Flat Water Tuesday

I just finished my advanced readers copy of Ron Irwin's Flat Water Tuesday that I had won in a photography contest months ago. Grad school being what it is, I haven’t read a book for pleasure in two months, so I made up for lost time by reading Flat Water Tuesday in one day. I’ve never read an advanced copy before and didn’t quite know what to expect. Aside from some several continuity and misnaming mistakes, it was much like any other book. As a reader those mistakes annoyed me, because for a moment they took me out of the story. I had to go back, reread and make sure I was still following who was speaking to who, or if I was still involved with the character who’d been mentioned earlier. As a writer though, these mistakes did the opposite. They fascinated me. Why did Irwin decide (apparently half way through the story) that this character was from New York instead of Boston? Why did he choose the names he did for his characters? How important was it that one particular character said one particular thing to another? Changes, when left unnoticed serve as a tiny insight into the authors process, something we don’t often see in a finished work. But enough about the issues of my particular copy; you are interested in the story itself.

            Growing up in New England and attending a small NESCAC college, I have a soft spot in my heart for the preppy private school stories. I’ve read quite a few and they never fail to intrigue me. Flat Water Tuesday fulfills the majority of the stereotypes that run rampant in this prep school genre. Rob Carrey is a scholarship kid who arrives at the Fenton School and immediately feels at odds with the rich students. The emphasis on class differences dissipates as the story continues, but the idea that poor kids and rich kids can never fully understand each other is definitely there. Of course, then there is the misunderstood rich kid stereotype that the character of Connor Payne fills perfectly. Just because they have it all in terms of good looks, athleticism and money doesn’t mean they don’t crave the affection of distant parents. Connor is the charming, arrogant male that the protagonist must work against until ultimately the two come to respect each other. Check. There is the dark and mysterious female who intrigues but is off limits in someway, just waiting to be the source of unrequited love. Check. Throw in the older coach/teacher figure and a glorification of rule breaking and Flat Water Tuesday easily joins the family of stories like The Starboard Sea, A Separate Peace and Dead Poets Society. Where Irwin triumphs is when he breaks out of this stereotypical mold, not only by bypassing the usual homosexual longings that accompany stories of boys at boarding schools, but also instead giving the reader solid, accurate depth in the rowing scenes of the novel, and using a complex framing story to keep character perspective changing.

            So about that rowing. Basic plot of the book is Rob Carrey is a sculler from upstate New York, comes to Fenton to do a post grad year and row. The team has a race against a rival school that means everything and the training and competition for this race makes up the bulk of the story. I probably enjoyed this book more than most because I am a rower and a coach of the sport as well. Irwin writes with accuracy about the finer details of rowing, although is emphasis lies more with the pain of training than the near spiritual experience of rowing down the river perfectly in time with the other athletes in the boat. I am ok with this uneven representation only because I know the endless hours of work that go into creating one perfect stoke. Perhaps other readers will now understand that although rowing looks beautiful and effortless, a lot of sweat, blood and tears go into making it look that way. A race is a fight to the death inside the boat and inside a rower’s head.

            Irwin has a talent for putting us in the rower’s head and in the moment of the story. Again, I might have appreciated this more being a rower. At one point Irwin is describing the minutes just before an erg test and my stomach was in knots, thinking back to all those times when I’d stood in front of an erg and prepared to do battle. As I read that same horrible nervous feeling settled upon me and when Irwin mentioned the test piece was 2500 meters instead of today’s standard 2000 I literally had to close the book and shudder. The thought of an extra 500 meters of absolute effort made me want to cry, but props to Irwin for managing to put me deep into his story to feel that way.

