Is there anything more embarrassing than reading an emotionally moving book in a public place? I would rate it as only slightly less embarrassing than having a loud and inappropriate emotional response in a movie theater, like during TWILIGHT, when Edward sucked on Bella's hand like a puppy with a chewie, and I was the only one to laugh out loud.
But back to my point. Yesterday I was sitting at my daughters' gymnastics place finishing up my re-read of THE JOY LUCK CLUB, and doggone if Jing-Mei's reunion with her long-lost half-sisters didn't have me furtively sniffling and wiping my eyes. I'm sure the other parents thought, "For Pete's sake, lady, I'm sure your kid'll learn her cartwheel eventually." Actually, nearly half the stories in that book had me tearing up. Somehow, hearing family stories about my own great-grandmother dying fleeing the Communists never had the same effect, but maybe because Amy Tan wasn't telling them.
I do love a good tearjerker. This was the best since PEACE LIKE A RIVER. Making the reader cry is a tough thing for a writer to pull off, unless the reader is my sister. My brother-in-law claims that my sister is hard-wired: if anyone dies in a book or movie, no matter how terrible that book or movie, or even if we were making fun of it not thirty seconds prior, we will look over to find her face scrooged up and reluctant tears falling. I'm a tougher nut to crack, but I did cry buckets for Jung Chang's WILD SWANS and Elie Wiesel's NIGHT.
Are you a soft touch, or a virtual Cylon? What books made you break out the hankies?
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Monday, April 27, 2009
Picture This
Yesterday I was talking to a friend who's written a children's picture book. Written, but not illustrated, given that he thought something more than stick figures would be appropriate. And if people are prone to judge books by their covers, how much more are they drawn to children's picture books by the illustrations? Yes, if the story is good enough, we'll ignore homely illustrations, but for gorgeous illustrations we'll even more often ignore a homely story.
With favorite books, fondness for and familiarity with the illustrations become part of the reason we love the book, as much as anything in the text. Witness me plowing through the abridged LITTLE WOMEN because it was my childhood version with the occasional watercolor. As for the new LITTLE HOUSE picture books, which contain neither the original Garth Williams illustrations nor Ms. Wilder's text, I make a face every time my kindergarten daughter checks one out, and I can only be made to read them aloud to her grudgingly. "Do we re-make GONE WITH THE WIND?" I want to ask. "Do we re-make REAR WINDOW?" Oh, okay, they did re-make that one, but did anyone besides Christopher Reeve's and Daryl Hannah's parents actually watch it?
Other illustrators I love:
* Lois Lenski and Vera Neville in the BETSY-TACY series. I've heard Neville's pictures being called "too romantic," but what girl ever objected to pictures that were "too romantic"?
* Jill Barton for Phyllis Root's RATTLETRAP CAR. I also love the Helen Craig (of ANGELINA BALLERINA fame) work for Root's WINDY WEDNESDAY and the other, alliterative days-of-the-week books.
* Anything with Helen Oxenbury pictures, except her ALICE IN WONDERLAND because we all know you have to stick with the original John Tenniel illustrations!
* Tedd Arnold's humorous illustrations in TRACKS and PARTS and (with normal-sized eyes) in NO MORE WATER IN THE TUB!
* Don Wood's work in THE NAPPING HOUSE and KING BIDGOOD'S IN THE BATHTUB. When poor Audrey Wood illustrates for herself, it's not at all the same. Look at SILLY SALLY.
Any favorites of yours?
Friday, April 24, 2009
"Canon" Fodder
Someone stopped me in the hall at church to ask which books she should read for a basic grounding in English lit. The quick answer, should you be feeling a similar deficit, is "anything famous that that has been made into a movie multiple times."
In general the "canon" of English lit has stayed 90% steady for the last hundred years. Certain things considered "must-reads" come and go, depending on the political climate in academia (when in doubt, veer sharply left). For all that I got my undergrad degree at wild-and-crazy Cal Berkeley, their English major at the time was highly canonical. Not so my husband's English degree from University of Washington. If there was some newly-popular, third tier work, he'd read it, while I'd been hanging out with persistent dead-white-guys like Dickens and Shakespeare and Wordsworth.
