Book Review: The Meaning of Wife by Anne Kingston (2006)

My most recent foray into nonfiction brought me to Anne Kingston’s 2006 book The Meaning of Wife. At first glance, the book appears to jump onto the wife/search for life’s meaning/bridal-mania that has, in the last couple of decades, proven lucrative territory.  However, once read, Kingston’s work proves rather more…direly realistic than anything Elizabeth Gilbert ever wrote. (The cover probably should have given this away for me…)

 

In Anne Kingston’s The Meaning of Wife, Kingston outlines the history of the “wife” in our society.  She focuses primarily on the 20th century Victorian inheritance tracing everything from the “bridal industrial complex” (a very real thing for today’s woman) to the differing cultural images of woman-come-wife: 1950s helpmeet, the feminist, the single girl, the abused wife, the killer wife (as in the one that strikes back after violence, the trapped wife, the unhappy wife, the nagging wife, the harpy, and so on.  Kingston draws the readers attention to all the associations of wife and how it pigeon-holes women into a gender role that is influenced by all manner of cultural inheritances and trends.  Kingston’s book is clearly well-researched and thoughtful.  She points out many, varied  influences and pictures of the wife that, though you may not have thought of them, ring true.  The book is often disturbing, and for me, someone considering marriage in a very real way while simultaneously questioning whether I want that label and the various stigmas that go with it, it was especially so.  I thought, about 2/3 of the way through this book, that I would write that Kingston takes the gloom and doom view a little too far, seems to take everything a little too seriously.  But, ultimately, she sends with a thoughtful chapter about the changing views of the wife and its implications for both men and women.  Indeed, I would suggest she ends on a hopeful, though clearly a well-considered and realistic one.  I ultimately can only applaud Kingston’s academic approach which, in the end, adds a personal reflection that I found powerful.

Anne Kingston, unsurprisingly, raises as many questions and she answers, exposes more tensions in our society than she relieves, but the discussion is, agree or disagree, enlightening and I’m glad to have read her work.  She synthesizes and puts into historical and cultural perspective a great deal of information.

 

Definitely a worthwhile read.

 

Book Review: The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe (2009)

I went to my first book club a few weeks ago and for it I read The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, a book I’d never heard of before.  I wasn’t sure what to expect.  I was delightfully surprised by a book I found not only utterly engrossing but that excited and sparked my imagination.

Deliverance Dane tells the story of women through generations–women who just so happen to be witches, real witches.  The story centers upon Connie, a Harvard graduate student, studying history.  She specializes in colonial America and near the beginning of the book she very studiously completes her oral exams for her Ph.D.  She completes them successfully, and, in the process, answers a question that she finds bizarre: the question revolves around explanations for the Salem witch trials and whether it was possible that an explanation might be that there really were witches.  Connie of course dismisses this possiblity–an absurdity.  But then recieves a phone call from her space-y, new age,  utterly strange, and apparently distant mother, Grace, asking her to go, clean out, and prepare to sell Grace’s mother’s house, unoccupied and left to decay for the last twenty years.  Connie goes there to discover a disintegrating but still very alive 18th century house.  When she discovers a name, scrawled on parchment inside a key, she comes to discover her female ancestors’ inclinations towards magic and the lives that they lived–including Deliverance Dane (whose name was on the parchment), a real “witch” executed at the Salem witch trials.  The history also includes Mercy, Prudence, and Patience–all witches but unique individuals, practicing in varied and unusual ways.  These were not, of course, witches aligned with the devil but simply women, close to nature, and capable of magic.  Connie, herself, discovers this ability and it opens both her mind and her experience.  Woven throughout what amounts to a mystery tale as Connie tries to uncover Deliverance Dane’s history, is an unexpected love story that takes on surprisingly supernatural overtones.  Her search for Deliverance ultimately takes her on a journey through ancient magic as she seeks both truth and safety for herself and those she loves.

Any description fails to capture exactly what it is about the book, which, to me, vacillates between Literature (note the capital “L”) and pop art, pure entertainment.  It is mystery, romance, historical fiction combined–a combination I found highly enjoyable.  The story, characterization, and the treatment of magic in this book were all pleasing.  As a lover of science fiction and fantasy books, I must say I’ve never read a book that treated magic so organically, so (for lack of a better word “realistically”).  I also enjoyed the tracing of matrilineal ancestry and the way the women in Connie’s family deal with their lives and abilities.  Howe also treats history with care and her portrayal of women’s lives in Colonial America rings true and heart-wrenching.  An enlightening book that was both entertaining and capable of sparking historical interest.

