Posts Tagged ‘books’

I could probably write three books on crappy mothers in literature (not to mention the angelic ones like Caroline Ingalls or Marmee), but a simple blog post will have to suffice as I reflect on a few of literature’s most insufficient, yet appealing, moms.  Who would you add to this  list?

Scarlett O’Hara, Gone With the Wind:  Scarlett is not beautiful, nor is she a good mother at all.  We can barely chasten Rhett Butler for telling her a cat is a better mother than she, for Mrs. Hamilton/Kennedy/Butler extravagantly neglects the sheepish son and the ugly daughter who precede lovely little Bonnie Blue.  (Side note:  Margaret Mitchell’s portrayal of Wade Hampton Hamilton’s reaction to the events of the siege of Atlanta are brilliant and well worth rereading for anyone looking to learn a great lesson about conveying terror, the sweep of historical events, and the plot intricacies of main characters)  Though Scarlett gets punished for her neglectful motherhood in the end, we can’t help but wonder how her own angelic mom’s lessons never managed to wear off on her…and somehow manage to identify with her all the same.

Joan Crawford, Mommie Dearest: Okay, so Joan isn’t exactly a fictional character, though God only knows how fictitious her daughter’s famous tell-all memoir really is.  One fact, however, is abundantly clear:  JOAN CRAWFORD WAS AN EVIL MOTHER.  Attempted stranglings?  Throwing her daughter’s adopted status in her face?  Wire-hangered beatings?  Yeah.  Chalk it up to old Joan, who really knew how to bring the drama to her trainwreck family.

Mrs. Bennet, Pride and Prejudice: Our next selection is not so much a terrible mother as a very…misguided one.  Burdened with the cross of five daughters to marry off, Mrs. Bennet has many pressing worries.  But worse than her bumbling around all matrimonial affairs is a complete disregard of her daughters’ feelings that we have to admit seems excessive, even for the turn of the nineteenth century.  Mrs. Bennet is also…clueless.  “My poor nerves, you tear them to pieces! But I never complain.”

Ingrid Magnussen, White Oleander: Cruelty, neglect, abandonment, and even murder are all on good old Ingrid’s plate at some point, but once again the emotional aspects of the relationship between this anti-heroine and her daughter are of the most interest to me.  It isn’t that Ingrid is evil (she is)…it’s that she is utterly unable to identify with the daughter she gave birth to, and Janet Fitch explores the fallout of a mother’s failure in a pulpy, poignant read.

(Not to be confused with Sweatin’ to the Oldies!)  I’m in Writing Mode, which for my long-suffering boyfriend means having to deal with someone who is clumsier, more preoccupied, and spacier than ever.  But spewing out the world’s most terrible first draft isn’t always (or ever) a cakewalk, and I have reason to call upon “my heroines” for moral support on the way.  Bear with me as I give myself a pep talk and point to five ways my literary heroines, both fictional and real-life, motivate my writing:

• Writing as fun:  Who can forget the image of Jo March scribbling in her attic, cap on head, pillow at the ready, rats scurrying all around?  Though I know that Louisa May Alcott’s experience of the writing “vortex” was a bit more painful, her character’s no-holds-barred approach to writing reminds me to have some fun with the process.  After all, what other profession includes dreaming, crying, even eavesdropping in its description?
• Writing as salvation:  The story of the Brontës is all I need to remember that I am lucky to have the outlet of writing.  I may not pace around a table at Haworth, but like Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, I try to pour my relief and anxiety into my work.  It helps.
• Writing as rebellion:  She may have written a century ago, but I still consider Colette to be the ultimate literary rebel (and writing about her literary declaration of independence was one of the highlights of The Heroine’s Bookshelf).  Sometimes I find myself continuing work just to prove to myself that I can…that I have something to say, after all.  And I usually do.
• Writing as legacy:  I recently treated myself both to Francine Prose’s excellent new Anne Frank book and the Revised Critical Edition of Anne’s timeless diary.  I didn’t get a chance to include Anne in my book, but I am touched by her awareness that her legacy in the world was a written one.  I won’t ever presume to be an Anne, but thoughts of a literary legacy of some kind are a nice reminder when the going gets tough (and a push to revise the hell out of my terrible first drafts so that nobody reads them when I’m gone!).
• Writing as reading:  As an unabashed bookworm, I can say that there’s nothing so tantalizing as the thought of showing my work to others, no matter how painful that process might be.  The wit, spunk, and sass of my favorite heroines reminds me that I can’t have readers unless I write.  Talk about motivation!

It’s National Library Week, and I’m forced to reflect on the importance and power of my favorite libraries and librarians.  Frankly, I’m well over most media portrayals of librarians as shushing, finger-wagging arbiters of old-school values.  Everyone else I knew when I was a kid wanted to do something daring…I wanted to spend every day, night, and weekend in a library and lusted over stamps, cards, and catalogs.  For me, librarians are personal heroines (and not just because I’m a library school dropout), and I’m lucky enough to count several employed and not-yet-there librarians among my closest friends and role models.  Here are a few of my favorite library memories:

Mrs. Walton:  When I was very small, my mom and I would walk to the Oak Park public library in San Diego to get my weekly dose of books.  Mrs. Gloria Walton (mother of the epic basketball star Bill Walton) was really tall and really friendly and really, really helpful.  She’s the woman who led me to the shelves with Laura Ingalls Wilder and Beverly Cleary books on them, and she’s one of the people I credit with the love of reading that has sustained and saved me my whole life long.

