraying characters and usually presenting a sequential organization of action and scenes. Um… Okay, what is considerable length (you don’t want to know what Siri replied to that). Then I got the philosophical “After all, would we really care if Michelangelo's statue of David was a foot shorter or if Rodin's Thinker was a foot taller? They would still be great works of art, no?” crap. Whatever. For the record, I see this as a novella, a fable, let’s get all fancyshmancy and use the word ‘allegory’
So, if you got this far, then now you’ll hear what I actually think of this book. I have to set the scene, I have to let you know my baseline.
This book was beautiful. Someone in book club said ‘tenderly written’; the word ‘fantastical’ was also tossed around. Some said it was scary and my reply was ‘have you read gaiman?’ Because this is what I see when I hear his name. I think of monsters, and book nerdy children, and all that complexity crap written above. I remember Door, I remember Death, I even remember Tristran (even though I wasn’t too fond of that book and thought he was Tristan throughout).
In the interview at the end of the book, one of the book clubbers mentioned that when asked about how much of this book was invention and how much was autobiographical his response was:
“Imagine a mosaic picture of a house in the country: lots of red and blue and yellow and black and brown and white and a dozen different shades of green tiles which make a beautiful picture if you stand back far enough. All the little red squares are true--true things, true places, true feelings. But the red squares aren't the picture. All the rest of it is lies and stories, often within the same sentence.”
This made me fall in love. I wouldn’t have understood this when I was little, but now, as a mother who had most definitely let down their kids and shown just how human she can be, this is the best I can do at trying to explain what it’s like. What is ‘what’, I don’t know. But, this is it.
He says “It's a book about family, it's a book about being 7 in a world of people who are bigger than you, and more dangerous, and stepping into territory that you don't entirely understand."
How many fears did we have as children (and adults)? Irrational, cockamamie, unreasonable fears? I know I had a lot, I was a timid child, timid teen, I’m sure there were many monsters that I feared that I have swallowed and hidden in the blackest corner of my soul and I bet they will emerge with dementia and/or death.
I’ve always felt that I am just pretending at this adult thing. I’ve learned, semi-recently, that I am not the only one and that floored me. I thought everyone else had it together. Well, everyone who didn’t OD or end up on a slew of SSRIs and benzos.
“Grown-ups don't look like grown-ups on the inside either. Outside, they're big and thoughtless and they always know what they're doing. Inside, they look just like they always have. Like they did when they were your age. Truth is, there aren't any grown-ups. Not one, in the whole wide world.”
Again, thank you, Neil. You rock.
I don’t think that this book would really appeal to people who don’t understand that touch of magic that Gaiman can bring out in us. He takes our vulnerability and cradles it gingerly, shows us the scary and then gives us the ocean at the end of the lane and all is well, as long as you can remember the red tiles.
"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea."
You th"There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea."
You think about signs. How it is so easy to miss them, misinterpret them, ignore them, spit in their face. Is it about rebellion? Is it trying to defy the inevitable? If you ignore the whole nations, anguish, tossing part of the bible quote and focus on the selfish, defeatist, lovelorn Yunior and his tales of woe that is This is How You Lose Her, you know that he definitely spat.
“I’m not a bad guy.”
You know that this is probably the one statement that you don’t want to hear from someone you are sleeping with. It’s a garish neon blinking VACANCY sign. It’s doomed. This is how This is How You Lose Her starts and you roll your eyes and wait for the proof. Yunior is a major sucio. It’s right there, in like the 4th sentence of the first story. You cannot deny this, if you knew this man you would hate him on principle.
“ Fuck You for cheating on me. Fuck you for reducing it to the word cheating. As if this were a card game, and you sneaked a look at my hand. Who came up with the term cheating, anyway? A cheater, I imagine. Someone who thought liar was too harsh. Someone who thought devastator was too emotional. The same person who thought, oops, he’d gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Fuck you. This isn’t about slipping yourself an extra twenty dollars of Monopoly money. These are our lives. You went and broke our lives. You are so much worse than a cheater. You killed something. And you killed it when its back was turned.”
Fuck Yeah.