 

Book Review: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)

For a long time, I’ve wanted to read something by Truman Capote.  I have many Capote-related interests: I fell in love with Breakfast at Tiffany’s the first time I saw it (oh, Audrey), and I’ve always loved Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird.  In any event, a couple weeks ago, I finally picked up a Capote book, his most famous: In Cold Blood.  I didn’t have any background in the book before I started reading, and I’m glad I had no expectations going in.

In Cold Blood tells the story of the Clutter family, of Kansas, who, in 1959, were brutally murdered.  In point of fact, although the book begins with the Clutter family, it ultimately focuses on the killers themselves and in exploring what could drive someone to murder without motive.  The book seems mostly intent on exploring the psychology of men who would kill “in cold blood.”  The Clutter murders were essentially motiveless crimes and a family was almost entirely wiped out and the killers admitted, fully, that they had no real reason for doing what they did (they left the home that night with a mere $40).  Capote begins the novel several days before the murder and acquaints the reader, rather intimately, with the Clutter family, describing their last, utterly normal days .  The reader knows what’s coming, always knows the purpose of the book.  However, Capote adds tension by shifting from the Clutters to their murderers–back and forth–as in the days leading up to the murders they move, geographically, closer together and ultimately the murders are committed and the manhunt begins. The book is largely concerned with the manhunt and the winding path to the executions of the killers– ~five years after the murders.

It’s hard to say, for me, exactly what Capote was after in writing this book.  I can only imagine that he simply found the story, the idea, that people could kill “in cold blood,” compelling enough to want to explore in depth.  I certainly found the book engrossing, albeit disturbing.  Capote expounds in great detail upon the psychology and the inner thoughts of the killers.  Moreover, Capote’s writing is masterful; he writes in an artful and fluent way.  His language, while by no means flowery , carries with it the poetry  and construction of a master wordsmith.  Still the book resonates in the mind, leaving a kind of unpleasantness I find difficult to describe.  While I believe this was fully the author’s intention–to expose both the inner psychology of those who would perpetuate such violence while simultaneously exposing the society that helped create the psychology–I still hesitate to heartily endorse a book that leaves this taste in one’s mouth.

Ultimately, though, I can only conclude by saying that I found In Cold Blood as morbidly fascinating as, I believe, was the author’s intention.

 

Tidings

Again, it’s been a really long time since I’ve posted anything here.  BUT…student teaching is over and summer is nearly upon us and things are starting to look…better.  Actually, I’m having anxiety attacks about everything everyday but I also have stuff to share.

1) Maira Kalman.  She is the author/illustrator of a number of children and adult books.  My favorite of which is The Pursuit of Happiness which is an incredible and beautiful book (originally a blog on the New York Times website) all about Kalman’s experience of America.  It is brilliant and beautiful and you should buy it immediately because it’s brilliant and beautiful and really the sort of book that is glorious to hold in your hands and treasure.  Kalman is by far the best thing I’ve read in awhile; she can even make ultra-liberal me feel patriotic about America.

2) The Mark Twain House.  Big surprise here.  I live in Connecticut and have never been to this house museum before.  And I was pleasantly surprised when I attended a talk there on Wednesday night: Mark Twain vs. Jane Austen.  They had an excellent professor as a guest speaker: Dr. Barbara Mann from the University of Toledo, who deftly and humorously lectured on Jane Austen’s life and work and then argued for Mark Twain as pedophile.   No joke.  And, it was convincing and enlightening and (to be honest) kind of cool as someone who, personally, has never been overly enamored with Twain.

So, then, two things to check out: Maira Kalman’s books and the Mark Twain House (if you happen to be stopping by Connecticut).

 

Failure

Am currently feeling like an unmitigated failure.  I just feel SO unmotivated (I blame the snow: see below for more raving on THAT subject).  I have boatloads of planning to do for school, I have reflections and reading to do, I have a fellowship to finish, and an abstract to write.  I have oodles of materials to create and assessments to figure out.  I have books and plays that I MUST read.  I have to get up a 5 in the morning (I am not a morning person.).  And I feel like I’m in limbo.  BUT…is any of this appropriate fodder for a blog?  I think not.