The summer after our first year in the Stanford PhD program, we were required to take our "Quals." The oral qualifying exam was both a form of academic hazing and a quick and dirty way to fill in any gaps in our knowledge of 500+ years of English literature. You would not believe how much we all read that summer! Hundreds and hundreds of pages and hours and hours. If you didn't end the day with a piercing headache, you felt guilty. It was awful because of the looming deadline, but wonderful because you were forced to read all those things you thought you ought to read but had never gotten around to. For some this was Spenser's FAERIE QUEENE; for me it was MOBY DICK. (Imagine my dismay, when I just checked the most recent Quals reading list online and discovered current students could choose between MOBY DICK and "three major shorter fictions (e.g., Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, 'Bartleby the Scrivener')"!) Lightweights!
Anyhow, if you're looking to shore up, go see a few Shakespeare plays and start your reading with 19th century British novels. We can argue about it, but I don't think the Americans compete in 19th century novels, with the exception of Twain and Melville. The 20th century is a different story. And we'll talk poetry another time.
Or, if you're feeling ambitious, you can check out Stanford's current quals list: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/english/deptWebFiles/forms/qualreadings.pdf
Happy reading!
In general the "canon" of English lit has stayed 90% steady for the last hundred years. Certain things considered "must-reads" come and go, depending on the political climate in academia (when in doubt, veer sharply left). For all that I got my undergrad degree at wild-and-crazy Cal Berkeley, their English major at the time was highly canonical. Not so my husband's English degree from University of Washington. If there was some newly-popular, third tier work, he'd read it, while I'd been hanging out with persistent dead-white-guys like Dickens and Shakespeare and Wordsworth.
The summer after our first year in the Stanford PhD program, we were required to take our "Quals." The oral qualifying exam was both a form of academic hazing and a quick and dirty way to fill in any gaps in our knowledge of 500+ years of English literature. You would not believe how much we all read that summer! Hundreds and hundreds of pages and hours and hours. If you didn't end the day with a piercing headache, you felt guilty. It was awful because of the looming deadline, but wonderful because you were forced to read all those things you thought you ought to read but had never gotten around to. For some this was Spenser's FAERIE QUEENE; for me it was MOBY DICK. (Imagine my dismay, when I just checked the most recent Quals reading list online and discovered current students could choose between MOBY DICK and "three major shorter fictions (e.g., Billy Budd, Benito Cereno, 'Bartleby the Scrivener')"!) Lightweights!
Anyhow, if you're looking to shore up, go see a few Shakespeare plays and start your reading with 19th century British novels. We can argue about it, but I don't think the Americans compete in 19th century novels, with the exception of Twain and Melville. The 20th century is a different story. And we'll talk poetry another time.
Or, if you're feeling ambitious, you can check out Stanford's current quals list: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/english/deptWebFiles/forms/qualreadings.pdf
Happy reading!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Earth Day Eating
Since I already covered environmental-type books in the Monday post, I got to thinking, as I often do, about food. Our lovely planet has so far provided enough food to support us, though we humans have some difficulties with distribution, but that provision wasn't without lots of human intervention and wrangling and general "sweat of the brow."
Hunter-Gatherers: Food Just Lying Around, Almost
It's been a long while since hunting-and-gathering supported any huge portion of the population, and Michael Pollan's description of his hunted-and-gathered meal in THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA illustrates why pre-agricultural folks had to spend just about all their time searching for food.
* Also good, anything by Mark Kurlansky, including SALT, COD: A BIOGRAPHY, and THE BIG OYSTER: HISTORY ON THE HALF SHELL.
Farming is a Rough Way to Make a Living
* Willa Cather's MY ANTONIA or O, PIONEERS
* Pearl Buck's THE GOOD EARTH
* Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH (all those dumped oranges!)
* the LITTLE HOUSE books ("Pa, there's some kind of funny cloud in the sky that's moving too fast!" Those would be locusts, Half-Pint, come to eat all the crops.)
And, Are You Really Going to Eat That?
* Anything by Michael Pollan
* Nina Planck's REAL FOOD
* Of course, Eric Schlosser's FAST FOOD NATION ("Would you like SUPERSIZE ME with that?")
* Samuel Fromartz's ORGANIC, INC.
* Steve Ettlinger's TWINKIE, DECONSTRUCTED (it made me fear baking powder)
Happy Earth Day!
Hunter-Gatherers: Food Just Lying Around, Almost
It's been a long while since hunting-and-gathering supported any huge portion of the population, and Michael Pollan's description of his hunted-and-gathered meal in THE OMNIVORE'S DILEMMA illustrates why pre-agricultural folks had to spend just about all their time searching for food.
* Also good, anything by Mark Kurlansky, including SALT, COD: A BIOGRAPHY, and THE BIG OYSTER: HISTORY ON THE HALF SHELL.
