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Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: <\/p>\nDaily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction: <\/p>\n
The ABCs of Love<\/a> I read this funny and clever novel in its entirety during one sleepless night. It’s not even 200 pages long. I picked it up because of Ted’s post on her 2nd novel Tell Me Everything<\/i><\/a> – which sparked my interest (also notice the coolness of the fact that she showed up and posted a comment on Ted’s blog about it!!) – I loved the writing he excerpted there – and Tell Me Everything<\/i> is on my short stack of To Be Read books. Well, my To Be Read stack is actually HUGE, but I have a lifelong “To Be Read” list, which is so extensive I get frightened when I look at it … and then I have a more shortterm one. Like all the Master & Commander books. And War & Peace<\/i> this summer. And Lionel Shriver’s latest. And Michael Chabon’s Yiddish Policeman Union<\/i> book. Those will be read in 2008, I am sure of it.<\/p>\n The ABCs of Love<\/i> is written in snippets – and it’s done alphabetically. We have “entries”, like a dictionary or a thesaurus – multiple entries per letter of the alphabet – and over the entirety of the book, a story emerges. This might seem like a gimmick, and it is – to some degree – but her writing is so interesting and clear that I found myself swept away by it. I also laughed out loud at a couple of points – and that’s always good. I’m eager to read her second novel now. You might think, by looking at the cover, and reading the plot description, that this might as well be called Bridget Jones’ Diary Part Deux<\/i>, but you would be wrong. That’s the problem with the “chick lit” label. Eventually, it has come to mean any book that deals with romance, and that pisses me off. Because romance is not just a female concern. Men are involved too. Anna Karenina<\/i> isn’t a romance? But no one would dare put a “chick lit” label on THAT thing. I think it’s dismissive of women’s concerns – and yes, there is the Devil Wears Prada<\/i> version of chick lit – where it’s basically about urban single women who care about shoes and bags and labels and getting married. That’s fine – it’s a genre of writing – and there is obviously a huge audience for it. I don’t happen to care for it, but that’s immaterial. I don’t really care for sci-fi either, or horror novels. Whatever, it’s personal taste. What annoys ME is that books that are NOT that brand of chick lit – books that have a much wider appeal (see: Elinor Lipman) are lumped under some marketing umbrella, which then, of course, frightens away male readers, which is unfortunate.<\/p>\n One of the neat things about me doing my Book Excerpt thing, is that some people are turned on to books that they might never have picked up otherwise. I was so so pleased to see that the male blogger at Quiet Bubble had picked up The Pursuit of Alice Thrift<\/i><\/a> by Elinor Lipman because of my post on it. I mean, even the title of that book screams “This is for girls” … and the new cover design is typical: headless cartoon-y women, glass of wine, string of pearls, strappy heels … You know. But it’s not like that at all. It’s a deep and insightful sociological portrait of working at a big city hospital … all the different personalities … and this kind of humorless Asperger’s type lead character … It’s a wonderful book. NOT just for girls.<\/p>\n And come on, if I can read and love the Master & Commander series, where women sometimes don’t show up for an entire book, then you boys can come over to our side as well, just to visit! There are good books out there! Marketing Departments be damned … what’s inside<\/i> the book??<\/p>\n (A side issue is that I am not at all turned off by a book just because it is “meant for” men, or marketed to men, or seems like a boy-book. I am annoyed by men who, say, haven’t read Jane Eyre<\/i>, because it seems like a “girl book”. You know what? Fuck you. Basically, that is my response.) Perhaps it is because, you know, I was educated in a time before politically correct canons were thrust upon students – where Native American chants were given as much time in class as the Magna Carta – where a housewife who wrote one poem in 1481 is put on par with William Blake – where literature was taught to redress grievances, as opposed to, you know, read the great books out there – so most of the books we read in high school were by men, and whatever, I dealt with it, because that’s the way of the world. As a girl, you get used to reading books where you are not represented in the slightest<\/i>. Harper Lee was read in high school. In any poetry units, we’d read Emily Dickinson, Sylvia Plath, others … we read Wuthering Heights<\/i> in 11th grade … but you know, the exceptions only prove the rule. I feel protective of women authors I love, and angry when they get short shrift, because of their gender. Not all books dealing with romance are Sex and the City<\/i> knock-offs. Yes, many books are – but not ALL books, and to lump Elinor Lipman in with that?? Without even reading her? No. You’re an idiot if you do that.