SO, I shall share the only remotely interesting thing I’ve done since this dreadful snowy winter has begun (Weather/World Rant:  I’ve NEVER seen so much snow on the ground and they’re forecasting more!  The sky is falling in the form of snow.  With that and the cyclone in Australia and the riots and upheaval in Egypt and John Boehner as Speaker of the House all the other wacky stuff?  I’m thinking: maybe the apocalypse is coming?)

ANYWAY, I did recently finish reading Jennifer Lancaster’s Such a Pretty Fat which was, in a word, delightful.  It is, essentially, Jen Lancaster’s experience of trying to lose weight upon the realization that her lifestyle was becoming unhealthy for her.  One of her major realizations was that her high self-esteem might be making her fat because she saw herself so positively.  While the possibility of diabetes and heart disease are less than appealing, I find her sense of self and self-esteem highly appealing. But, ultimately, this book is fun to read.  It’s not the typical dieting memoir.  There’s no whining, no complaining, no endless stories of a sad, fat childhood and the psychological terror that apparently MUST go with being fat and yet she captures many of the feelings that I think almost all women experience when they do try to lose weight.  Mostly, though, this book was hilarious.

There are probably better words for it but for being stressed out and having cabin fever and all of that–this book put a smile on my face.  I often laughed aloud whilst reading it.  Lancaster’s prose is witty and clever; her story flows and reads quickly.  This is a great memoir: fun, funny, and honest.  I don’t have a huge amount more to say but what I will go on to say is that even though I’ve known of Jennifer Lancaster for a LONG TIME, I’d somehow never yet gotten around to reading any of her books and just happened to pick this one up.  It was a good choice.  Having just finished Eat, Pray, Love, I was struck by the difference.  Lancaster is just as much a privileged white woman whining, BUT she knows it.  And that makes the difference: the fabulous sense of humor.  And, it was like comfort food (crap pun intended).  So, pick up one of Lancaster’s books ASAP and read it when your looking for something fun and funny.

I believe she’s coming out with a new book in May called If You Were Here which (I think) is her first foray into fiction).  So, I’m definitely planning on looking into that because I’m really curious to see what she does with fiction having done memoirs so far.  Okay, enough said.

Until next time, I remain stress-fully yours.

 

Updates

Wow…it’s been so long since I’ve posted!  And I wish I could say I think I’ll being doing better in terms of posting more frequently soon, but I’m not hopeful.  I’m not hopeful because I’ll be starting student teaching exactly one week from today.  The advent of this event is both invigorating and terrifying; I don’t know which emotion I feel more fully.  Eep!

Anyway, I’ve been trying to enjoy my winter break.  It was a crazy semester: I’ve never written so many research papers.  Work was stressful.  Then there were the holidays.  But, here I am on the other side of it all.  I definitely have some book reivews that I can write and some books I’m really excited to read.  Recently, I’ve read Villette by Charlotte Bronte (for Victorian Lit class) and then followed it up with Jane Eyre, which I’d somehow never read.  Both are fabulous; Charlotte Bronte is completely brilliant and wholly fascinating.  I got Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love for Christmas and read it; it was interesting and I’m looking forward to writing a review of it largely because I have significantly mixed feelings about it.  I’d already read her Committed this summer (review on this blog!) and I liked it better.  More to come in a hopefully soon-to-arrive review of Gilbert’s blockbuster.

I’m hoping to dig into some of Malcolm Gladwell’s books soon.  I’ve had Outliers recommended specifically to me and I’m hoping to dig in soon.  I’m also reading, in a roundabout way, Personality by David Nettles, which is a fascinating book which breaks down the big five personality traits.  There’s a quick little test in the back that you can take, an inventory if you will, and it revealed that mostly I’m neurotic, which I knew but somehow it isn’t reassuring.  So, anyway, I’m hoping to talk more about that book here eventually as well.

In other news, my jewelry as sold a bit at the spa but not much, which is a little sad.  I had a total jewelry making renaissance for Christmas when I gave out a bunch of my stuff and that was awesome.  I really enjoyed making the jewelry, and I feel as though I’ve really improved.  Still, it’s troubling and dispiriting that the stuff hasn’t sold that well and it’s an expensive hobby to keep up without much purpose.  I’m not giving up, per se, but I see the drawbacks.

