Delusions R Us – Wintergirls & Under the Banner of Heaven

Honestly, once I started reading these books, I never thought that I would finish either of them.  The fact that I finished them both within a few days of each other is strange considering there are some eerie similarities between them.

Both deal with difficult subject matter and how a person’s mind can create delusions so strong that it threatens their own health or the lives of others.  One made me so angry that I had to put it down for months at a time while the other frightened me more than any horror book I think I’ve ever read.  I’m not sure I could recommend either of them to others, but they are well done and I have a lot of admiration for both authors.

Wintergirls is the story of Lia.  Her former best friend recently died because of  complications from an eating disorder and this has sent Lia into a downward spiral of her own nightmarish eating disorder.  Lia strategizes about how she is going to avoid the calories her worried parents and stepparents keep offering her.  She develops methods of tricking her family when it is time to weigh her, but most disturbingly, she is seeing the ghost of her dead friend, and she wants Lia to join her.  Anderson gets deep into the mindset of a girl suffering from anorexia.  The writing itself comes to resemble Lia’s tattered mind as the reader can see where Lia redacts herself as she tries to retrain her mind to be the strong, rebellious girl she wants to be.  Frankly, it was so disturbing to be inside this girl’s head that I didn’t want to finish.  I picked it up again to prepare for the possible awards that this book might win, but I am going to be very careful in suggesting this title to others.  I’m really not sure if it would help or hurt a teen suffering from an eating disorder.  She does such a good job depicting the delusional mind of this person that I suspect it could easily provide affirmation to someone suffering from their own delusions.  Like I said, an extremely well done book, but disturbing on a level that few books can reach.

Under the Banner of Heaven also deals with delusions, but these are the religious delusions of a pair of Mormon fundamentalist brothers who murdered the wife and child of their brother because they believed God told them to.  The book goes on to examine the sometimes bloody and troubled history of Mormonism and how extremism, fundamentalism and polygamy are affecting the growth of this flourishing religion.  The practices of some of these fundamentalists sects – multiple wives, many children, defrauding the government that they don’t even believe in of money, and more – angered and frustrated me to the point of not wanted to continue.  The fact that many Utah politicians have tried over the years to prosecute some of these polygamists, yet then get voted out of office by the populace also didn’t help my frustration level.  I decided to finish the book because I want to start Krakauer’s new book and I’m glad to finally be done with it.

When I worked with emotionally disturbed kids in the early 90s, I got my first inkling of how powerful the mind is.  I’m convinced that many of those kids were so good at manufacturing their own reality that they truly believed that they did not do some of the awful things that they did.  I could watch a kid throw a knife through a window, then marvel at the fact that the kid truly did not believe that they did it.  And I don’t think they could remember that they did it, even though I saw them do it and told them that they did.  It was above and beyond lying.  Of course, they didn’t get that way on their own.  They each had their own horrific childhood trauma to deal with and each was trying to cope the best they could, but these were the kids that weren’t functioning in society well, who knows how many other kids were out there dealing with their abuse silently.  It scares me to think about the adults that those kids became.  These two books remind me again how powerful the mind can be and how difficult it is to redirect patterns of thinking when they go awry.

On movie companies sticking it to libraries

Been seeing some posts today about movie studios trying to put the nail in the rental (and library) market coffins.  Looks like we are going back to dual pricing – one price for retail editions of movies and one for rental copies.  Remember when videotapes were $80?  Of course Fox seems to be leading the charge.  Looks like the rental versions will be the movie, no extras and many more previews.  Retail copies will be what we are getting now.  Pressure is on library distributors to only sell the rental copies to libraries.  One has to assume they will cost more as well.  Netflix says physical discs will be the majority of it’s rentals for only two more years, this move by the studios will only accelerate that change.  Digital downloads get easier for those who have access to them (wealthier city dwellers with high speed access) while everyone else will struggle with fewer choices, libraries included.  We’ll be in the same line at Target or Costco getting our movies instead of from our distributors.