Farming is a Rough Way to Make a Living
* Willa Cather's MY ANTONIA or O, PIONEERS
* Pearl Buck's THE GOOD EARTH
* Steinbeck's THE GRAPES OF WRATH (all those dumped oranges!)
* the LITTLE HOUSE books ("Pa, there's some kind of funny cloud in the sky that's moving too fast!" Those would be locusts, Half-Pint, come to eat all the crops.)
And, Are You Really Going to Eat That?
* Anything by Michael Pollan
* Nina Planck's REAL FOOD
* Of course, Eric Schlosser's FAST FOOD NATION ("Would you like SUPERSIZE ME with that?")
* Samuel Fromartz's ORGANIC, INC.
* Steve Ettlinger's TWINKIE, DECONSTRUCTED (it made me fear baking powder)
Happy Earth Day!
Monday, April 20, 2009
The Good Earth
Yes, I know. Earth Day is actually Wednesday. But what if you wanted to read a book in honor of Earth Day? By posting this Monday, you'll have time to run by the library (literally, without powering up your SUV), pay your overdue fines, get the book, and read a goodly portion before Wednesday.
For anyone interested in filming a nature documentary, here is the formula: two parts wonders-of-the-earth followed by one part gloom-and-doom, with the transition between being someone taking a chainsaw to a tree that's been around since Jesus and felling it in thirty seconds. Watch any nature documentary and tell me I'm lying.
Actually, I'm lying. I just thought of the wonderful Planet Earth series which was more like nine parts wonders-of-the-earth to one part gloom-and-doom, and not a chainsaw to be seen. But that may only have been because the creators had a fascination that verged on obsession with animals eating each other. Seriously. The show should have been subtitled "Really Cool Animals and the Animals that Eat Them."
In any case, back to the "books" part of this "Books and Beyond" blog. Here are some recent earth-related ones I've enjoyed, followed by their gloom-and-doom rating:
* THE WEATHER MAKERS by Tim Flannery. A very readable, very well-supported examination of our changing climate and the ecosystems and species already affected. Gloom Rating: 10 (you may want to keep a noose handy and have someone standing by to kick away the stool).
* COAL: A HUMAN HISTORY by Barbara Freese. Fascinating jaunt through history and one of humankind's favored sources of energy. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you come away feeling smug because, heck, most of our power is hydroelectric, and nobody minds that but the salmon. Gloom Rating: 6.
* THE WILD TREES by Richard Preston. Had this on my website. A look at the truly giant redwoods and the folks who study and climb them. Gloom Rating: 3 (because no one is cutting down these beauties anymore. The damage is mostly past).
* THE GOLDEN SPRUCE by John Vaillant. Not really an earth book so much as a history of how an extreme, ex-logger-turned-environmentalist did huge sentimental and environmental damage to "get back at" the logging companies. Gloom Rating: 5 (who knew you could get so bummed about one tree?).
* THE CREATION by E. O. Wilson. If you read any books about nature or biology, the writers are forever quoting Wilson. This renowned biologist writes this book as a plea to the right-wing, Wal-Mart-shopping, Hummer-caravan-driving, old-growth-clear-cutting, NRA-lifetime-membership-holding, Christian fundamentalists of America. Please, you nutjobs, he writes (in so many words), please take care of the earth because it's cool. While you may disagree with his portrayal of Christians, it turns out the earth is, in fact, pretty cool. A little too much on worms and bugs, for my taste, but otherwise interesting. Gloom Rating: 5.
Let me know if you have some favorites!
Friday, April 17, 2009
Down for the Count
In case you hadn't noticed, the (in)constancy of woman has been a favorite topic of literature past.
Just yesterday I came across (spoiler alert!) Mercedes' pitiful appeal to Dantes in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO: "...I'm the one who's guilty, Edmond, and if you want to take revenge on someone, you ought to take it on me for not having the strength to withstand your absence and my own loneliness." Dude. The guy was arrested and hauled off who-knows-where, and Mercedes managed to stick it out for eighteen months with no news at all, all the while visiting Dantes' sickly dad, being courted by a loyal friend, and suffering through about fifteen regime changes in France. Ah...fickle, fickle Mercedes!
