New Century Reading

How to Build a Girl read-along

I've got to give Caitlin Moran props. I'm now so deeply invested in Johanna as a character that even as she continues to do things that are Bridget Jones-level cringeworthy, I'm still on her side. She's just a teenaged girl, teetering on the brink of becoming something, if she can hold herself together.

When we left Johanna (or, as she wants to be called, Dolly Wilde), she'd just talked her way into a dream job for a music magazine. Now they're sending her on a dream assignment to Ireland, to interview musician and hard-partier John Kite. She's never been out of Britain; she's never been on a plane. The flight is a form of intoxication to her:

"I feel like I've just flown 600 miles per hour head-on into the most beautiful metaphor of my life: If you fly high enough, you get above the clouds, it's never-ending summer."

Floating on that triumphant high, she meets John Kite, and it's a delirious experience. He calls her Duchess, talks to her like no one's ever talked to her before, treats her like she's the most important person in the world. She returns to Britain and writes her article about him. We're not given the text of the article, but when the music magazine suddenly stops sending her assignments, it's not hard to figure out that she likely went a tad bit overboard with hyperbolic praise. She may have devoted herself to learning about music, but she's still a 16-year-old girl who's never had this kind of attention from a male before.

The timing of the magazine backing off couldn't be worse: the event Johanna's been fearing finally happens, and the family is being investigated by the welfare organization that keeps them afloat.

Almost as bad, her brother Krissi, with whom she shares a room, lets on that he knows that she's not, um, scratching herself night after night. But that turns into a good thing: Krissi talks his parents into letting him move into the unused dining room, and Johanna suddenly has a writing space all her own.

The music magazine finally agrees to give her another chance, she meets John Kite again and realizes the awful truth that he treats a lot of people the way he treats her, and she understands that it's not puff pieces that will make her writing career, but witheringly angry putdowns instead.

And thus endeth this week's section.

Mostly I really liked it. I feel very maternal about Johanna at this point--she's dealing with a whole load of personal issues, enough that they would overwhelm anyone, and she's only 16. She could so easily go completely bad, or become an addict, or some other traumatic path. But she's also got some smarts and some goals, and I really hope she doesn't.

That said, Moran did another change of tense in this section that really annoyed me. We have Johanna in the present tense, thrilled with her first airplane experience, and the very next scene, which comes after the flight, is a past-tense flashback. This is sloppy and lazy and seems to have been done only to give Moran the ability to use Johanna's voice from a more knowledgeable future time: "This was, clearly, where business would be conducted--but this was also the theater of the human heart, where all things happened and all things would be revealed, given the fullness of time." That's not something a 16-year-old would say. I can't help but think that if Moran was an unknown writer, an editor somewhere would have slapped her wrist and said, "Choose one or the other, but you can't have both. It doesn't work."

But it's not a deal-breaker, at least not so far. My thanks to Emily and to HarperCollins for including me on this fun read-along.

How to Build a Girl read-along

I may have gotten off to a slow start with this one, but Caitlin Moran has me good and hooked now. Our narrator, Johanna, had just experienced an ego-shattering TV experience when we ended the last section. Now she's determined to overcome that and remake herself into a persona she calls Dolly Wilde. Dolly Wilde, Johanna decides, is going to become a music journalist. Never mind that she doesn't know anything about what's happening in the world of music, or that she lives far away from places like, say, London. She diligently finds a radio station (this is pre-internet) that has the latest music and begins requesting it at her local library.

I have to say, the scene of Johanna carefully dialing in the radio station brought me waaaaaay back in the day, growing up in northern Minnesota where the local radio stations played country and very, very lite rock, but where, if the weather was good (and preferably cold, so winter helped), I could get WLS from Chicago on my radio. Chicago! And they played things like Manfred Mann's Earth Band! So unusual! So different from what I could hear on my local radio!

Johanna--er, Dolly--then writes several reviews for a London music publication, which finally invites her in for an interview, then give her a job. As an honest-to-God music journalist. Once she really believes she's earning money, she announces she's quitting school, because why does she need math and science? She's already got a job writing. She's going to be fine.

Right?

The great thing about the writing so far is that Johanna is neither overly precocious nor precious in the least. She has moods, she's tempestuous at times, she can be selfish the way teens are, and yet she's never not aware of the difficulties in her family. In this section, we learned more about why her father seems to be a loser, and there's a big reason for it. That doesn't make his behavior any less appalling, but at least it's more understandable, as is Johanna's (and the rest of the family's) tolerance of it.