            In other areas Irwin’s technique becomes suspect. He starts with the most subtle foreshadowing but it grows to the point where about half way through the book I knew what was going to happen. Granted I had started the book with a few suspicions and had pretty much called the plot a few chapters in, but thanks to Irwin’s detail about rowing and the general pacing of the story, I didn’t mind. By the end of the novel though the foreshadowing has become so obvious one of the characters calls attention to it. “I can’t believe he did this. It’s the exact same thing that this guy did,” (to paraphrase). Now this moment can either be read as wonderfully meta-literary, with Irwin showing a sense of humor about his own work, or it is worthy of a double face palm for the way it patronizes the reader, forcing them to acknowledge foreshadowing that they obviously already picked up on. I’d like to believe the former, since the rest of Irwin’s writing, particularly the framing story, is quite good.

            Ah the framing story. Besides the rowing bits, this was by far my favorite element of Flat Water Tuesday. Here Irwin gives the reader the perspective of Rob Carrey fifteen years after he graduates from Fenton.  It is a story of a modern relationship and the terrible tragedies of life that is told in a genuine voice that I loved reading. Rob has been living with his girlfriend Carolyn for five years and their relationship is failing. Slowly, over the course of the novel we find out why and this was the only part of the book that emotionally moved me. Carolyn is a wonderfully complex character and the situation she and Rob find themselves in will tug at any heartstrings. Their story could probably stand alone as a novel in its own right. That being said, it ties in relatively seamlessly with Rob’s recollections of his year at Fenton and the two plot lines come crashing together at the end of the novel in an ending that while not necessarily satisfying still worked for me on the whole. If you are a rower this is a must read. If you aren’t but just enjoy human emotion, I’d say go for it as well.  

Hi everyone! I just wanted to chat a bit about something not related to any particular book. First off, I'm heading back up to the mountain this summer for my second year of my MA at Bread Loaf School of English. I am super excited, both in general and specifically because I am taking a course called Writing for Children. We get to read Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are and a whole host of other kids books and just yay! Further academic pursuit of children's lit!

Second is a weird annoyance I'm having with Game of Thrones and people who haven't read the book. Normally I don't care but as everyone knows by now The Red Wedding happened this season and people who haven't read the book freaking out about it just seems weird or naive. Like people expect that main characters are here to stay and don't see GRRM cackling in a corner as he kills of more and more people over the course of the books. The book gives more of a lead up to the events of the wedding and while readers are still completely shocked, I think they have a better understanding of the overall political structure that led to it, as opposed to TV viewers who only have the plot established by the show to justify something utterly terrible. I don't know, just a weird reaction I've been having. My final words on it are go read the damn books and be devastated ahead of time with the rest of us.

Cheers everyone. Happy reading!

A Wizard of Earthsea

I remember in elementary school we were required to read Ursula K. LeGuin’s A Wizard of Earthsea. Per usual when is comes to books I’ve been forced to read I formed the idea that it was not a good book and I didn’t like it at all. The only thing I actually remember from that first read was learning the word archipelago. Not exactly something to base a life long dislike on. However I am happy to report that thanks to my boyfriend’s urging I gave A Wizard of Earthsea another shot, and boy am I happy that I did. Not only did I discover a novel filled with utterly beautiful prose but I realized what LeGuin was trying to show her readers through a seemingly simple tale of a young mage.

            I’m sure you’re yelling at your computer screen right now, “What was she trying to show? What is this great and mysterious point?” Well, brace yourselves. Here goes a full on BA in English explanation. We are all going to die. The sooner we accept that most basic fact of life, acknowledge our own mortality and make it a part of ourselves, the sooner we truly begin to live. It is simple, but true and LeGuin takes an entire novel to explore and explain this truth.