The Summer Suck:  The library in the suburban San Diego community where I spent my teenage years, frankly, sucked.  It was one room with a scanty selection of books, but I still visited it religiously, walking a mile or so to get there, loading up my backpack with as many books as it would hold, taking time to peek into the trashy novels I knew I wasn’t supposed to be reading, and walking home, often reading the entire time.  It was a humble place, but I still remember it fondly because it felt like home.

The Coven:  When I was in college, I worked at the Sophia Smith Collection, an incredible archive housed in the former Smith College Gymnasium building where the first women’s basketball game ever was played, home of the collections of the papers of people like Margaret Sanger and Agnes deMille.  As I toiled over the painstaking work of preserving and cataloging the papers of Judith Raskin and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, I was consistently amazed by the collegiality, good humor, and grace of what my boss there called “the archival coven,” women who had devoted their entire lives to the preservation of women’s history and who patiently helped legions of students and researchers make their way through their impressive collection.  I am oh so jealous and oh so encouraged that Smith now has an entire archival concentration to offer students, and I can honestly say that the time spent in that library is among the happiest I can recall.

What about you?  What are your favorite library memories?

I recently had the pleasure of having coffee with the well-spoken and fascinating Nava Atlas, a writer, vegan cook, and visual artist whose popular Dear Literary Ladies blog is currently being turned into a book.  We were talking about the way the Internet has revolutionized the idea of being a fan, allowing readers of all cultures, ages, and locations to converge around their favorite authors and books.

Ever since then, I’ve been thinking about another set of conversations I started having when I arrived at Smith College as a confused seventeen-year-old ready to take on the world.  Inevitably, I’d feel uncomfortable as I started to converse with young women whose backgrounds and socioeconomic histories couldn’t have been more different than mine…until heroine magic happened and we were talking like old friends about The Babysitters Club or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn or Jane Eyre.

And it occurred to me:  in a way, heroines are glue.  They bind together different generations that can find common ground in the pages of timeless books.  They connect people of wildly different backgrounds, ethnicities, and daily lives in a shared and common experience that is interpreted through a million different lenses.  They’ve allowed me to reach a lifelong dream (publishing my first book), and they’ve also formed the foundation of what I know will be lifelong friendships and connections as I move into an ever-widening world of fandom, readalongs, book blogs, conferences, and conversations.

Here are a few current and upcoming events that will feature heroines as glue…and that I’m super excited to share with all of you.

• ~ BronteAlong:  This awesome initiative is the brainchild of Melissa Averinos and Beth Dunn, two kindred spirits and the founders of Eggplantia, in order to bring together lovers of all things Brontë.  I’ve heard rumors of an AustenAlong and maybe even (eeee) an AlcottAlong rearing their literary heads in the future, and meanwhile I’m so enjoying people’s insightful posts, tweets, and musings about what makes Brontë books so very compelling and special, almost 200 years later.
• ~ LauraPalooza 2010:  I can’t even express how insanely excited my childhood self and my adult one are about participating in the first-ever multi-day academic conference/fan convergence surrounding Laura Ingalls Wilder and the Little House on the Prairie books.  The fact that going with my mom after a semi-epic roadtrip makes it even more awesome and thrilling and terrifying…I’ll also be presenting a panel with Wendy McClure and Sandra Hume that I’m all fired up about.  My people!  The people who wore bonnets as children!
• ~ Dewey’s Read-a-Thon:  This event is just cool.  For 24 hours on April 10, readers and book bloggers everywhere will challenge themselves to read for one day straight, blog about it, and participate in mini-challenges.  This event has grown to twice a year and I’m so looking forward to this April’s results!
• ~ The Classics Circuit:  This blog has been arranging blog tours for famous authors…with a leetle twist.  They’re all classic authors (i.e. dead).  Heyer.  Wharton.  This is as good as it gets!

So tell me…what heroines bind you to other people?  And what upcoming literary events are exciting you these days?

It’s Friday, and my Google Image Search obsession is as strong as ever.  Since Friday is a day for fun, I hereby bring you the first in a series of Friday blogs about covers of books included in The Heroine’s Bookshelf.  First installment:  Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, originally published in 1813.  Click to enlarge these gems!

From left to right, top to bottom:

1)  First, a bit of history.  Here’s the original front page (they didn’t do fancy artsy covers in the early 1800s).

2)  is kind of a swinging late 60sish take on P&P (reminds me of the exquisite Fairy Alphabet on Sesame Street).

3) has to be in the running for Lamest Cover Ever, right?

4) This illustration by Reuben Toledo brings a bit of fashion to Meryton.

5) and 6) Marvel recently put out a comic version of P&P that deserves two postings for its amazing covers by Sonny Liew.  I’ve included the first cover and the fourth.  Make sure to click to enlarge…they’re exquisite. 

7) Harper recently released a version of P&P styled after the Sparkly Vampire Series That Cannot Be Named…eek!

For another cool roundup of P&P covers, check out Belle of the Books’ recent post, which features tons of international Pride and Prejudice flava.

I have of course neglected to post the many, many covers that include a classic portrait of a woman on them.  Zzz.  What’s your favorite of these covers?  Got a favorite P&P cover you’d like to share?