Nudity

Recently in the book store I came across, in the photography section, the book Naked New York, which consists of pages and pages of photos of people in front of a brick wall, in the first photo with their clothes on, and then in the second photo with their clothes off, with a caption underneath stating their professions and their ages. No glamour, no airbrushed perfection, no statement at all to project other than reality. I think readers can't help but be curious, but I'm still kind of looking around while looking at the book, wondering if someone I know will pass by and see me looking at photos of naked people, even though, if that did happen, they might be just as interested in seeing it. It's the kind of book that, if you see the title, it may be difficult or impossible to resist the curiosity, and, once picked up, difficult to resist the curiosity of what's contained from cover to cover. I know that so many people can have so much anxiety about what they look like. I think the book helps to dispel the anxiety people have when they feel they don't measure up, particularly to the beauty portrayed in movies, books and magazines. I think that's what the photographer was trying to get across, and it works, in a light and whimsical way.

Sick Day

Last night I could feel, like a brewing storm, the first signs of what would become a debilitating headache. Like the leaves being blown by forceful gusts of wind to reveal their silver undersides. Like thunder rumbling or a gurgling stomach, warning of what's to come. I took some medicine before bed, but you can't make a storm go away. You just have to endure. I woke up, not wanting to move my head. Took more ibuprofen. No improvement. Took some strong, black coffee. Still no improvement. Took a sick day. Ah! Now I'm starting to feel better. Finished a good, funny book. Sad that it is over. I believe it is the author's first novel. She is British. Her writing style reminds me of Nick Hornby's, who is also British, and who wrote High Fidelity, About a Boy, Fever Pitch (all made into movies), A Long Way Down, and How to Be Good. I'd heard long ago about how it is expected in European culture that husbands and wives will stray and have affairs; that it is common and accepted. I wondered how that could be true; how that would not irretrievably ruin the balance of trust and faith in the relationship; how feelings would not be crushed and self-confidence for the cheated-on spouse would not have eroded; how the children (if any) would not suffer. The Nick Hornby books I've read and the book I just finished (by Debby Holt) touch on fidelity, affairs, and how life goes on. But the story is not so significant as the tone of the book; it's all a backdrop for comedy, comedy that is funny because it is about events that the reader can easily relate to (do not misinterpret that as a statement that someone has ever been unfaithful to me; no, it's not true!). The story is really about how the artist/housewife recovers from her husband leaving her for a young, beautiful woman. The book kept me laughing and kept me interested. The stories in the Hornby books and the book I just finished reaffirm to me that, even if affairs and infidelity are common, it would be impossible for people not to suffer the natural consequences, in Europe or elsewhere. But it's more about getting into the main character's head and feeling what she feels, laughing at what she's laughing about, and appreciating life with her as she gradually gains her confidence and independence after 20 years of marriage. I think I can get much more involved in a book when it's told only from the main character's perspective, rather than forcing me to jump around every chapter or so into someone else's head, as in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying or Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love in the Time of Cholera. Both were somewhat exhausting to read and not really funny at all. Life is funny. Why shouldn't books about life be funny too?

Reading About Alaska

A few days ago, I finished a sports adventure book for a book club meeting I didn't attend. Isn't it usually the other way around -- you go to the meeting but you haven't read the book? The book is Winterdance: The Fine Madness of Running the Iditarod, written by Gary Paulsen. The whole time I was reading the book, I thought of Hemingway's style, replete with short, direct sentences that capture the story with simplicity and accuracy. It was, therefore, an easy, quick read that made me want to read my rarely used copy of The Old Man and the Sea. It's written at the fourth-grade level and is used in comparison to your own writing's grade level when you do a readability analysis in a Word Perfect document. I've read bits and pieces of The Old Man and the Sea, but not the whole thing. What has kept me away from it is that I fear it would be a one-dimensional, short and simple story with no real plot, about an aged and slow fisherman. It would probably be all over within a few minutes, or not more than a few hours, though, and then I'd know for sure. After I finished Winterdance, I read the back cover, which compared Mr. Paulsen to Mr. Hemingway. Isn't it usually the other way around, you read the back first, and then the story? And since when do I read sports adventure books? Since now, I guess.
So how was the Winterdance book? The simplicity of the story complements the starkness of the Alaskan wilderness and the nature of dogs -- straightforward living, raw honesty, you get what you see, and you know it will be gritty and overwhelming. The story moves quickly and is suspenseful, descriptively picturesque, comedic in spots, and doesn't make me want to go to Alaska.

Sunday

I finished a vampire book Sunday -- a best-selling, young adult teenage vampire romance book, the third in the series. A member of my family discovered the first book in the series while perusing through a book order flyer from her school. Middle school. I wonder how this vampire romance novel got into the book order targeted to middle school students. Parents would trust the book order would have books that are not about teenage issues like driving, sneaking out, and lying to parents. I worried a little about the content, but the story really did, for the most part, pull me in. Of course, reading in itself will generally be a benefit to the reader, in terms of getting interested in reading, turning the words into the world of imagination in one's head, and helping the reader evolve into a better writer. The book, in addition to being a decent story, contains such parent-cringing content as dishonesty to parents, vampire sleepovers (boy with girl and unbeknown to dad), sneaking out, and other rampant risk-taking behavior (gasp!). I was surprised to learn that the author is a member of a church that I consider to have strict religious beliefs. Once I started reading it, I had a little bit of a concern about how the vampire the main character fell in love with seemed to be a tiny bit controlling and had anger issues. One of the more disturbing things that bothered me the most about the book was that there were a lot of typos in it. More typos than one would expect to find in a best seller. I read the credits in the end and the author gives much thanks to the friends or associates of hers who have tirelessly edited for readability. I guess I would call that another bad influence. You're supposed to learn about how to write by reading; not make it OK to publish a series of best-selling novels that have grammatical mistakes in them. Why aren't I an editor? I write this as if my writing is error-free.
The events portrayed in the series are not anymore wayward than the events portrayed in many movies middle schoolers watch, but the difference with a book is that the reader tends to get more emotionally involved with the characters. OK, I did get emotionally involved. When I finish a good book, I feel like I am saying goodbye to friends. I don't know if that's weird or not. When I was nine and I read Bambi, I cried when Bambi's mom died. My mom was in the car with me and she laughed and was genuinely amused when she discovered me leaning up against the window with tears streaming down my face and the only explanation was that the book had a sad ending. Obviously she hadn't read this one. It wasn't just some short version of Bambi that Disney published; it was a big, thick book with a long, involved story that went into a lot of detail about Bambi's life, in first person. I guess it made me sad because it was the first time I'd ever faced someone's mother actually dying -- knowing what it feels like and knowing that it's an inevitability that your mom is going to die someday, if she hasn't died already. It's tragic. The other time I cried when I read a book was when I finished Flowers for Algernon and Charly went back to being mentally challenged, after the smartness wore off. It wasn't especially sad that the high IQ wore off, it was just told in a heartbreaking way. And Siddhartha. So sad.