She is not alone. As long as stories and poems and plays have existed, inconstant women have made frequent appearances, always to be outshone by their more constant counterparts. Think Helen of Troy in the ILIAD (never mind that she was kidnapped! Come on, Homer--you never heard of Stockholm Syndrome?) versus Penelope in the ODYSSEY. Not only could Penelope (a single mom) withstand the temptation to marry again for ten stinking years, she could also weave a mean tapestry.
After many centuries of male writers going on about faithless women, Jane Austen finally pipes up in favor of women's constancy through Anne Elliott in PERSUASION, but really that's Anne's constancy speaking. Doesn't Austen herself admit Fanny Price in MANSFIELD PARK might ultimately have let go her admiration for Edmund and given in to Henry Crawford, had not Henry Crawford been such a dunce? Austen does everyone the favor of pointing out that constancy is not tied to gender but to particular people and circumstances.
Nowadays, in our love-them-for-as-long-as-you-happen-to-feel-like-it world, all the fuss about male or female (in)constancy seems like much ado about nothing. I remember reading CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? when I was on an Anthony Trollope kick: a novel built completely around the conflict that--gasp!--the heroine had broken her engagement to go for another guy, and would the reader be able to get over it? This reader did by about the third paragraph, so the rest of the book felt like a 500-page epilogue. Wrap it up, already, Tony.
Still, our inner desire for constancy cannot be completely squashed. Although, after fourteen years of marriage and two seasons of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, my husband is convinced I'm actually a Cylon, even he is amazed how annoyed I get at Apollo for (spoiler alert!) running off with Dee. Call me fickle.
Just yesterday I came across (spoiler alert!) Mercedes' pitiful appeal to Dantes in THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO: "...I'm the one who's guilty, Edmond, and if you want to take revenge on someone, you ought to take it on me for not having the strength to withstand your absence and my own loneliness." Dude. The guy was arrested and hauled off who-knows-where, and Mercedes managed to stick it out for eighteen months with no news at all, all the while visiting Dantes' sickly dad, being courted by a loyal friend, and suffering through about fifteen regime changes in France. Ah...fickle, fickle Mercedes!
She is not alone. As long as stories and poems and plays have existed, inconstant women have made frequent appearances, always to be outshone by their more constant counterparts. Think Helen of Troy in the ILIAD (never mind that she was kidnapped! Come on, Homer--you never heard of Stockholm Syndrome?) versus Penelope in the ODYSSEY. Not only could Penelope (a single mom) withstand the temptation to marry again for ten stinking years, she could also weave a mean tapestry.
After many centuries of male writers going on about faithless women, Jane Austen finally pipes up in favor of women's constancy through Anne Elliott in PERSUASION, but really that's Anne's constancy speaking. Doesn't Austen herself admit Fanny Price in MANSFIELD PARK might ultimately have let go her admiration for Edmund and given in to Henry Crawford, had not Henry Crawford been such a dunce? Austen does everyone the favor of pointing out that constancy is not tied to gender but to particular people and circumstances.
Nowadays, in our love-them-for-as-long-as-you-happen-to-feel-like-it world, all the fuss about male or female (in)constancy seems like much ado about nothing. I remember reading CAN YOU FORGIVE HER? when I was on an Anthony Trollope kick: a novel built completely around the conflict that--gasp!--the heroine had broken her engagement to go for another guy, and would the reader be able to get over it? This reader did by about the third paragraph, so the rest of the book felt like a 500-page epilogue. Wrap it up, already, Tony.
Still, our inner desire for constancy cannot be completely squashed. Although, after fourteen years of marriage and two seasons of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, my husband is convinced I'm actually a Cylon, even he is amazed how annoyed I get at Apollo for (spoiler alert!) running off with Dee. Call me fickle.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Play Ball!
Okay, I know most baseball fans have already celebrated Opening Day, but the Seattle Mariners have been on the road, so today is the Home Opener. Therefore, my kids are all in the proper attire and headed off to buy special Mariners' Home Opener school lunches.
I grew up an Oakland A's fan, but after six+ years in Bellevue, I have successfully transferred my allegiance. The Mariners' dismal performance last year only made me nostalgic for the equally dismal A's of my youth.
In any case, in honor of this fresh new baseball season: Children's Baseball Books.
* PECORINO PLAYS BALL by Alan Madison and AnnaLaura Cantone. This is ideal for elementary-school age kids because they get the jokes, of which there are many. Funniest of all are the jokes based on the kids' uniforms. Someone else noticed that they seem to make kids' uniforms mysteriously huge.
* ROASTED PEANUTS by Tim Egan. Nice friendship and we-each-have-our-particular-gift book.