LeGuin gives her protagonist Ged a strange shadow beast that he released into the world as an arrogant child as his mortality materialized. The entire novel centers on Ged’s search to find the shadow that haunts him and threatens him, darkening his entire life until that ultimate moment when he finds the creature and speaks its true name. LeGuin’s plot relies heavily upon the age-old fantasy trope of everything and every person having a true name that may be used by mages to hold power over it. A man only tells his true name to those he trusts most, and thus when Ged speaks the shadows name he finally masters it and holds it in his power. By mastering his mortality he brings light back into his life, not vanquishing death but accepting it as a part of his soul and the eventuality of time. Because I am a Harry Potter nerd I will draw this comparison. LeGuin is using a concept similar to the end of Deathly Hallows, where Harry must sacrifice himself and accept death in order to truly overcome the “shadow” (read Voldemort) that haunts and threatens him. By allowing himself to face the possibility of death and claim it as his own Harry defeats Voldemort and goes on to (we hope) lead a life that is more enlightened by the truth of mortality.

But enough English major babble and theory. When all is said and done A Wizard of Earthsea is a beautifully written story. LeGuin’s prose is more like poetry as she deftly creates a world of island kingdoms and inhabits that world with characters that are richly varied. Occasionally the plot and Ged’s brooding upon how to defeat his shadow borders on repetitive, but I’m of the opinion LeGuin is trying to hammer a point home. Perhaps that is why I was made to read the novel as a rather young child. The main theme is made obvious for those who are willing to see it.

I liked that LeGuin also works through a range of emotions with Ged. True, he is most often the dark and brooding hero, mysterious with his great power, but he starts out as an arrogant and prideful boy. The reader sees him be clever, develop a friendship that could be described as true platonic love, and even flirt a bit, although Ged has no idea what he’s doing in that arena. He shows compassion for other men and animals in particular and redeems the arrogance of his youth by taking responsibility for his actions. I’d say he is a fine character for young people to read and learn from, and even adults too. I certainly had my eyes opened.

I have two complaints about the novel and one I will admit is rather trivial. There is a particular animal that I, and I’m sure most other readers, come to love and it doesn’t make it to the end of the novel. It was like Hedwig dying all over again. Very sad. My more legitimate complaint is that women are very much secondary characters throughout the novel. Yes, LeGuin wrote this in the 1970’s, female fantasy protagonists weren’t exactly the norm yet, but it still irks me that every woman presented is either incredibly simplified or carries some kind of threat because they use magic for dark purposes. Men are established as higher than women in his society, the only ones taught magic and naming and the only ones expected to wield power. This fact won’t take away from the story and I only mention it because of my study of female characters in fantasy works. Otherwise I highly recommend A Wizard of Earthsea and look forward to hunting down the sequels and seeing if they live up to the first.

The Fault in Our Stars

 

When it comes to books, I’m not usually a crier. Movies of course. Plays occasionally. A well-done commercial has even evoked a tear a time or two. There is a specific formula to get me to cry. An animal dies (dear God Marley and Me just about killed me), families being separated forever, lovers staying together despite all odds (end of the Notebook, end of Titanic) and of course someone dying of some sort of terminal disease. Amazingly, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars hits on the majority of those triggers, provoking tears for at least the last 50 pages if not more and yet never for a moment did the story feel contrived or formulaic in any way.

            I’m already a huge fan of John Green and his take on young adult literature. He writes about teenagers like they are actually people, not trying to teach them something but writing truly for them. It’s a refreshing take on a genre that is littered with generic coming of age stories and paranormal romances. Green tackles true love in a realistic way, facing the challenges of life with another person with honesty instead of ideals. He doesn’t shy away from sexuality, but doesn’t rely on it to sell his novels or legitimize his characters relationships. Green writes about people and the tragedies and triumphs that we all face throughout life, and he does so with humor, elegance, grace (never thought I’d ever use that adjective) relevance and skill.

            By now you might actually want to hear about the book, ‘eh? The Fault in Our Stars centers around Hazel, a teenage girl with terminal lung cancer and Augustus, a teen who lost one of his legs to cancer and is in a shaky state of remission. The two meet at a support group for “cancer kids” that both Hazel and Augustus view with a hearty does of disdain. Their attraction to each other is immediate and the novel follows that developing relationship, as they navigate the waters of first love while confronting their own fast approaching mortality. Neither Hazel nor Gus (as Augustus is called) is the type to wallow in despair, but they are both deeply intellectual. They think deeper about life, particularly Gus, and both connect with a novel called An Imperial Affliction, whose author is a mysterious man from Amsterdam who they begin to have contact with. At this point I struggle to say more about the plot without ruining many of the nuanced twists and turns that Green has written, and so I’ll speak broadly.