Finally, I’ve spent a huge amount of time, especially since the semester ended, working on a fellowship article which is about PTSD and recovery from psychological trauma in Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Ceremony by Leslie Silko.  Both are fabulous novels and the paper topic utterly fascinates me but the writing can be (and often is) both draining and frustrating.  I never imagined how much work this would be.

So, that’s where I am in my life right now.  Hopefully, I’ll manage to develop a better habit of posting something here with some regularity.  So that’s that.  Hopefully, I’ll write you soon.

 

Updates: Good News and Bad News

Well, a post is obviously long overdue but since, instead of doing the school work I really ought to be doing, I’m watching Animal Cops: Philadelphia obsessively while being hopelessly teary and eating goldfish (the cracker not the animal) I figure I could find the time to post.  That said–what have I been up to?  Nothing particularly exciting, unfortunately.  I’m about a month behind on my fellowship (oops); I have two research papers in progress: one in sociolinguistics (a cool subject actually, I’m going to do a sutdy of the sexism in language–it will, of course, need to get more specific than that but I’m simply not there yet) and one on Villette (a brilliant book, btw).  And, of course, going to work, which I don’t really feel like I have time for anymore but am dragging myself to anyway because…well, that’s what you do, right?  Right?  Anyone?

Anyway, the happy, happy news is that my work is now selling some of my jewelry, which is WAY exciting.  I’m totally thrilled.  Now, only time will tell how well the stuff sells but now I’m excited to make more and experiment more.  I’m toying with working more with opal, jade, and definitely more with necklaces and bracelets.  Which, of course, means I need more supplies, but at least it has gotten somewhat exciting again and, depending on if/when the stuff sells, I just might go out and buy a bunch more.  It’s a nice distraction from the seemingly never-ending monotony of school work.

I’m also waiting (have been for a month) on a student teaching placement (eep!).  This is totally nerve-wracking because several other people in my program have already been placed, and I haven’t really heard anything.  So, hopefully soon I’ll get one (although to be perfectly honest I am in no way enthusiastic about student teaching–big ick).  Although, I have made one decision, preliminarily about my potential future teaching career: I will be a total idealogue about it and my ideology will be all about teaching writing.  More to come, perhaps, on that later.

Mostly, for right now I plan to get as much school work done as possible day by day and bask in the fact that my jewelry is actually for sale somewhere.

 

Whales

I have decided that I do not like whales.

Okay…maybe not.  Or, at least, I suspect that’s not coming out the way that I really want it to.  Let me rephrase: the impossible vastness of whales freaks me out.  I got to thinking about this because of this collection of photos I saw on treehugger.com:

Whale Pictures

And, while I was fascinated by the shots, I found them rather discomfiting, too.  And it was then that I really thought about how I feel about whales, the ocean, etc.  Now, I love the beach–I love the smell of fresh, sea-salt air; I love the look of beaches and sand and sun and the ocean and ocean rocks and marshes and all of that.  I love, too, being on boats.  But, the idea of enormous whales and the deep, vast sea, all of which could simply suck me up and make me disappear forever?  Not so much.  So, then, it’s vanity–but here’s the truth: huge creatures like whales and impossibly huge things like the ocean make me realize my own insignificance.

 

Book Review: Bluebird

Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness by Ariel Gore is a book that reads almost like a manifesto for women to understand and find happiness. Gore’s book does read a bit like Mary Roach’s work in that she explores the issue both through classic researching and through experiential means. For example, Gore keeps a gratitude journal, attends a positive psychology conference, and hires a life coach. Gore also utilizes what she calls a panel of experts, a group of women who respond to various questions Gore prompts them with, to examine what happiness means and is for different women. Gore explores many facets of happiness for women, beginning with the new positive psychology craze, which has an obvious male bent. She also has a fascinating discussion of depression and its origins as a bonafide mental disease on the DSM. She explains that in the 1940s and 1950s the pharmaceutical and medical worlds stumbled upon drugs that, among other things, had affect of increasing mood, of making people happier. They realized that while these drugs could help people with major psychological disorders, the real money would be in selling these drugs to a much larger portion of the population (after all, most of us don’t suffer from schizophrenia, major bipolar disorder, etc.). And, then, they realized that many people would cop to sad moods, even sometimes pervasively sad moods. And, indeed, women seemed especially likely to express themselves in terms of sadness (whereas men tend to do so in terms of aggression). And, thus, depression emerged as a psychological disorder to be treated with these handy new drugs. And, big surprise, women were the main sufferers and purchasers. And, Gore makes the excellent point that especially in the 1950s and 1960s women were supposed to be happy for their families, etc. Being cheery is part of being a woman, isn’t it?