This move seems short sighted to me, but maybe it will work out for the movie distributors.  Ultimately, it makes it harder for people to see the studio’s movie.  Maybe the extra money they get will make up for fewer people seeing the film, but it’s a dangerous game.  It smacks of social engineering at a time when they should be trying to streamline the process of getting their product in people’s homes.  They seem to be trying to give everyone a big shove in the direction of digital distribution but not everyone is there yet and for the poorer segments of society, they may never have that capability.

I’ve often marveled at how smart the movie studios were to drop the prices on their DVDs below the prices of music CDs at a time when people were reevaluating how much they thought a music CD was worth.  If they are trying to walk that back now, they might have a difficult go of it.  It is interesting to see where the big box retailers like Best Buy put their merchandise these days.  Games have moved close to the front with more space, movies & TV have stayed the same, while music CDs have been pared way back.  At the same time, musical instruments are more prominent which I attribute to the success of video games like Rock Band.

Where does this leave libraries?  I wish I knew.  Circulation levels continue to go up in most areas, but I can see a day when the bottom is going to drop out for music CDs.  DVDs may not be far behind that.  It will all depend on how fast they can roll out digital downloads.  Can libraries leverage services like Library2Go enough to be a part of the digital download wave?  I think we’re about to find out.

Confusing vintage song award – Young Turks by Rod Stewart

Ok, I heard this ditty on the radio the other day and as I reveled in the nostalgia, I may have actually “heard” the lyrics for the first time.  So let me enumerate the ways that this song is ‘wrong’.

1. Obviously the title.  Young Turks is never uttered once in this song.  That wouldn’t be so troubling except “Young Hearts” is repeated over and over.  Seems needlessly confusing and distracting to me.
2. What are Young Turks?  I always assumed this was referring to young people in general.  A cursory search of the Internet reveals that Young Turks was actually a movement in the Ottoman Empire to liberalize the empire around 1900.  They were made up of university students and military cadets and were driven underground when the government annulled the constitution.  They would go on to form secret societies and cells (ulp!) to further their goals. They laid the groundwork for Ataturk’s rise later.  What this has to do with Billy and Patty, I’ll never know.
3. Is this song a cautionary tale?  Teens Billy and Patti run away, have fun for a while, then have a baby out of wedlock.  Yet the chorus urges young hearts to “be free tonight. Time is on your side.”  Is time really on Billy and Patti’s side by the end?  Seems like time has caught up to them to me.  And how free can you feel with a baby?  My head hurts just thinking about the mixed signals here.  You can fix just about everything wrong with this song by getting rid of “Patty gave birth to a ten pound baby bo-yo-yoy.”
4. 10 lb. baby boy – why ten pounds?  Isn’t Patty looking at enough problems without some gigantic baby?
5. Don’t let em ever change your point of view.   Who is them, I mean “em”?  Is this the “Man”?  Why shouldn’t you let em?  Figuring things out for themselves isn’t working particularly well for our heroes.

Ok rant over.  Enjoy the video.

Marcelo: a character almost too good to be true.

Marcelo in the Real World was a perfect read, almost too perfect.  I want so fervently for there to be a Marcelo out there somewhere, but I’m not sure he could possibly exist.  In this new book by Fransisco Stork, we are introduced to the 17 year old Marcelo, a boy who is developmentally different from other kids as he has a form of high functioning autism.  He has attended a special school for kids with special needs his entire life, but as his senior year approaches, his father wants him to go to the regular high school so that he can learn to get along in the “real” world.  They agree to have Marcelo work at his father’s law firm for the summer as a test run.  If Marcelo can do what is asked of him while working there, he can return to his old school, but if he cannot follow the rules of the law firm, he will have to attend public school senior year.  This is the basic conflict for Marcelo.  But what he finds at the law firm is a place filled with dangers; for Marcelo, for his co-workers, for his father and for their relationship.  As Marcelo learns to navigate the complex interpersonal relationships of the law firm, he develops a close relationship with one of his father’s assistants.  Jasmine respects Marcelo’s honesty and work ethic, even though he is not as fast as her previous assistant.  As one learns more about Jasmine, the potential for a romantic relationship with Marcelo seems like a real possibility.