<\/p>\n What if I had decided to not read Moby Dick<\/i> because it was written by a man and there are no girls in that book? Wouldn’t that be a stupid reason to not read a book? Just as stupid as a man deciding not to read Jane Eyre<\/i>.<\/p>\n This reminds me of the poor gentleman who emailed me and tried to compliment me by going on and on and on about how surprised he was that he found my writing interesting, engaging, smart, thought-provoking … he was surprised by it because I was a woman. He was quite open about his surprise. He said, “Most women are of the Fried Green Tomatoes type of writing…” Uh … they are? Joyce Carol Oates? Joan Didion? Anne Fadiman? Annie Proulx? AS Byatt? AM Homes? Margaret Atwood? Mary Gaitskill? Elinor Lipman? Alice McDermott? Jhumpa Lahiri? Do you want me to go on? He wouldn’t have picked up any of those books because the author had a vagina. That was basically what he was saying. He just could not get over that he liked my blog and I was a woman!! And he kept referencing Fried Green Tomatoes. The accomplishments of great women writers through the centuries were nothing to this guy. All women will be judged by Fried Green Tomatoes. It really was about his judgment of what he saw as female concerns, for which he had nothing but contempt. Men wrote about REAL things, women were just silly. He said, with SOME concession to manners, “I suppose you think I’m a Neanderthal.” I had to really think about my response to him before I hit “Send”. I obviously needed to slaughter him, because I am over trying to ‘teach’ unevolved people in how to appreciate my awesomeness without being total jagoffs. Some people just aren’t jagoffs NATURALLY, and those are the people I want to hang with. So I wrote him back and just said, “I don’t think you’re a Neanderthal. Just a bigot. I cannot allow you to sideswipe my entire gender repeatedly and feel that that is somehow okay. Also, you seem to have a really limited reading list if you judge all women authors by Fried Green Tomatoes. So that is a lacking in your education, not a fault of women writers. It’s not OUR fault that you aren’t a more adventurous reader.” I then provided him with a reading list including George Eliot, Charlotte Bronte, Jane Austen, Emily Dickinson, Emily Bronte, Mary Shelley, Flannery O’Connor, Willa Cather, AS Byatt, Madeleine L’Engle, Annie Proulx … the list went on forever. Women who never, in a million years, would be put on the same level as Fried Green Tomatoes<\/i>. Don’t blame WOMEN for your bullshit reading list, bub. He apologized, but (strangely enough!!) I never heard from him again! Huh! Maybe he’ll think twice before being such an open bigot again, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n To me, there’s a big problem in book design, too – although I understand the rationale. They want to find the “niche” audience – and they want to make sure that it appeals. But, as someone who is turned OFF by the “clacking heels Manohlo Blahniks Prada bag” version of chick lit – I get annoyed when I see Lipman’s books re-released with covers that suggest that THAT is what is inside. And here’s the deal: It’s like marketing of movies as well. I get that it’s a business, so please don’t lecture me about that. HOWEVER: I am a consumer, too – and when you ignore me, you ignore a vast swath of the audience that you might actually NEED. You market a movie as a wacky American Pie 2<\/i> and I probably won’t see it. But if you lie about what a movie actually is … like the way Weatherman<\/i> was marketed…. What a mess. I thought that film was a brilliant and bleak portrait of a man at the end of his rope. The more I think about it, the more I love that film. It was marketed to the folks who like Nicholas Cage one way, over the top, whatever … and so … they made it seem like a movie it wasn’t. And so it bombed. That’s a shame. Because, like I mentioned: I dislike being ignored as a consumer. There are people in America who like serious films about serious subjects. Ignore us at your peril, basically. I am also a valid audience member who will shell out 12 bucks for a movie … so if you skip over me, just because I like more serious fare, you’re an idiot – it’s not smart marketing.