Aimee posted today about reading a book she couldn’t put down. This post is about books I can’t pick up.
A few days ago, Chris asked me if I’d read the novel many critics are calling the Book of the Year – The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I said no, I hadn’t, and no, I didn’t plan to. It might be brilliantly written, but it’s an apocalyptic vision of a cataclysmic future and I just can’t take it. I had a similar problem with Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake – I read the whole thing and I hated every minute of it. It was depressing and horrible and far too plausible. I don’t care to read fictional scenarios about human beings wrecking the planet and bringing most species on earth along for the ride -- it just hits too close to home.
In a similar vein, you know how every woman’s or parent’s magazine, it seems, has an article every month about some kid who has a freakishly rare disease, or survives (or doesn’t survive?) some bizarre accident, like falling out of a third-story window or drinking a bottle of lye? I used to eat those articles up, I was attracted, I guess, to the drama (or melodrama, as the case may be). I can’t read those articles now. I don’t need to know how many strange diseases there are out there ready to attack little kids, or the myriad ways children can get injured in their very own homes.
A few years ago, I counted Lolita as one of my very favorite books. I hardly paid attention to the subject matter, I loved it for the marvelous language and wordplay and all the clever allusions and symbolism. I picked it up to reread about a year ago and I couldn’t get past page 50. It suddenly came clear to me that there was a little girl getting hurt in that book, and I had to put it down.
My most recent literary casualty was Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott. This is a beautifully written book about a 13-year-old tennis prodigy and, again, I couldn’t read past the first couple of chapters. First, the girl’s father died when she was four. The thought of something happening to me or Chris when our kids are so small is almost as difficult for me to contemplate as the thought of something happening to the kids themselves, so that was strike one. Second, the girl is thirteen, and Lamott writes all too well, too precisely, about the special hell that is thirteen when you’re a girl. I still remember that, and I don’t wish to relive it, and I don’t wish to think, yet, about my own girls going through that. And that’s the Third reason I can’t keep reading this book, because Lamott also writes all too well about the girl’s mother, who watches the girl, and sees her struggles, and sympathizes and cries along with her, but who also has to put up with all the snottiness and irrationality and scorn the girl heaps upon her, just for being there and being uncool enough to be a mom.
And then there was this section, which I’ll excerpt, that sealed it for me completely:
. . .and it goes on, and Lamott describes it just right, the love and the fear that you let yourself in for when you have children – and it’s so true that I had to close the book. Because I don’t need it all spelled out for me. I live it every day.
Maybe I’ll come back to this book when my kids are safely grown.
What I am reading, or re-reading, is The Lord of the Rings. I picked it up right before Christmas because I had nothing else, and I thought I’d just skim through my favorite parts until I had a chance to go redeem all the lovely bookstore gift cards I got, but I think I’m in it for the long haul again. (I do skip the poems, and the whole Tom Bombadil episode which bores me.) Such great books. I tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring in junior high and just couldn’t do it; I’m glad that the movies came out and got me interested enough in the story that I picked up the books again. I don’t need to tell you that Tolkien was a genius, and the creation of Middle-Earth an achievement beyond most writers’ wildest dreams. But I have to say that this note, found in the Appendix to my version, made me laugh: “The Shire Reckoning and dates are the only ones of importance for the narrative of the War of the Ring….The only points in which the differences between this and our calendar are important to the story at the crucial period…are these: October 1418 has only 30 days, January 1 is the second day of 1419, and February 30 days; so that March 25, the date of the downfall of Bard-dur, would correspond to our March 27, if our years began at the same seasonal point. The date was, however, March 25 in both Kings’ and Stewards’ Reckoning.” Well, thank god for that disclaimer, because I noticed that discrepancy and it was enough to spoil the entire epic for me! Except not really, because, huh? Anyway, the Fellowship is just leaving Rivendell and I’m going along with them, and for the first time ever, I’ve had bookstore gift cards in my wallet for two weeks past Christmas.
What are you [not] reading?
A few days ago, Chris asked me if I’d read the novel many critics are calling the Book of the Year – The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I said no, I hadn’t, and no, I didn’t plan to. It might be brilliantly written, but it’s an apocalyptic vision of a cataclysmic future and I just can’t take it. I had a similar problem with Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake – I read the whole thing and I hated every minute of it. It was depressing and horrible and far too plausible. I don’t care to read fictional scenarios about human beings wrecking the planet and bringing most species on earth along for the ride -- it just hits too close to home.