Ultimately, Marcelo uncovers a mystery at the law firm and he is faced with a series of painful and potentially devastating choices.  He deals with this in an admirable and life affirming way that is the heart of what this book is all about.  I’ve read several great books this year and this has to be in the running for one of my favorites.  Like I said, Marcelo may be too good to be true, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know him.

It’s the end of the world and I don’t feel fine

The latest apocalyptic novel I’ve worked through is called The Carbon Diaries 2015.  It takes place near London a mere six years from now.  Britain agrees to carbon rationing after devastating storms have ripped through their coastal areas.

The story is told in the diaries of a 16 year old girl named Laura Brown.  As her family deals with lost jobs, failing grades and limited options since they cannot use many of their household items now that they are allowed only so much energy per month, Laura finds an escape in her punk rock band and her friends.  The book is shocking because it seems utterly plausible and believable.  Unlike other recent novels, the moon hasn’t moved nor have the lowlands flooded, the people of earth are simply waking up to a new world where climate change is undeniable anymore.  The potential responses to climate change in this book seem like real options.  The Brown’s have to deal with no heat in winter, no water in the summer and a devastating storm surge in the climax.  But just as in Life As We Knew It, the stark tone throughout the book shifts towards the end to reach a positive ending.  The author clearly wants to scare us into some action but not depress us so much that the information washes over us.  Since the prime audience is teens, this is probably appropriate, but I can’t help but wonder what conclusion we would end with if this was aimed at an adult audience.  I’d guess Laura’s world might be even more desperate by the end.  Since there is a sequel in the works, the glimmers of hope at the end may be short lived.  The author, Lloyd, walks a fine line between storytelling and polemic, but she succeeds in giving her readers a realistic portrait of what one potential future might bring for us.  And Laura Brown is a compelling character to share the ride with.

Music video roundup for June

There are several new songs and bands that I’m interested in lately and some seem up to the challenge in their videos while others are phoning it in.

Mykonos by Fleet Foxes – this video has some great origami animation.  Not how I envisioned the song but it works.

Show Me What I’m Looking For by Carolina Liar is a good pop song that is nearly ruined by the lackluster effort of the lead singer in this pedestrian video.  The song has a strong energy but the singer clearly doesn’t want to be doing the video and he cannot match the energy of the song.  Disappointing.

I also found this tune by Empire of the Sun that is crazy and fun.  Not sure if I’ll get tired of it quickly but they sound like Tegan and Sara and look like no one else, though I detect a little Flight of the Conchords.

Great audiobook – The Graveyard Book

Not only does Neil Gaiman write well, but he reads well in the audiobook version of his Newbery winning Graveyard Book.  This book tells the story of Bod, short for nobody, a child rescued from certain death by ghosts in a graveyard after his parents were killed by the nefarious Manjack.  Each chapter depicts a new part of Bod’s journey as he grows from toddler to preteen to teen as the book progresses.  Barring the first and last chapters, each section of the book is a mostly stand-alone short story featuring a new adventure about Bod.  A thin narrative runs through each that becomes part of the larger story later.  Bod is a singular creation.  He’s a boy living in a graveyard, learning how to hide and not be seen by the outside world and being raised by ghosts.  He is rarely rattled by any of the frightening events in his life.  He takes everything in stride and learns as he goes.  He’s a great character to spend time with. 

The fact that the book won the Newbery is certainly an honor, but only older, more mature elementary age kids will fully appreciate what Gaiman is saying here about growing up and what it means to be independent.  There are plenty of scary and violent scenes that may also frighten younger kids.  This is primarily a book for middle school age kids accustomed to the more frightening aspects of the later Harry Potter books.

Song of Susannah aka Will I finish the Dark Tower series?