Yet you continue to read these stories of Yunior and his exploits and his constant yearning for that one true love. While fucking 3 to 4 woman on the side during each of his relationships. You actually relish in his demise. What makes you continue reading? Is it the second person narrative that you love so much, the inclusion, the self helpy feeling that it brings? Hell Yes, you crave the attention, you want to be part of the cool crowd. You continue.
“Love is so short, forgetting is so long.”
Neruda was a cheater. Uh Huh. This haunts you. You’ve swooned over his words and now they are tinged. It’s not hard to ignore when he gets all “I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees.” on you, and you know that you are being judgmental and that you should be Freetobeyouandme about it but you feel betrayed.
Then something happens. The Cheater’s Guide to Love. You’ve spent all of the book muttering ‘fuck you, you dirty swine’ and then the call of the dysfunctional man pulls you in. Why are you feeling bad for Yunior? You liked watching karma kick his ass. Now you feel pity. Which, in itself, is a triumph. Who wants to be pitied? Only the pitiful. You get what you deserve. But now, now you watch the demise, physical, emotional, psychological and you want to say it’s okay. You will find love. You will get better and then you read the last paragraph:
“It’s a start—you say to the room. That’s about it. In the months that follow you bend to the work, because it feels like hope, like grace—and because you know in your lying cheater’s heart that sometimes a start is all we ever get.”
And you know.. that cheater or not, you will at some point realize that yes, a start is all we ever get. And you weep. ...more
I am a horrible person (ME.ME.ME.ME.ME.ME). I am worse than a horrible person. I am a killer. I am worse than a killer. I am a killer of dreams.
My dau I am a horrible person (ME.ME.ME.ME.ME.ME). I am worse than a horrible person. I am a killer. I am worse than a killer. I am a killer of dreams.
My daughter, Marley, was about 3 when she introduced me to Hartluv. At first I thought that there were some hippy parents who subjected their child to this moniker. Maybe someone in her pre-school class but then I thought, we live in Manchester, NH. No one is that bright or weird in Manchester, NH. (we were planning our escape). It went like this:
Marley: Mom, Hartluv wants to go to the park. Me: Wha? Marley: Hartluv.wants.to.go.to.the.park. Me: Harley? Marley: (rolls eyes) Heart. Love. Me: Is that a person? Marley: She is my friend. Me: From school? Marley: (sighs) No. She lives with us. She’s right here. Me: (blank face)
Okay. I handled it well from there on. I played a long with Hartluv. I let her swing on the swings; I made a cake for her birthday, ½ birthday, sad day, etc… Hartluv told Marley she was a superhero, so Marley would introduce herself as Marley Doubleday, MD, Superhero. (she wanted to be a doctor, it was a compromise). Hartluv was a constant for about 2 years. Marley actually had 101 imaginary friends, including PianoTalk, Treeko (her stuffed animal but very prominent) . Then, one day I was upset/bad day/tired/stressed—typical mom stuff—and I didn’t set a place for Hartluv at dinner. Marley was upset and I couldn’t take it..
“Hartluv is NOT REAL!”
Quiet. Even Emily, the older sister who always made fun of Hartluv stopped. Marley looked at me and started to cry. Great. I suck. I tried to make it up to her, but Marley didn’t talk about Hartluv very much anymore, I know she was still around because I would hear Marley playing with her, but she didn’t mention her. When Marley was 7, I asked her about Hartluv. “She’s gone.” Then walked away. I asked her about Hartluv when she was 13 and she rolled her eyes. I killed Hartluv.
I don’t think I had an imaginary friend. I kinda hate myself for that. Was I not imaginative enough? Did I have one and forget? I feel like I missed out. Matthew Dicks takes this concept and molds it in a being, Budo, who is an imaginary friend to Max, who is autistic. Budo helps Max live on the outside, when all Max wants is to live inside. He helps him choose what color shirt to wear, what kind of soup to eat; he helps him fall asleep at night. Budo is as real as Max, he was imagined smart, he looks human, and he can walk through doors and windows because Max wants him to. Some imaginary friends that Budo meets are not so human. Wooly is a paper doll, Teeny is a fairy, Klute is a bobblehead. Spoon is a spoon. But they are real to their imaginers and to each other and they die. They are not needed anymore and they begin to fade away and then they die. I freakin’ cried buckets each time one was lost. I think that everyone should have an imaginary friend forever so they can live and help you and guard you and tell you what to wear. I want my own Hartluv.
