(Not) Reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Posted by Melissa Baumgart

Me, reading last week's book, and having
some Æbleskiver.
(Although, it has wheat and sugar, so I
didn't actually eat any.)

The New Book-of-the-Week
I feel like I am just reading words.  Like this book is in another language, and words after words keep logging into the spaces of my brain, but not congealing into anything that makes a lick of sense.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carré is my third book this month.  After the reading success of my previous two weeks, I am feeling defeated as I am on the 4th day of this book and I have barely read 30 pages.  Maybe, after I get 50 more pages in, it will all start making sense.  That is if I remember any of these words I keep reading and rereading.  A big IF.

The Theme
I love a theme.  I don't know if I was always this way, but I noticed it cropping up when I hosted dinner parties.  If I am making Indian food, then it is all Indian, and as authentic as I can manage.  I love to find some Indian music and perhaps a drink from the country to add to the flavor.  Recently, at our Mother-Daughter book club, the host made Æbleskiver (a Danish donut kind of thing) because the book we read took place in Denmark.  I felt right at home, even thought I am not Danish nor do I think I could ever remember how to pronounce the sweet treat's name.

This is all to say, I created a theme for myself with the books.  I decided to read all books that had been made into movies.  I heard that my friend's teenage daughter scoffed a bit at my "movie" books, wondering if that is all I read.  I do read other books, actually besides one, I don't think I have read any other movie books. (Probably because I have not read many books at all.)  Right now, I wish I had picked any other book than the movie book I have next to my keyboard.

The worst part: it turns out reading books and then going to see the movie almost always sucks.  Jamie and I went to see The Descendants this week.  I was really, really looking forward to it.  We both were, because he had read the book too, and loved it.  Loved the BOOK, let's just be really clear about this.

We did NOT love the movie.  Within the first 30 seconds I was done.  The main character's wife is in a coma, and in the book her name is Joanie.  I grew to really like her name, it fit her personality, and I felt a little like I knew Joanie as they author took you back in time, before the accident.  Well, then there goes Goerge Clooney up on the big screen, playing Matt King, Joanie's husband, and what does he call her?  Elizabeth!  Really?  WTF is wrong with the name Joanie?

Beyond that, there were glaring differences, touching and important scenes left out and poor casting.  The best actor in the whole movie was the grandma that had dementia.  I have heard that people who have not read the book really liked the movie.  I say, good for you.  But I am glad I read the book, even if it meant having to sit through that terrible movie.

I doubt I'll even try to see the movie version of Extremely Loud & Incredible Close.  Even though everyone I know loves it.  After my Descendants experience, I seriously cannot imagine the brilliance of Foer's novel standing up to a screen version.

The Screen Diet
I have been true to my word on the screen diet.  I have seriously cut back on screen time.  I do find it difficult to keep track.  I wonder if there is a screen time version of a pedometer.  Keeping track of every blink of your online steps.  I suppose I could practice statistics by gathering information for my browsing history.  That sounds fun.

The phone is a tempting ground for cheating on my diet.  I have Facebook, email, Twitter...all of it right there letting me know every time something new has occurred.  It is harder to not pretend to myself that it doesn't count to check in real quick on my social media world via my phone.

The phone is always there.  Even in the car.  Just the other day, I *very softly* rear ended someone at a red light after I had looked at the photo on the screen saver for my phone.  I wasn't even doing anything with the phone while actually driving.   But glancing down at it at a red light was enough for me to be distracted, and not realize the person in front of me slammed on their brakes just after the light turned green.

The screen diet has been a catalyst to me making a commitment to not look at my phone in the car.  I am embarrassed to say that it is proving to be difficult.  But perhaps not as difficult as reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  Can't I just rent the TV series from the video store up the street and call it good?

Well, I won;t do that, so wish me good luck in finishing this spy book.  Why in the world did I pick a spy book from the 70's?  I think people who know me are probably wondering the same thing.

-Melissa

A hole that every happy thing falls into.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
"That secret was a hole in the middle of me that every happy thing fell into." -Oskar Schell, 9 years old.

That's a powerful sentence.  One sentence can make you feel so many things.

Oskar Schell is one of the main characters in the book I am reading this week, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer.  It is currently in the movie theaters, and like the last book I read, is also up for an Oscar for Best Picture.  In the past, I used to love movies that were taken from great novels, so I could talk with people that actually read books and sound like I knew a little something.  Right now, after reading The Descendants and starting this book, I have different feelings about the book-to-movie phenomenon.

I think I only want to go and see The Descendants to keep the book alive, to relive it again without forcing everyone I know to read it out loud to me.  Like Jamie was doing today, he even called me on my way to school to share a funny part.  So sweet.  And already only 80 pages into the "Incredibly Close" book (that's what I call it since I can never seem to remember the order of the title words.  Sorry, Mr. Foer.) I agree with Amy, I just don't know if a movie could capture this book.

Amy shared with me that this is one of her all-time favorite books.  She said it is revolutionary in it's format.  But I think she used a smarter, more appropriate word, other than format.  Style?  Layout?  No, but something to that effect.

So far, I adore Oskar Schell.  His fears, his random thoughts, his creative inventions that cannot ever truly exist.  They all make for a lovable kid, at least from the perspective of a reader.  If he were my kid, I don't know if I would've had the patience for him day after day.  How sad is that?  That we often cannot see the magic of our own offspring because we don't have the perspective of the "reader", we instead have to make sure they are safe and fed and educated and all that parent-y kinda stuff.

Even in The Descendants, when the kids are saying outrageous things, I laugh.  If my kids said things like that, I would feel obligated to tell them how wrong it was, or to punish them.  Especially if some other, more parent-y kinda parent were standing there.  Why can't we just laugh sometimes in real life?  I don't know, maybe all this fiction is getting to me.  Maybe I prefer it.

