I
feel like I have been overwhelmed with reading lately and I can’t quite wrap my
head around all the thoughts that are swirling around in my head and form them
into cogent sentences.
It
had been my intention to get back to reading the papers, a habit that had
fallen by the wayside over the summer, and indeed I did. The week I had chosen to expend my
repertoire into reading happened to coincide with all the recent financial
upheaval and “bailout” or “recovery” plans which made for exciting and somewhat
overwhelming work. I had great
plans to read the 4 papers I used to read daily, plus a few online news sites,
but quickly got bogged down. Since
that week I have managed one paper most days with some scanning of the
others. Time is still an issue and
time to put my attention to anything is a rare commodity.
And
yet, reading papers serves a purpose in that one feels less disconnected from
the outside world, but it has never satisfied a basic craving to engage the
mind in the way that reading a book or a good essay do. I am partial to fiction, always have
been, and am not particularly elitist in my tastes in fiction, although I have
pretty wide ranging tastes in non-fiction as well. Recently fiction is better suited to my limited time and
overworked brain because there is not only the mind-expanding aspects that a
good novelist brings to a story, but there is also the possibility of
escape. Sometimes escape is good
in and of itself.
I
have finished two novels, but because my time is limited to the extent that I
can choose to escape and read or I can chose the time to write (and reading is
much easier) I have read one right after the other without recording my
thoughts. The result is that now, although the novels are quite different, they
are already beginning to comingle in my thoughts and it is more difficult to
isolate the finer points of each. Since I need a book for my next excursion on
the exercise bicycle, the danger of contaminating the remaining ruminations
with yet a third story is quite strong.
Must. Avoid. That.
Special Topics in Calamity Physics had been sitting on the “to be read”
shelf for quite a few years (2? 3?) and I had waffled back and forth about
actually reading it. And at first
I did find it a little off-putting.
The author’s technique of throwing in references (both real and
imaginary) instead of character and plot development threw me a bit out of gear
at first, and it admittedly did take me a little time really relate to the
voice of the protagonist, but she did win me over, and in fairly short order. It was not terribly long before the
narrator, Blue Van Meer, proves that she is not just preternaturally bright,
and a bit of an intellectual snob, but really just an out-of-touch teenager who
perhaps has lived too much in her head and books and is struggling to find her
place in the world. She is torn between
emotional and intellectual distance while still craving acknowledgement and
even friendship from her peers.
She is woefully unprepared for dealing with the emotions and reactions
of other young people as she has been brought up in a varied, but rather isolated petrie-dish like environment,
controlled by her peripatetic father.
I
was rather drawn to Blue. In many ways she reminds me of myself as a young
girl, although I was not so confident in my observations, and not so
self-assured or undoubtedly bright.
But then, Blue is a fictional creation. I found it touching that Blue, who prided herself on her
observational skills, and how thorough she was, really missed many things that
were going on around her, things that might have been more obvious to a young
person who had grown up in a more social environment.
And
yet, in the end, Blue grows up, and becomes a more observant, and more
self-reliant person. She learns
that the world was not as she had supposed, and she begins to see from a more
adult perspective. This is
traumatic for all children, and Blue’s transformation is artificially more
dramatic than most.
What
I think now, some time after having finished the book, is that one never knows
how any experiment is going to turn out.
I think back to Blue’s father’s reactions at the end of the book and I
am struck by his sense of surprise battling with pride at the evolution of his
daughter.
It was a quick read, again perhaps because I related somewhat to the character,
and did not find the various oblique references to be an impediment but
entertaining and revealing in their own way. I will read it again.
I look forward to it.
Pretty
much immediately after putting down Special Topics I picked up Linda
Grant’s novel, The Clothes on Their Backs. Although the two novels are
completely different, they both revolve around a female narrator who is
something of an outsider trying to find her place in the world.
I
have to say that I loved Linda Grant's novel — it was an excellent read and
very thought provoking as well. In fact, I had to keep pausing to
reconsider what I had read, occasionally going back to reread selected
sections. This made it difficult
as a bicycle book (this is by no means a complaint.) It is entirely different
that Special Topics in Calamity Physics, which I pedaled through at a
furious pace.
In
fact, when I finished I almost immediately started reading The Clothes on
Their Backs again as I think there are permutations of connections that I
may have missed in the first go-round. It was such a wonderful dissection
of secrets and lies and human failings and perceptions. Vivian tries to
unravel the threads of her family's history as she is also trying to find the
threads of her place in the world. All these threads tie in so well with
the images of clothes and the perceptions and significance of what they say, or
don't say, about the wearer.
The allegorical use of clothes and how they both inform the observer and
hide, or sometimes reveal, the
wearer is fascinating. The threads of memory and self are so intimately tied in
with the threads of clothing and one's place in society are just fascinating.
Really, I do need to read it again and look forward to doing so.