I want my own Budo, Klute, Oswald, Graham, Teeny, Spoon, Summer, Puppy. I want Blu.
I want them to be remembered always, to love ‘em and hold ‘em and squeeze and never stop.
I love this story. I love the way it speaks, the way it holds you, the beauty of the friendships.
I’m not feeling that well today. I don’t know if it’s from yesterday’s chicken or the fact that I cried copious amounts of tears finishing up this boo I’m not feeling that well today. I don’t know if it’s from yesterday’s chicken or the fact that I cried copious amounts of tears finishing up this book. I even got the paper wet and if you know me… you know what that means. (view spoiler)[ (SHITFUCKPISS!) (hide spoiler)]
I wouldn’t have picked up this book on my own. I had to be led to it, and that’s okay because sometimes I can walk in circles and create a rut and start to write about nasty fan-fiction that isn’t worth a tinker’s curse.
The story is set in Ethiopia during the reign of Haile Selassie. It tells of two brothers, born conjoined at the head (not for long, forceps and a big ol’ knife took care of that) to a nun and a drunk, anxiety ridden surgeon. Both parents abandon their children (one via death, the other via drink and an exit visa). The boys are raised by two other doctors at hospital appropriately misnamed Missing.
The story is a tender one. By which I mean that it bruises. It gives us love and takes it away, it shows us our faults and how we can so easily take simple beautiful acts for granted. It’s about growing up and falling down. It’s earnest and in that, I find it so beautiful.
There is one passage that held me:
“It was a tale well known to children all over Africa: Abu Kassem, a miserly Baghdad merchant, had held on to his battered, much repaired pair of slippers even though they were objects of derision. At last, even he couldn't stomach the sight of them. But his every attempt to get rid of his slippers ended in disaster: when he tossed them out of his window they landed on the head of a pregnant woman who miscarried, and Abu Kassem was thrown in jail; when he dropped them in the canal, the slippers choked off the main drain and caused flooding, and off Abu Kassem went to jail...
'One night when Tawfiq finished, another prisoner, a quiet dignified old man, said, 'Abu Kassem might as well build a special room for his slippers. Why try to lose them? He'll never escape.' The old man laughed, and he seemed happy when he said that. That night the old man died in his sleep.
We all saw it the same way. the old man was right. The slippers in the story mean that everything you see and do and touch, every seed you sow, or don't sow, becomes part of your destiny...
In order to start to get rid of your slippers, you have to admit they are yours, and if you do, then they will get rid of themselves.
Ghosh sighed. 'I hope one day you see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”
I am still learning to walk on my own, I think I just discovered my slippers and they still feel too big and a bit scratchy. I’m afraid I won’t have a destiny and that sends me headlong into a panic attack. How vain is that?
The secret word of the day is FUN... no, let’s make it HYPE. Room.. Room... Room… I saw the crayoned word here, there, and everywhere. New York Times’The secret word of the day is FUN... no, let’s make it HYPE. Room.. Room... Room… I saw the crayoned word here, there, and everywhere. New York Times’ and Library Journal named it one of the best books of 2010, it has its own website! (where I found out it was named best book of 2010 among many other honors and dead links).
Fine, I knew what I was getting into… any book that Marie Claire calls “[A] whammy of a novel…” has me questioning the meaning of life and other stuff. But, so does macaroni and cheese loaf, so…
It’s not that it’s a bad book. Of course, I went into the novel having no real idea of what the story was about. I never do, book jackets are not meant for reading, reviews wait until I’ve already fashioned an opinion. It took me about 60 pages to realize that this wasn’t a Glass Castle ish book and that this was one of those select few books. Select few meaning who has really experienced this? Can we truly relate to the plot? I mean, outside of Jaycee Dugard and that woman in Switzerland who can nod and say ‘holy shit! they’ve nailed it!! Right On!’ and I know that novels are meant to present us with the whole fictional thing and all that-- but usually I like to relate to the characters or the situation but holy hell… not here.
Sure, the narrative is really exasperating, but you get used to it. Jack is five and lives in the ‘ROOM’ and everything is named after what it is. Table is named ‘Table’, Roof is named ‘Roof’, Tub is named ‘Tub’—alright, alright already. Usually I’m on board with the gimmicks, but this one didn’t really strike like Oskar’s ‘heavy boots’ or ‘one hundred dollars’ did. To each her own.