I’ve been reading the Dark Tower series for most of my adult life it seems.  I’ve spend the last four slowly working through the sixth book in the series, The Song of Susannah.  I would have given up on most books this troublesome, but I’m persevering because I want to finish the series.  The magic is gone though.  This book has been pure drudgery.   He has been moving the characters around to set them up for the endgame and I’ve lost the narrative thread.  To top it all off, he’s given hints that he was going to write himself into the story and I’m finally to the point where this has happened.  I don’t like it.  There, I’ve said it.  I think this is why I’ve struggled to get into this book, because I knew this point was coming.  Of course, now that I’m there, the pace seems to be quickening and the story is more engaging, but this device just rips me out of this story whenever I think about it.  King seems to be telling us that he knew where he was going at one point, but that the story got too unwieldy for him and that he even lost his outline.  I guess he needed to get this out of his system, particularly after his accident, but I liked the story he had going, I was invested in it, I wanted to see where it ended.  But adding Stephen King the character unravels the tapestry of the story he created.  I can’t imagine that this is a real place with real characters when he tells us with every line that he made it up.  On some levels, it’s an interesting excercise, but a good yarn it is not.  Maybe the narrative can recover and it won’t take me another four years to finish book seven, but I’m not hopeful.

Documentary of Annie Liebovitz shows photography as an art

Watched a great documentary on Annie Liebovitz that shows her development as an artist and how skilled she is at what she does.  I was awed by how theatrical her photo shoots have become.  I know she gets criticized for her work with celebrities but she takes the jobs she is given and turns them into something remarkable.  I’m not saying every idea works, but she certainly has an eye for what works.  The shot of Kiera Knightly in a big poofy lined dress was stunning against the diamond tiles in the background.  To think that this “hippy” child of the sixties is doing expensive fashion shoots for Vogue is ironic and amusing at the same time.  Her ability to make people comfortable with her seems to be the key to her success.  When the subject lets down his or her defenses, that’s when she gets those iconic shots.  The actors know that they have “arrived” when she is doing a shoot with them.  She has so many iconic images, Demi Moore, Schwarzenegger on the mountain, Willie Nelson, the early pictures with the Stones, on and on.  I think my favorite was the Nelson Mandela portrait.  It was so simple, yet perfectly captured the man.  She does this over and over with so many people.  Watch this documentary and listed to the extras, there are a lot of great stories here.

Nick Hornby lets us peek at his reading list one more time

I feel guilty.  I’ve only read one of Nick Hornby’s fiction books and it did not blow me away.  His non fiction, however, is so much fun that I was greatly saddened to realize that Shakespeare Wrote for Money is his last collection of book reviews from the Believer magazine.  Hornby again gives us a snapshot of what he is buying and reading each month, while showing with wit and heart how what he is reading affects him in both good and bad ways.  There are many books that are on my short list of future reads because of Hornby’s reviews.

What’s even more interesting is that I saw Hornby speak at a librarian’s convention two years ago when he was writing this collection and his insights into Young Adult literature in this book are golden.  He talks about the event I saw him at and how meeting these new authors changed him.  He was amazed that there were so many groundbreaking authors and works that he had never heard of.  His publisher encouraged him to write for the Young adult audience with his last book, Slam, which led him to read some of the classics of YA lit.  He mentioned Skellig, Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Weetzie Bat and more.  It is a lot of fun to read about his discoveries.

His insights into The Road are also profound.  The book had a big impact on me, but lots of people find it too hard to take.  Hornby is one of them.  One passage says a lot, “Yes, it’s the job of artists to force us to stare at the horror until we’re on the verge of passing out.  But it’s also the job of artists to offer warmth and hope and maybe even an escape from lives that can occasionally seem unendurably drab…It’s quite legitimate not to want to read the Road.  There are some images now embedded in my memory that I don’t especially want there.  Don’t let anyone tell you that you have a duty to read it.”

One of these days, I’ll pick up another of Hornby’s fiction books.  Until then, I’ll have to be happy with his musing on what he has read.  Here’s hoping that he’ll give it another go at some point.