The only difficulty I'm having at the moment is not cheating and reading ahead. I really, really want to find out what happens when Johanna quits school. Read-alongs are hard, y'all.

How to Build a Girl read-along

I'm reading How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran as part of a read-along organized by As the Crowe Flies (And Reads). I have not previously read anything by Moran, but loved the blurb on the back of the book: "Imagine The Bell Jar--written by Rizzo from Grease."

And that's kind of what we have, at least in the opening. Johanna Morrigan is 14 years old and living in a highly flawed family: a mother depressed after the birth of twins, conceived unexpectedly, making the total number of kids in the household five; a father who's a belligerent sot who quite enjoys gaming the welfare system; siblings running wild. Johanna herself is overweight and longs to lose her virginity, even though she's not quite sure how to make that happen.

But when she perceives a threat to her family's (admittedly precarious) fortunes, her anxiety levels reach an almost unbearable peak, and she wants to do anything she can to help her family financially. There's not much available to a 14-year-old except a TV-show-sponsored poetry contest. She writes a poem, wins--and the live TV broadcast of her reciting her poem turns into a nightmare beyond her wildest dreams.

It's a peppy, action-packed beginning, and at times I was concerned that the snappy, humor-filled narration (from Johanna's first person) would become tiresome. But by the time she appears on the TV show, and all hell breaks loose, I was already so attached to her that it was almost unbearable to read (not to mention bringing up teen memories better left forgotten). Moran does a great job of fleshing out this struggling, stumbling girl with good intentions and a wry sense of humor that doesn't tip over into precocious.

At this point, my only critique is that the narrative veers back and forth between present and past tense, and that's a bit annoying, but not enough to make me want to stop reading. Looking forward to part 2!

Summer of Moby Dick

All righty! Beth over at Beth Babbles About Books is helping me clear a big item off my literary bucket list this summer: Moby Dick. This one has been intimidating me for quite a while, but she's set up what seems to be a reasonable reading schedule. Bonus: an optional text to go with it called A Whaler's Dictionary by Dan Beachy-Quick, published by Milkweed Editions. I'm thinking this will be very fun. Join us!

 

David Copperfield

I have the Penguin Classics edition of Davy, with an introduction by Jeremy Tambling. Mr. Tambling had some interesting things to say about the book. Here are the points I found most intriguing:

• Copperfield fell midway in Dickens' career, before the final run that included masterpieces like Great Expectations and Bleak House. In fact, he apparently re-read Copperfield before writing Great Expectations and said he was greatly affected by the re-read in a way that may have affected his work on the later book.
• Dickens' use of repetition: "David Copperfield is introduced to London twice (chapters XI and XIX); makes a new start so that he goes to two different types of schools; has two different forms of occupation; marries twice. Smaller, but equally odd, forms of repetition appear: he has two fathers, and he is surrounded by two women called Clara (his mother and Peggotty)...At the end of the novel Mr. Murdstone is doing just what he was doing at the beginning: torturing a young wife.
• Marriage is a major theme of the book, what with Davy's two marriages, his mother's two marriages, Aunt Betsey and her mystery husband, Peggotty and Barkis, the Strongs...and there's Rosa Dartle, who wants to be married, and Emily, who does not, both seduced by Steerforth.
• Copperfield had influence on other novelists of the day: "Tolstoy, who was reading it in 1852, and whose Childhood uses it, as does his War and Peace, or with Dostoyevsky, who took the Micawbers and made them the Marmeladov family in Crime and Punishment, or with Freud, with Joyce, in The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man; or with Kafka, whose [The Man Who Disappeared or America] is an attempt to rewrite Dickens' novel."
• Here's a statement I'm not sure I agree with: "The others [characters] move towards what the novel would take to be the central ground, which is the subordination of their own otherness to the values of David Copperfield." What? I don't see anyone giving in to Davy's values. Rather, he--like most of us--seeks out people who share his values, or whose values he admires.
• Finally, an interesting reference from the Bible: Uriah the Hittite is the just husband who is murdered by David when David is pursuing Uriah's wife Bathsheba. Copperfield is an intriguing twist on this story, with David being the just man while Uriah is the villain, and both of them ultimately pursuing the same woman.

So...what was in your edition? What do you think of these points?