Maybe we let all the happy things fall into all the holes we create form our perceived pain, and we forget how to laugh.  As a community, as a country, as a society.  Why do we all have to behave so goddamn perfect all the time?

Poor, sweet, Oskar Schell, though.  His Dad died.  To lose your Dad as a young boy...that must be a pain that creates a huge, cavernous hole.  I can't imagine him being able to laugh, for a while.  Even at outrageous teenaged inappropriateness.

-Melissa  

I thought about quitting

Reading, in Seward Park, on a sunny Seattle day.

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
I finished my first book!

Well, of the "Read a Book a Week" challenge, not my first book ever.  Duh.  Although, there have been times in my life when I felt like I would never finish a book.  I picked them up in abundance, read a few pages and decide them to be flat, contrived or just plain old bad.  My husband, Jamie, wrote this in the front page of a book he bought me in 1997:

"Melissa,  After you read this book...then maybe we can get you another one.   

With stern affection, Jamie."

The book was titled, Self-Reliance. (Inspirations from Ralph Waldo Emerson.)  I truly believe Jamie thought I would never finish that book.  And therefore I would never be gifted another book.  Ever.  However, I can be determined to not give up in the face of those nay-sayers thinking I'll quit, and I read that entire book.  Lord, I am nearly 3 figures in debt due to the fact that I was told by a few people that I would give up on my graduate school.  Well, that and the inner compass leading me to my true destiny.  (As an aside, Please, let this still be true, and let one of the midwifery schools I applied to call me.  Soon!)

Regardless, what I am trying to say is that, historically speaking,  I have not been a reader.  In my undergrad I majored in English, and was horribly embarrassed by my lack of knowledge around the classic books that everyone else had read.  The truth is, I hated some of them.  Maybe I am too low brow for fine literature?  Maybe, like my taste and aptitude for puns, I fall into the category of low?

Fine with me.  Call me tasteless, call me average and mainstream...I loved this book that I read, The Descendants.  It wasn't all artsy and hard to follow.  It was simple, direct, emotional and real.  But, I have to admit, as I read the fist page, I thought about quitting.  I thought it sounded flat and contrived, like so many others.  I read on, given my commitment to the blog, and my commitment to proving Jamie wrong about my reading ability. (Yes! Still, after 15 years.)  And not 10 or 15 pages into the book, I was hooked.  I wonder how many other books I might have loved if I never gave up on them.

I started a new book today, a day early.  So far I like it.  It seems a bit fancy, in that as soon as I started figuring out the story line and who was who, the next chapter threw me for a loop with a new person in the first person, and I had no f'n idea who they were.  Well, I did, but my idea made no sense given the first chapters.  I guess I'll just have to keep reading and hope it all becomes clear.

And hope that I love it.  I really do.  Otherwise, this week is gonna be hard.  Because as much as I loved The Descendants, it took a lot of time.  Time squeezed in between school, parenting, studying, blogging, sleeping, eating and watching TV.  (Speaking of, I dreamt last night that I was hanging with the Kardashians.  Kris Humphries was flirting with me, and while I don't find him attractive, I still flirted back.  No one cared since Kim had already divorced him.  It was just weird that he was even there.)

How are you all doing with your reading?

Can I convince anyone else to read The Descendants?  I need someone to talk to about it!

Don't forget to let us know where you stand on the poll?  Are you reading a book a week?  Are you reading 2 books this month?  Or are you cheering us on, and maybe reading a book at your leisure?

-Melissa

  

Reading The Descendants

Posted by Melissa Baumgart
The first book choice for our "Read a Book a Week" month is The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings.  It is a movie out on the theaters right now, and has been nominated for numerous awards; most notably the Oscar's for Best Picture, Best Leading Actor, Best Director.  I first heard of it as a movie, and have been drawn to go and see it, although I have not.  I thought maybe the draw was the fact that it is set in Hawaii, given our dark and rainy winter days here in Seattle.

Turns out, not only am I taken to the islands as I quickly read page after page, but I am also taken right into the King family.  I love the main character.  He reads as being honest about his flaws, admittedly lost in his life as it unexpectedly unfold before him and human.  The family is far from "perfect", even with all their money and beauty and the perks that those things can bring.  Things I sometimes wish I had, a pool, a house on Oahu, the beauty of a model.  Things that admittedly, I think would make life "perfect."

I find it refreshing to read a book about a family that is what it is.  A family with kids that act out and say things they aren't supposed to say.  And while there are some things about their life and behaviors I don't desire for my own, I find them all endearing and lovable.  I'd say the author has done her job well.

I wouldn't say this book is filled with lyrical prose like I have found in All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy or the last book I read, A Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart.  Those books were at times slow, but there were those sentences or paragraphs that lifted my heart and senses with the author's artistic skill.  Leaving me in a moment of connection with all that is, opening and connecting with life itself.  I know, that's some powerful shit right there.  And all from reading.

The difference, to me, in Hemming's writing so far is that I haven't come across any of those sentences that give me rise from the mundane of my everyday existence.  However, of equal importance, is the fact that she accomplishes that same effect overall.  It is through the dialogue, through the inner dialogue of the main character and through the way the characters bear the pain of avoiding being fully alive to the cruelty of life.

It is the dawn of the fourth day of the first week of our reading challenge.  I am happily 133 pages into my  283 pages book.  I have 150 more pages the I am eagerly looking forward to.  I feel like I am cheating by reading this book.  It is so easy to read, so engaging.  But cheating or not, today I will read on!

Don't forget to click "Yes!" on our poll in the sidebar if you are joining us on the "Read a Book a Week" challenge.

-Melissa