Gore goes on to discuss motherhood, which is fine but uninteresting to me (I, again, remember the discomfort of being a woman who doesn’t want children, even with the accepting Gore leading the conversation). More interesting to me was Gore’s later discussion of women and finances and while she discussed many issues the two most interesting to me were: micro-lending for women and what Gore calls (brilliantly) the FU fund. Can I just say that I love the very concept of an FU fund (or, if you want to couch it more positively a new start fund)? What a great idea! Basically, of course, it’s the notion that you have enough money stored away that if your job totally sucks or you need to get out of a shitty relationship, money won’t stop you. The suggestion is that you keep a couple months worth of expenses on hand for said fund. One of the key things to remember of course is that this is NOT an emergency fund. This is a fund for those times when you need to really change things up. It isn’t an emergency per se but it is a great and important thing. (I speak, to a degree from experience here.)

What Gore brings up about “micro credit” is also interesting. She discusses the creation of the Grameen banks (and banks like it) by Muhammad Yunus. Gore explains much about the Grameen bank in its early days and about women’s status in the world,

In defiance of the old-school Bangladeshi banking system, which treated women as second-class borrowers, the Grameen Bank set out to loan money to women and men on an equal basis, but bank founders soon discovered that women were more effective agents of change.  When extra income came into a household through the woman, the children’s diet, the family’s health, and the household repairs got first priority.  Men were more likely to spend some of their money down at the tavern.  Women also turned out to be more creditworthy–we repaid our loans.  But the most compelling reason to treat women as priority clients was in the Grameen Bank’s mandate itself: to lend to the poorest first.  And women represented the poorest of the poor.  Ninety-seven percent of the bank’s borrowers are now women, repayment rates are near 100%, and bank borrowers become bank owners when they repay their loans and begin saving.

Firstly, brava Mr. Yunus!  Second, interesting to see that those who have generally been treated with the least respect and power with regards to money are the best with it.  Interesting.

In any case, Gore’s book makes for a fascinating read which does read something like a manifesto of female happiness.  I genuinely enjoyed her voice and attitude and her melding of hard data and experiential data.  Gore’s is a clear and reasonable voice among the many currently clamoring to corner the market on happiness.  I genuinely enjoyed her feminist–and feminine–perspective.

 

Frugality

So, I’m checking in to chat about frugality and living simply. Very trendy, I realize.

Frugality has been on my mind a lot lately.  I’m a mere 13 days away from the beginning of my second year of graduate school (let’s not talk about it, okay?) and this will be the year that I student teacher (in the spring; let’s not talk about that either?  Please?) and so I am planning to be very, very poor.  Or, rather I’m accepting that reality and trying to figure out my game plan.  I’m fortunate enough (so, so fortunate) to be with someone who’s with me 100% and has a full time job.  But, it’s still on my mind.  I’ve vowed (only to myself, until now) that I’m going to seriously limit my spending.  I’m no longer buying shoes, or dvds, or purses, or books or any of the things that used to be my biggest temptations.  I plan to keep this up for as long as possible, but it’s a challenge.  It’s especially challenging when I think of things that could be cut out of my life (monthly bills leap to mind–things like internet and cable and cell phones, etc) and things like food that are totally necessary but suck up money like a black hole.  Well, in any case it’s the cell phone situation that’s on my mind right now because my contract is up and I’m torn.  I kind of want an iPhone or some other smart phone but I suspect that it may ultimately end up a kind of empty purchase–the thing you think you really want and would be super cool and then you get it and it’s a total letdown.  You know, one of those things that absolutely epitomizes that money/stuff can’t bring happiness?  So, I’m thinking about it and I’m thinking about various ways not to spend money.  And so, I found it interesting that today, via Twitter, I stumbled across this post about things learned from frugality.  (As a note while I’m totally into living simply and keeping finances really simple, I also don’t ever want to be cheap; cheap people are the biggest killjoys EVER).  What’s interesting to me about reading this man’s post is not his observations (it’s a lot of what you’d expect) but the knowledge that someone did it and that these were some of his observations.  Certainly worth considering.

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