* FROGGY PLAYS T-BALL by Jonathan London and Frank Remkiewicz. We like Froggy in our house. Especially how he gets dressed: Zip! Zap! Zup!
And, a special (dis)honorable mention:
* OUT OF THE BALLPARK by Alex Rodriguez and Frank Morrison. Yes, that A-Rod. One of those you-can-do-it, kid-inspirational books. Don't worry--there are no banned substances or Madonna cameos.
If you've read some others, I'd love to know their titles.
I grew up an Oakland A's fan, but after six+ years in Bellevue, I have successfully transferred my allegiance. The Mariners' dismal performance last year only made me nostalgic for the equally dismal A's of my youth.
In any case, in honor of this fresh new baseball season: Children's Baseball Books.
* PECORINO PLAYS BALL by Alan Madison and AnnaLaura Cantone. This is ideal for elementary-school age kids because they get the jokes, of which there are many. Funniest of all are the jokes based on the kids' uniforms. Someone else noticed that they seem to make kids' uniforms mysteriously huge.
* ROASTED PEANUTS by Tim Egan. Nice friendship and we-each-have-our-particular-gift book.
* FROGGY PLAYS T-BALL by Jonathan London and Frank Remkiewicz. We like Froggy in our house. Especially how he gets dressed: Zip! Zap! Zup!
And, a special (dis)honorable mention:
* OUT OF THE BALLPARK by Alex Rodriguez and Frank Morrison. Yes, that A-Rod. One of those you-can-do-it, kid-inspirational books. Don't worry--there are no banned substances or Madonna cameos.
If you've read some others, I'd love to know their titles.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Abridged over Troubled Waters
For my older daughter's seventh birthday, a guest gave her an abridged version of Frances Hodgson Burnett's A LITTLE PRINCESS.
Abridged! To the daughter of two English-major book snobs? I appreciated the thought, but barely had the guests gone when that book magically "disappeared," and I steered her to the legitimate copy I'd had waiting for her on her bookshelf since she was conceived. You wouldn't crop the Mona Lisa, would you? Or not sing all seventeen possible verses of "Amazing Grace"? Oh, well, you might do that.
In any case, I found my standards slipping recently. When I was preparing to lead a book club discussion (for which people had paid good money) on Geraldine Brooks' MARCH (see 3/4/09 blog post on www.christinadudley.com), I pulled my childhood copy of Alcott's LITTLE WOMEN off the shelf to reread. Imagine my dismay when I noticed, for the first time in my life, the tiny little words on the title page: "Abridged."
Horrors! All my life I'd been reading an abridged copy without realizing it! Who knew what Alcottian prose delights I'd been missing all this time? Unfortunately, time didn't permit me running to the library to get a complete version, and I couldn't bear to part with this version because it featured full-color illustrations I'd loved forever.
So be it. I knowingly read my first abridgement and enjoyed it thoroughly, as I always had.
Then came the second test: my book club chose Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, of which I had a perfectly good copy on the shelves dating from my high school years. All the complaining about the book's length from other club members aroused my suspicions, however, and when I examined my modest, inch-thick copy, there is was on the front cover in invisible white print: "Abridged." Tiny print had struck again!
But now I had plenty else on my plate: trying to get my manuscript ready for the printer, drafting an article I wanted to shop around, figuring out how to set up a sole proprietorship, etc. It was going to have to be the abridgement.
I'm still a book snob, but I've been taken down a notch. When time and convenience call, it appears I'll lower my standards.
And it's not all bad. Chateau D'If? No problem. My Dantes was out of there by page 66, while my friend's unabridged version by page 224 only had him witnessing Faria's first cataleptic fit. Whew! Who's got time for that? I have blog posts to write.
Abridged! To the daughter of two English-major book snobs? I appreciated the thought, but barely had the guests gone when that book magically "disappeared," and I steered her to the legitimate copy I'd had waiting for her on her bookshelf since she was conceived. You wouldn't crop the Mona Lisa, would you? Or not sing all seventeen possible verses of "Amazing Grace"? Oh, well, you might do that.
In any case, I found my standards slipping recently. When I was preparing to lead a book club discussion (for which people had paid good money) on Geraldine Brooks' MARCH (see 3/4/09 blog post on www.christinadudley.com), I pulled my childhood copy of Alcott's LITTLE WOMEN off the shelf to reread. Imagine my dismay when I noticed, for the first time in my life, the tiny little words on the title page: "Abridged."