David Copperfield

And so we reach the end. As I suspected, Dickens hustled all those loose ends into a giant woven piece. Agnes and Davy get married (did I call it when I said that Dora told Agnes to marry him???), Uriah Heep is at least in prison, if not actually repentant, Mr. Micawber finally came into his own in Australia, Little Em'ly is alive if not frolicking, Mr. Peggotty is relieved at that, and Mrs. Gummidge, bless her soul, is no longer a lorn, lone creature.

But I have one question that went unanswered: what happened to the Murdstones? Last we heard, he'd married another young woman, and the two of them were driving her towards imbecility and an early grave. How could Dickens have left that hanging, given the awful start they caused Davy in the beginning???

I have to admit I finished the book a couple of days ago and have been trying to figure out my reaction. I liked it, I guess, but it felt predictable and a bit anti-climactic. Not quite as satisfying as the ending of Bleak House. But then, I've been saying all along that I wasn't finding this as satisfying as Bleak House. I'm glad to have read it, but think it's one of those books I'm not likely to return to.

Next week, if you have an intro to your book, pop by and let's discuss. Also, I'm coming down to the end of Dickens books that I'm dying to read. Miss T. proposed this for next winter's read-along. What say you? It's a Dickensian type of book, if not by Dickens, and sounds like it'd be a jolly good winter read. As for summer? Keep an eye out for Beth's Summer of (Moby) Dick.

David Copperfield

We're in the great wind-down phase now. Much happened in these four chapters, of which the most important feels like the deaths of Ham and Steerforth during that dreadful tempest. Tempest--there's a word that sounds downright lighthearted and not at all like the nightmare it really was, rather like last month in Britain.

Unfortunately this section was bookended with two chapters on the Micawbers, who, by this point, I'm happy to see fading off into the sunset, heading to Australia. I have no doubt they will be no more financially responsible there than they were in their home country. And long-winded. Mr. Micawber is quite fortunate that he chose to do the right thing in terms of Uriah Heep, or he'd be trapped forever in debtor's prison.

Speaking of the Heep of infamy, what's up with him filing all those suits against Micawber? Shouldn't he be hiding somewhere, hoping Davy and Agnes don't haul him to court?

The storm was more than impressive, and the impact of Ham trying to help the person who turned out to have destroyed his life--in more ways than one--was of course tremendously sad. Even Steerforth's loss is sad, as Davy faces the difficulty of first what to do with his body and second notifying his family. Interesting tidbit: At the beginning of chapter 56, there's this line: "They felt as if it were not right to lay [Steerforth] down in the same quiet room." In the footnotes, this: "MS adds, 'While I tried to consider what it would be best to do, the wind plucked at the flag, as if it were eager to get underneath and see its work.'" I wish Dickens had kept that line intact.

And oh my, Miss Dartle! What a picture of vengeance and anger! Yet Mrs. Steerforth, before he tells her about her son's death, clearly knows something is amiss and still finds it in her to say kind things to Davy about his being a widower.

I still feel like there might be more Heep to come. Certainly I hope he meets his "great pulverisation", as Mr. Micawber put it. But clearly ends are wrapping up. Ham, Steerforth, Emily, Martha, the Micawbers, the Peggottys, Mrs. Gummidge--all accounted for. What's left? Davy, Agnes, Aunt Betsey, Mr. Dick, and Heep.

All righty then. One more week. Finish the book.

David Copperfield

Little Em'ly is found, safe, Mr. Peggotty is happy, moving to Australia, former fiance is sad, Davy has become an established author (and I chuckled at Mr. Omer's assessment of his book: "And as to feeling sleepy! Not at all!"), blah blah blah. Let's get to what's really important: the takedown of Uriah Heep.

I have one tiny grumble about the unveiling of the dastardly activities of Mr. Heep (the HEEP of Infamy!!). Fond as I am of Mr. Micawber, and how lovely to see him step up and do the right thing even though he has no reason to believe his own personal circumstances won't improve for it, Lord Almighty but it took him forever to get to his point. I know Dickens was going for humor, but I couldn't help starting to feel impatient. And sad at how little Aunt Betsey was involved. Don't you kind of wish Aunt Betsey had been the one to discover this infamy? Imagine how fun her unveiling would have been!

But no matter. Heep has been unmasked for the dreadful creature his physiognomy has always made him seem to be. I can only hope there will be severe punishment. And that his mother is punished too for her aiding and abetting.

So...Did Dora die at the end of the last chapter, in concert with Jip? And why did she want to talk to Agnes? I don't think it takes a Sherlock to figure out what that conversation was all about.