In a similar vein, you know how every woman’s or parent’s magazine, it seems, has an article every month about some kid who has a freakishly rare disease, or survives (or doesn’t survive?) some bizarre accident, like falling out of a third-story window or drinking a bottle of lye? I used to eat those articles up, I was attracted, I guess, to the drama (or melodrama, as the case may be). I can’t read those articles now. I don’t need to know how many strange diseases there are out there ready to attack little kids, or the myriad ways children can get injured in their very own homes.
A few years ago, I counted Lolita as one of my very favorite books. I hardly paid attention to the subject matter, I loved it for the marvelous language and wordplay and all the clever allusions and symbolism. I picked it up to reread about a year ago and I couldn’t get past page 50. It suddenly came clear to me that there was a little girl getting hurt in that book, and I had to put it down.
My most recent literary casualty was Crooked Little Heart by Anne Lamott. This is a beautifully written book about a 13-year-old tennis prodigy and, again, I couldn’t read past the first couple of chapters. First, the girl’s father died when she was four. The thought of something happening to me or Chris when our kids are so small is almost as difficult for me to contemplate as the thought of something happening to the kids themselves, so that was strike one. Second, the girl is thirteen, and Lamott writes all too well, too precisely, about the special hell that is thirteen when you’re a girl. I still remember that, and I don’t wish to relive it, and I don’t wish to think, yet, about my own girls going through that. And that’s the Third reason I can’t keep reading this book, because Lamott also writes all too well about the girl’s mother, who watches the girl, and sees her struggles, and sympathizes and cries along with her, but who also has to put up with all the snottiness and irrationality and scorn the girl heaps upon her, just for being there and being uncool enough to be a mom.
And then there was this section, which I’ll excerpt, that sealed it for me completely:
Ever since Rosie’s birth, Elizabeth had been half-expecting her to die. Visions floated into her head of the axe falling. She pictured herself holding Rosie’s lifeless body and screaming in white-hot silence. She loved her with desperation, with heartsickness, with a kid of lust, and she saw just how vulnerable Rosie was . . .
. . .and it goes on, and Lamott describes it just right, the love and the fear that you let yourself in for when you have children – and it’s so true that I had to close the book. Because I don’t need it all spelled out for me. I live it every day.
Maybe I’ll come back to this book when my kids are safely grown.
What I am reading, or re-reading, is The Lord of the Rings. I picked it up right before Christmas because I had nothing else, and I thought I’d just skim through my favorite parts until I had a chance to go redeem all the lovely bookstore gift cards I got, but I think I’m in it for the long haul again. (I do skip the poems, and the whole Tom Bombadil episode which bores me.) Such great books. I tried to read The Fellowship of the Ring in junior high and just couldn’t do it; I’m glad that the movies came out and got me interested enough in the story that I picked up the books again. I don’t need to tell you that Tolkien was a genius, and the creation of Middle-Earth an achievement beyond most writers’ wildest dreams. But I have to say that this note, found in the Appendix to my version, made me laugh: “The Shire Reckoning and dates are the only ones of importance for the narrative of the War of the Ring….The only points in which the differences between this and our calendar are important to the story at the crucial period…are these: October 1418 has only 30 days, January 1 is the second day of 1419, and February 30 days; so that March 25, the date of the downfall of Bard-dur, would correspond to our March 27, if our years began at the same seasonal point. The date was, however, March 25 in both Kings’ and Stewards’ Reckoning.” Well, thank god for that disclaimer, because I noticed that discrepancy and it was enough to spoil the entire epic for me! Except not really, because, huh? Anyway, the Fellowship is just leaving Rivendell and I’m going along with them, and for the first time ever, I’ve had bookstore gift cards in my wallet for two weeks past Christmas.
What are you [not] reading?
Comments
And I agree with you about all the first part of your post. I can't watch shows where kids are hurt, or kidnapped and the other day when watching Friday Night Lights I told Seth that it was the saddest thing I had ever seen because the quarterback had such a lousy dad. Your fear factor goes up so much when you have kids of your own.
Mom