Horrors! All my life I'd been reading an abridged copy without realizing it! Who knew what Alcottian prose delights I'd been missing all this time? Unfortunately, time didn't permit me running to the library to get a complete version, and I couldn't bear to part with this version because it featured full-color illustrations I'd loved forever.
So be it. I knowingly read my first abridgement and enjoyed it thoroughly, as I always had.
Then came the second test: my book club chose Dumas' THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, of which I had a perfectly good copy on the shelves dating from my high school years. All the complaining about the book's length from other club members aroused my suspicions, however, and when I examined my modest, inch-thick copy, there is was on the front cover in invisible white print: "Abridged." Tiny print had struck again!
But now I had plenty else on my plate: trying to get my manuscript ready for the printer, drafting an article I wanted to shop around, figuring out how to set up a sole proprietorship, etc. It was going to have to be the abridgement.
I'm still a book snob, but I've been taken down a notch. When time and convenience call, it appears I'll lower my standards.
And it's not all bad. Chateau D'If? No problem. My Dantes was out of there by page 66, while my friend's unabridged version by page 224 only had him witnessing Faria's first cataleptic fit. Whew! Who's got time for that? I have blog posts to write.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Elements of a Good Love Story (EOGLS), Part IV
(If you missed EOGLS Parts I-III, check back on my website: www.christinadudley.com.)
Recently my book club read Elizabeth Gaskell's WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, a surprisingly enthralling novel, considering its heft, and one that echoes elements of Austen's MANSFIELD PARK and anticipates Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH. We highly recommend it, but you absolutely must know that Gaskell died before finishing it. Croaked. Kicked the bucket. Gave up the ghost. And, most importantly, put down the pen.
What does this mean? It means the satisfying scene between the devoted heroine and her recently-enlightened lover does not exist. The book ends abruptly with the stepmother wanting a new shawl or something, and then an editor picks up with a "p.s. Gaskell died." What??? In desperation, the thwarted reader then turns to the recent BBC production for a denouement. You'll have to do the same and let me know if it worked for you.
Maybe Gaskell was taking a page from MANSFIELD PARK, which has Austen's least satisfying lover-resolution to a very similar love triangle, apart from Austen's similarly terse sentences in NORTHANGER ABBEY.
All of which brings me to this post's Element of a Good Love Story: details. Not make-out details, but rather, what is each lover thinking and going through? I'm fine if the author wants to hide these things for most of the book, but at some point, I want those details. Who didn't finally breathe a sigh of relief to know what Rhett Butler or Maxim de Winter was thinking? And oftentimes the thinking-and-feeling details provide the reader (and main character) more satisfaction than any physical consummation. Think LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. Or even Starbuck and Apollo in Battlestar Galactica. (I'm only in Season 3, but did anyone else think things went from poignant to sordid when those two got together?)
I'd love to hear your favorite detailed love scenes, as well as least favorite.
Recently my book club read Elizabeth Gaskell's WIVES AND DAUGHTERS, a surprisingly enthralling novel, considering its heft, and one that echoes elements of Austen's MANSFIELD PARK and anticipates Eliot's MIDDLEMARCH. We highly recommend it, but you absolutely must know that Gaskell died before finishing it. Croaked. Kicked the bucket. Gave up the ghost. And, most importantly, put down the pen.
What does this mean? It means the satisfying scene between the devoted heroine and her recently-enlightened lover does not exist. The book ends abruptly with the stepmother wanting a new shawl or something, and then an editor picks up with a "p.s. Gaskell died." What??? In desperation, the thwarted reader then turns to the recent BBC production for a denouement. You'll have to do the same and let me know if it worked for you.
Maybe Gaskell was taking a page from MANSFIELD PARK, which has Austen's least satisfying lover-resolution to a very similar love triangle, apart from Austen's similarly terse sentences in NORTHANGER ABBEY.
All of which brings me to this post's Element of a Good Love Story: details. Not make-out details, but rather, what is each lover thinking and going through? I'm fine if the author wants to hide these things for most of the book, but at some point, I want those details. Who didn't finally breathe a sigh of relief to know what Rhett Butler or Maxim de Winter was thinking? And oftentimes the thinking-and-feeling details provide the reader (and main character) more satisfaction than any physical consummation. Think LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA. Or even Starbuck and Apollo in Battlestar Galactica. (I'm only in Season 3, but did anyone else think things went from poignant to sordid when those two got together?)
I'd love to hear your favorite detailed love scenes, as well as least favorite.
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