Dickens is rapidly approaching the end. I hope he doesn't pull an Our Mutual Friend and wrap every loose end up at the speed of light. Two more weeks. Next week, chapters 54-57.

David Copperfield

"Villany is the matter; baseness is the matter; deception, fraud, conspiracy, are the matter; and the name of the whole atrocious mess is -- HEEP!"

I think this is the most satisfying sentence in the entire book so far.

This was a pretty satisfying section overall. It's book-ended with references to suicide: in the opening section, Martha has fallen so far that she wants the river to take her away forever, and at the end, we have the odious Miss Dartle urging Little Em'ly to kill herself. In between, we have the clear sense that Dora isn't long for the world, although she doesn't seem destined to die in childbirth:

"The spirit fluttered for a moment on the threshold of its little prison, and, unconscious of captivity, took wing."

OK, that is an absolutely beautiful and heart-rending description of miscarriage.

We learn the truth about the strange man and Aunt Betsey, which felt sort of anti-climactic along with everything else, although I very much liked her self-described "grumpy, frumpy story". But we also had the wonderfully dramatic story of the Micawbers. We don't know what's happened, exactly, but we know Uriah Heep is at the root of it, and dare we hope that Mr. Micawber actually has some proof to put down this villain once and for all, and release the Wickfields from his evil grasp? Now that's a worthy cliffhanger.

Do you think Twaddles will ever get married? And why didn't Davy rush in to protect Little Em'ly from the demonic Dartle? Why wait for Mr. Peggotty? What was the point of that?

Only three more weeks--chapters 51-53 for next week. Or maybe four weeks, if I get around to reading the introduction to my edition (Penguin Classic) and want to talk about it.

David Copperfield

Well, this set of chapters had a little bit of everything. The first chapter, Housekeeping, was hilarious. But it also showed what I think is the beginning of marital problems, and some excellent common sense on the part of Aunt Betsey when she refuses to become involved. We all know "that" relative who sticks her nose in where it doesn't belong. Aunt Betsey is wise to simply be a friend, not a nag.

But just a few paragraphs into the housekeeping drollery, we have this sentence: "It was such a wonderful thing, at first, to have her coming softly down to talk to me as I ate my supper." That "at first" is rather ominous.

Then Mr. Dick proves that a simple man can be the perfect conduit for re-establishing marital harmony. Take that, Uriah Heep! In fact, I might go so far to say that not only did Heep not firmly ruin the Strongs' marriage, his interference, thanks to Mr. Dick, probably made the marriage better and (sorry) stronger. But, sadly, Mrs. Strong's statement that "There can be no disparity in marriage like unsuitability of mind and purpose" clearly resonates with Davy. He may still be infatuated with his little Dora, but I think he's starting to realize that she may not have been the best choice for him for wife. He's already seen what a bad marriage looks like, thanks to Mr. Murdstone. Now he may be realizing bad marriages come in different forms.

Then, oh, that awful visit to the Steerforth home. Miss Dartle, what a wench, am I right? Yet Mrs. Steerforth, still so angry, finds it in her heart to tell Davy that his mother would have been proud of him. That scene ends with Dickens at his best in incorporating visuals and emotions:

"As I moved away from them along the terrace, I could not help observing how steadily they both sat gazing on the prospect, and how it thickened and closed around them. Here and there, some early lamps were seen to twinkle in the distant city; and in the eastern quarter of the sky the lurid light still hovered. But, from the greater part of the broad valley interposed, a mist was rising like a sea, which, mingling with the darkness, made it seem as if the gathering waters would encompass them. I have reason to remember this, and think of it with awe; for before I looked upon those two again, a stormy sea had risen to their feet."

The chapter ends with Davy and Mr. Peggotty hot on the trail of Little Em'ly by way of the fallen Martha. I suspect Little Em'ly will be found soon.

Something that struck me in this section was how I get a firm sense that Davy's marriage isn't going to last long, yet, looking back from many years, he still speaks of Dora with love and fondness. Whatever happens, it doesn't seem like it's going to sour him on her.

Some great lines in this section too. About Mrs. Strong's mother: "She was one of those people who can bear a great deal of pleasure". All of Aunt Betsey's asides during the scene at the Strongs. And this gem, about one of the many housekeeping Incapables: "Who was one of the most amiable of women, but who generally made a point of falling either up or down the kitchen stairs with a tray, and almost always plunged into the parlor, as into a bath, with the tea-things."

Next week: Chapters 47-50.