            Hazel and Gus give the reader an inside look at cancer and the kids who suffer from it. They joke about “cancer perks,” things like signed basketballs and special treatment at restaurants and theme parks, using their humor to mask how much they hate being treated differently. Above all Green emphasizes that despite suffering from cancer, Gus and Hazel are teenagers and they do have lives outside of fighting and being strong, all while knowing they will die. They have wonderful banter back and forth that definitely elicited chuckles from me throughout the novel and as the pages began to dwindle the tears began to flow as I realized my time with them was coming to an end.

            The Fault in Our Stars is a devastatingly beautiful novel, filled with humor, compassion, and insight and above all, everlasting love. Remember, it isn’t easy for a book to make me cry and this one managed it handily, and therefore you should all go read it as well and let yourself experience such emotion for yourself. Once you’ve done that, go read everything else John Green has written and follow his YouTube videos. He is a remarkable author who I have tremendous respect for and I look forward to reading the rest of his work.

The Typewriter Girl

When I first picked up Allison Atlee's The Typewriter Girl, I was so excited to read it. The book seemed like the perfect trifecta of noveldom. A pretty pastel washed cover featuring Victorian era clothing and the open ocean, a sassy lower class English girl overcoming class differences to find love and the author was a Bread Loaf grad! Always one to support my fellow Bread Loafers, I bought the book, brought it home and made my way very, very slowly through it. New job, exhausting hours, it was just hard to stay awake and read once I snuggled into bed. I am sad this was my reading process for this book, for I think that is perhaps the reason The Typewriter Girl really didn’t do it for me. When I first picked up Alison Atlee’s

            When I say didn’t do it for me, I mean that the book never really seemed to click in place. The protagonist’s actions seemed hurried and disjointed, each portion of the story stretching out over too long a time or not enough time at all. The more I read, the more I felt that I was being presented with stock characters instead of new people to meet and enjoy. Elisabeth Dobson, our heroine, is a strong lower class English girl who has found herself in one too many sticky situations and now sees her job at a seaside entertainment resort her last chance. She has modern ideas about sexuality that are refreshing for the time, but otherwise her sensibilities don’t set her apart from the rest of the Eliza Doolittle types in literature. Elisabeth’s object of affection is Mr. Jones, a Welsh engineer who is even more of a stereotype than Elisabeth. Jones has pulled himself up by his bootstraps, overcome class differences and the snobbery of the aristocracy to make his way in life and we never get to forget that. The love story that develops between Elisabeth and Mr. Jones moves quickly and predictably, with only a few surprises thrown in to keep things interesting. I was sad that I figured out the ending far before the final pages.

            Timing and plot aside, Atlee has provided quite the cast of characters to keep the reader entertained, if not to actually aid the plot along. We get the rough and tumble workers of the seaside town, the savvy hoteliers who employ Elisabeth, the kind family who she lives with and the aristocracy who are painted broadly as out of touch, shallow and rather conniving. I found myself more intrigued by some of the secondary characters than by our protagonist.

            Atlee does have a wonderful sense of how to create a scene. Perhaps if one looks at the novel as a set of scenes instead of a tightly flowing plot things will work out better for them. There are moments when Atlee perfectly states what being in love is like, or how it feels to lose a child or the hidden sides to all conversations and interactions. The scenery is treated nicely, not overdone but used to add to the particular scene being tackled.