The plot, quite frankly, terrifies me. It makes me want to never ever let my children leave the house and STILL forward them all those emails about scams involving elderly people with sick animals in mall parking lots.
I did enjoy the ‘After’ section. We never think about ‘After’ in these sensationalism stories. People magazine might do a retrospective on how the cellist Mormon beauty is doing five years down the line, but really… what about day to day? What if you never knew that outside was real? I can’t go there… where’s my Xanax…. ...more
"Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning world-pain or world-weariness, pronounced [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts]) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and d"Weltschmerz (from the German, meaning world-pain or world-weariness, pronounced [ˈvɛltʃmɛɐ̯ts]) is a term coined by the German author Jean Paul and denotes the kind of feeling experienced by someone who understands that physical reality can never satisfy the demands of the mind. It is also used to denote the feeling of sadness when thinking about the evils of the world."
I’ve learned a new word today. I’m not sure if it’s something that I should incorporate into my vocabulary this close to the holiday, but boy I wish I had known it when I was 16. It’s the best goth word ever.
So, there’s this cool crowd of young adult authors that I’ve recently discovered. John Green, Holly Black, David Levithan, Libba Bray, Barry Lyga… I was never one to yearn for a clique. Until now. I would grovel and sell one of my kids and lick someone’s toe for the chance to be a part of this group. Isn’t that pathetic? Thing is, I’ve been searching for them since freshman year of college after reading Weetzie Bat. I thought ‘Yes! Someone gets me! Someone can be snarky and clever and intelligent and understand all of my sidebar like comments!’ This was my Weltschmertz. I’m not sure if this a noun, but I’m using it as such. I began to believe that it was luck to find Francesca and that I should be glad that I did but there would never be a gang, with a password and a gang knock and all that comes in gangland (suburbia gangland, mind you.) Now I am sad. I am left in the cold, only to consume everything I can from this group. I am at the edge of the group trying to hear all the cool things that they are saying. I write their name on all my book covers, I draw hearts and swirlies around it. I am, unabashedly, a gawker.
So, now that you know how far my devotion goes, let me add another level. This book is written by TWO of them. They went and collaborated just to make me fall deeper. Because, as the book teaches you… It’s about the falling, not the landing.
“i live in a big goddamned weltschermz ocean, you know? and so do you. and so does everyone. because everyone thinks it should be possible just to keep falling and falling forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a brilliant goddamned smile. and that should be possible. you should be able to fall forever.”
Isnt’ that… perfect? Will Grayson, Will Grayson is about finding yourself, learning to live with yourself, learning to let go and not give a fuck what other people think, learning to trust and learning to love. Mighty big statement. Formula for every YA book, you say? No. This one is different. This is where talents collide and boys named Will Grayson emerge. They look battered and worn down and they don’t say a lot but when they do… you don’t want them to stop. Will Graysons discover that elusive thing…that ‘love is bound with truth.’ And, boy, they do it damn well.
“i think the idea of a ‘mental health day’ is something completely invented by people who have no clue what it’s like to have bad mental health. the idea that your mind can be aired out in twenty-four hours is kind of like saying heart disease can be cured if you eat the right breakfast cereal. mental health days only exist for people who have the luxury of saying ‘I don’t want to deal with things today’ and then can take the whole day off, while the rest of us are stuck fighting the fights we always fight, with no one really caring one way or another, unless we choose to bring a gun to school or ruin the morning announcements with a suicide.”
mirth, n That moment when you read these tangle of words and they make your heart skip and a small sigh escapes. It binds you to the person in a slight mirth, n That moment when you read these tangle of words and they make your heart skip and a small sigh escapes. It binds you to the person in a slightly frightening stalkery way but you don't care because you are smiling and all the shit around you dissolves in passages that give you hope.
dysphoria, n Knowing that you are never going to be this good and the hollowness that follows.
uhuru, n You spent your twenties telling people that this was your favorite words because of the way your mouth moves when you say it. You didn't know it meant 'freedom' in and now you realize what a farce you've been, taking this word so lightly when it means so much to so many. It's time to grow up and get over yourself. ...more
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