<\/p>\n Book Slut focuses quite a bit on the whole chick lit thing … here’s a really interesting recent piece<\/a> about chick lit covers – and it’s not to dis those books. But, for example – Jessa (the original Book Slut) has been writing quite a bit about Inglorious<\/i>, a book she thought was fantastic. It has been released in the States in paperback – with a new non-chick-lit-ty cover – here is her post on it<\/a>. I can only speak from my own experience – as someone who does not enjoy the typical urban-single-girl chick lit and will actually not pick up a book with a cover like that, because I’m not into it (Thank God I read Elinor Lipman before her books were all re-designed to look like chick lit) – so I remember seeing the first version of Inglorious<\/i> in bookstores, and just passing right by it. In general, I’m not going to like a book that has, on its cover, strappy heels, a headless woman, a cute purse … It’s just not my thing. But apparently, the book is not that way at all – and the marketing team, of course, made some decisions to reach out to a wider audience … but in doing so, ignored ME, someone who WOULD be interested (and very interested) in reading a book of that description.<\/p>\n What does all this have to do with The ABCs of Love<\/i>?<\/p>\n Oh, nothing. hahahahaha No, but seriously: even with a title like ABCs of Love<\/i> I can sense the limit of the appeal of the book – and perhaps there is something to that. It’s not a big book, with big themes – but it’s also not a silly piece of fluff. There is some middle ground.<\/p>\n The book is broken down into the alphabet – but as you go through, there is a chronology that emerges … I really liked the structure. Like, there’s a story being told here: of a woman and her romance, and her best friend being the mistress of a married man … but because of the alphabetical structure of the book, there’s a fragmented aspect to the whole thing, which I think really suits the story. It’s very funny, too: after each entry she cross-references with other entries, like an index – and sometimes they are touching, other times hilarious. For example, in one “entry” when she rhapsodizes about the beginning of her relationship, one of the index cross-references is also the entry titled “Endings”. You know, who can’t relate to that? You look at the beginning of something, and you know the end of it, you know the whole story – so it’s hard not to have that retrospective knowledge bleed into the entire thing.<\/p>\n So. Hope you enjoyed my rant! It’s been on my mind a bit because I’ve been disgusted by the misogynistic tone of much of the Sex and the City<\/i> reviews, a movie I don’t plan on seeing – I loved the series, but I have no interest in seeing the movie – but the viciousness of the reviews have been such a turnoff. What women use as escapism is seen as silly and trivial, and men’s escapes are given much more weight and gravitas. Or it’s given a pass. Like the many MANY sit coms with big slobby guys married to skinny hot chicks. Yeah, fine, you want me to not question it, and just buy into it as reflective of reality … I kinda don’t, but whatevs. It’s escapist fare, it’s a fantasy … and that’s fine. Fantasy has its place. Just don’t ask me to accept it as real, and then expect me to put up silently with your misogynistic ravings about how shallow women are based on THEIR fantasies. Please.<\/p>\n I say all of this, too, as someone who is not all that “girlie”, who never fits in with generalizations about women. But again, that’s okay – because I know who I am, and I can make my own way. Society may have a vested interest in saying, again and again, ‘Men are like this” and “women are like this” but I’m old enough to know that, fine, that may be the norm for some, but I don’t fit in with that, and thank God I have good friends and excellent boyfriends who love me for who I am, in all my weirdness and “deviations”. I find the materialism of much of the chick lit genre actually anxiety-provoking … But that’s another post for another day. I don’t discount that chick lit like that is akin to porn for many women – and that’s fine – but it’s not that for me. I like my porn to be, well, porn, frankly. Like I said. I’m actually a man. I’m okay with that.<\/p>\n Here’s an excerpt from the “B” section of the book.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com\/e\/ir?t=thesheivari-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0345467035\")