            I fear I am beginning to ramble and write with the same disjointed feeling the novel gave me. Again, I’ll state that part of that feeling came from reading over too fragmented a length of time. For a first novel, I give Atlee credit for not being afraid to take chances, even if they end up falling into the realms of predictable or awkward. Overall she has presented a story that aims to charm and entertain and I will grudgingly admit she has achieved that. Give The Typewriter Girl a chance; let Elisabeth try to charm you and Mr. Jones seduce you. Who knows, they might just succeed.

On the Road

I'll give you fair warning on this one. I didn't go for academia. I went for annoyed rant. Read at your own peril and don't expect intellectual thoughtfulness.
 

On the Road was a book that has been sitting in my to read pile for quite some time. I come across people who constantly recommend it, saying that it is their favorite book. So to all those people (Jimbo & Taylor esp.) I apologize in advance. On the Road did nothing for me besides make me incredibly happy that I didn’t grow up in the Beat Generation.

            You all know that I don’t like to start a review off on such a negative note, so allow me to explain myself. I have no problem with author Jack Kerouac’s actual prose. In fact his style was such a departure to what I normally read that I found myself drawn into the language in a way that I haven’t experienced in a while. As his characters get excited so do Kerouac’s words, stacking one on top of the other in a stream of consciousness wave, creating combinations that shouldn’t work but somehow are exactly right. His paragraphs run or jump or simply stroll along as needed and this style is certainly suitable for a novel about rootless people who spend their lives in various states of travel and excitement. So I truly have no problem with the words. The characters however are a completely different story.

            The narrator Sal has no backbone whatsoever and I constantly wanted to hit him and tell him he was being an idiot, following his aimless friend into hopeless situations time and time again. He idolizes Dean, a man with no purpose in life who lives without recognizing there are consequences to his actions. It is a mystery to me why anyone would want to follow around such a fuck up. Dean is a terrible friend to everyone, Sal in particular, and yet no one seems to wise up and leave him behind until the very end of the novel. There has to be more to life than sex and drugs and wild nights and yet no one in this story seems to agree. Perhaps my view of this is skewed by having not lived in the Beat Generation. I didn’t grow up during WWII and have the horrors of life thrust into my face early on. I don’t feel the need to prove to myself that I am alive by “digging” everything around me, partying and traveling and refusing to settle into a life that could easily be taken away. Maybe you need that perspective to enjoy this novel. Maybe you just need to know what if feels like to have no direction, no purpose or ambition. I don’t know. I’m lucky enough to have all of those things and so I can’t get to the level Sal and Dean and the rest of their cohort are operating on. I can’t imagine leaving behind a steady job to hitchhike across the country with no plan or money in my pocket. Instead of being inspired by the spontaneity and freedom with which these characters live their lives I am turned off by it and have no desire to join them even with the novels pages as my shield.

            So that’s my initial rant. A more concrete reason as to why I dislike Sal so much is that his character is woefully inconsistent when it comes to the details of his life. I can’t pin him down, and as one of the more stable characters I am presented with, that bothers me.

            As I’m writing this I realize that I really didn’t like this novel at all. I would try and spin things so that I could at least talk about the language with a higher regard, but I honestly can’t. I found the novel boring, the characters infuriating, the language meandering with moments of brilliance and that is the sum of it. That being said, On the Road is in the great literary cannon for a reason and even if I couldn’t find it there is no reason you shouldn’t. Take a chance. Hitch a ride. Maybe the Beat Generation is for you.

An Interesting Interview

Well, I've never actually read anything by Jodi Picoult, mainly because I've formed a strange stigma about her work in my head. My elitist brain tells me that her work isn't worth reading because it's been so commercialized. Clearly my elitist brain needs to get a swift kick in the ass. Having read so many different genres and so many different authors by now, I know that making a judgment about a book just because it has been mainstreamed is awfully hipster of me. I mean, I've made an academic study of young adult novels. Clearly I'm not the one to be judging any writer or reader. That being said, I love how sassy Picoult is in this interview and will definitely be picking up some of her work in the future. Enjoy the read!

Interview with Jodi Picoult