Teacher Mans

I've been holding off discussing Frank McCourt's Teacher Man.

Mainly because I prefer to be decisive and on this book I am mixed, straddling an opinion.

The madre listened to it on book on tape and suggested it because McCourt is the reader. I think a man with an Irish accent could read the phone book and I would be enthralled. Like...tell me more about the Smith's!

When I checked out the actual book she was all, I don't know I may rescind my suggestion if you can't hear his voice. And I might agree with her. Only because his writing style is similar to a grandparent handing down information: relevant and interesting, but extremely tangential.

I suggest this book for teachers or future teachers. It is helpful to watch/read the arc a teacher goes through while learning their craft. It is comforting to see someone who has won a Pulitzer say: I had no idea what I was doing. It lessens the fear of being completely outnumbered day after day.

There are gems of pedagogical and administrative wisdom throughout. If there is a general lesson, it is: be yourself in the classroom - do what works for you. Simple? Yes, but it is a phrase I've repeated to myself for a year so I don't go into the classroom and try to act all strict nun on them. I can't keep that up.

In other book news...

I had in queue Fall On Your Knees...but when I cracked the book open I realized it was large print. I believe my reaction was: GROSS. So it goes back to the library and back on my hold list.

In its place: DRACULA. For all those people reading Twilight, get with the program and check out Bram Stoker. His vampires seduce you but they also kill you. Slowly.

"Even if they lie to themselves and the world they look for honesty in the teacher."
Frank McCourt

What are men to rocks and mountains and zombies

After Rabbit, Run left a bad taste in my mouth with its *SPOILER ALERT* baby killing and neglecting of responsibility, I needed...something.

I obviously turned to zombies.


Now, the majority of the time I dislike what the majority likes on principle. Also, remakes or offshoots of things I love I usually (always) hate. This is never more true than when dealing with the love of my life: Jane Austen.

However, I was intrigued when I heard the zombie portrayal of Pride and Prejudice cast Elizabeth as a warrior. Intrigued enough to place it on my growing library hold list.

Seth Grahame-Smith basically takes Pride and Prejudice word for word and inserts zombies. The Bennet sisters are warriors, at least one character turns into a zombie and there is a GIRL FIGHT at the end. But don't worry, Mrs. Bennet is still silly as always.

I appreciate the fact that he left all of Austen's best lines intact. If you thought Austen was funny and satirical before, wait until you hear her lines directly after some bloodshed and mayhem. There is also a quaint commentary throughout which I read as a secret banter with readers who know Austen in and out.

Everything isn't coming up corpses though. With the inclusion of zombies, Austen's delicious nuances are lost.

However, if Austen is traditional Mexican food (all nuance yummy-ness), one might say Austen and zombies is Taco Bell. I would argue, one can enjoy both without having to compare them as equals.

So, if you want an incredibly funky twist on a perennial classic, go read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies...if only to freak people out with the cover.

"We are each commanded by His Majesty to defend Hertfordshire from all enemies until such time as we are dead, rendered lame, or married."
more Seth Grahame-Smith than Jane Austen

Sometimes I need to shut my mouth...about books

Remember when I was saying all those wonderful things about And Then We Came to the End and how accurate and hilarious it was?

Ummm, yeah.

Now, I fully stand by my statement that the first 50 pages are hilarious. It's just that perhaps the book should have stopped there? And been a short story?

Addendum: **SPOILER ALERT** (sorry E!)

Because it proceeds to go into this creepy children dying, cancer ridden, coworkers going crazy and coming back to work dressed as a clown and shooting people with a paint gun place.

And really, I'm not a fan of that place.

A call to the Madre was in order...

Me: What is wrong with this book?
Madre: ?
Me: You said it was FUNNY.
Madre: The beginning was very funny!
Me: Yeah, but then there are 200 or so un-funny pages. That wasn't deemed important enough to mention?!?

And now it is late back to the library because I couldn't renew it because someone else has it on hold and I want to tell them DON'T READ PAST PAGE 50.

Lesson learned. I will now withhold judgments and statements until the END of books.

Meanwhile, I will not comment upon but will tell you that the Madre and I are currently reading John Updike's Rabbit, Run book-club style. Feel free to join in!

"In Rabbit, Run, I liked writing in the present tense. You can move between minds, between thoughts and objects and events with a curious ease not available to the past tense."
John Updike

Two book posts in a row...it's like this is a blog about books or something

Some people have credit card debt. I have library book hold debt.

It is a sickness.

I have a problem.

The Chicago Public Library allows patrons five held books at any point in time. I have this problem where I need to have all five of those slots filled. I keep filling up my held items. And I keep picking up books from the library. And my stack keeps piling up at home. I have an entire bookshelf for my designated 'To Read' books:


See? I have ALL these books to read. And yet. And yet I continue to request book recommendations and and continue to place books on hold.

I am a book hoarder.

Lately, I have been read hoarding Mary McCarthy's Groves of Academe. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying it...but part of me wants her to go back to writing about women and feminism. Perhaps it is because the communism element tends to date it? But I love it when Doris Lessing tells her communism stories. So that can't be it. Maybe it is because the academic meanderings sound a lot like shenanigans after reading Catch-22? Is Groves of Academe suffering from poor timing?

Meanwhile I have also started Joshua Ferris' Then We Came To End, a hilarious tale of the downfall of an advertising agency which can easily be compared to any advertising/PR/marketing agency and has me crying laughing at the accuracy.

I really can't decide if I should stop putting books on hold or just start reading faster...

"To read without reflecting is to eat without digesting."
Edmund Burke

Catch-22

In my quest to read everything I could possibly teach a high school English student, my latest read has been Joseph Heller's Catch-22.

How to sum up the book... Perhaps like this: ironic and futile laughter in the face of inane and dangerous moot-ness.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. Catch-22 is hilarious, ironic, sad, bitter, unfair, frustrating, utterly outrageous and yet completely true. I came through the book seeing everything through this lens. I now see it in daily interactions. I see it in Mary McCarthy's Groves of Academe. At work. On the bus. Everywhere.

Ahh, the sign of a quality book - just like a quality man - that you instantly insert it (him) into your life.

I must say that I do not like it. I don't like the conclusion. I don't like the truth of the conclusion. I don't like that there seems to be no way to escape the circular conclusions.

Me.

No.

Likey.

And hence, I think the book is genius.

"It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all."
Joseph Heller