A Literary Life

There’s a lot I didn’t know about Julia Child. Sure, we all know her for her boulebaise and buerre blanc sauce; we all know her tall, squarish shape and the familiar (and oft-imitated), sliding cadence of her voice. But this book fleshes out her six-foot frame with the flesh of a real woman–her history, her love of her husband and the unexpected way she found her true calling in her 40s.

Speaking only school girl French and lacking the knowlege of what something as simple as a shallot was (a small type of onion, for those not in the know), Julia arrived in France with Paul, her husband of two years (she was 37 and he 47 when they married). Paul worked for the USIS managing government exhibits that would facilitate artisitc and cultural communication between the French and the Americans during the post-WWII Truman Plan era. Their first meal off the boat was truly one to remember, one that opened Julia’s eyes wide and set her about mastering this strange and beautiful, surprising art of French cooking. Though it is amazing for me to think of, her husband Paul–a foodie by nature–once thought there was no hope for his wife in the kitchen, and he was surprised and pleased as she began to improve thanks to her studies at the Cordon Bleu cooking school and the help of their gourmand friends.

This book doesn’t cover Julia’s whole life. It only encompasses the time she spent abroad, and it includes many pictures her artistic husband snapped and snippets of the many letters they sent home to family and friends. Therefore, her television career is only covered where it overlapped with her travels, which makes the book refreshingly humble and human. Written with the help of her great-nephew, Alex, Julia’s personality still manages to shine through with her stereotypical insertions (i.e. Hooray!, Yuck, or Hmmm). The writing style may be simple and straight-forward–nothing to get all excited about–but the simple, straight-forward story the words tell keep you involved from cover to cover.

If you are a foodie of any calliber, this book is a meal that is worthy of Julia’s unquestionable culinary seal of approval. Devour it as you would an excellent canard a l’orange and, as she was so famous for saying, Bon Appetit!

Rating: 4.5 out of 5 stars – a hardcover book club selection

Witty gay man tells stories: A great cocktail party or a great book by David Sedaris, whose talent is for taking the ordinary or the embarassing and turning the tables, painting over the black white and gray with a rainbow of colors. Though he hates the rainbow flag being associated with “alternate lifestyles” (read: alternate sexualities) and swears he wasn’t asked to vote on that one.

I didn’t enjoy this book quite as much as Me Talk Pretty One Day (read that review here). The stories in this book were more “a day in the life” tales, whereas the other colelction (his first, I believe) were more the stories he had been accumulating over a lifetime, refining and analyzing to comic perfection. The cast of characters, which includes Sedaris’ unique family and his long-time boyfriend, is still both funny and human, light and yet often moving.

Case in point. One story regards his visit to his sister’s, where she vents the family-wide annoyance with Sedaris’ work and how it puts them on display for the world to see–at their most vulnerable, naked to their core personalities.

“We stopped for gas on the way home and were parking in front of her house when she turned to relate what I’ve come to think of as the quintessential Lisa story. ‘One time,’ she said, ‘one time I was out driving?’ The incident began with a quick trip to the grocery store and ended, unexpectantly, with a wounded animal stuffed into a pillowcase and held to the tailpipe of her car. Like most of my sister’s stories, it provoked a startling mental picture, capturing a moment in time when one’s actions seem both unimaginably cruel and completely natural. Details were carefully chosen and the pace built gradually, punctuated by a series of well-timed pauses. ‘And then… and then…’ She reached the inevitable conclusion and just as I started to laugh, she put her head against the steering wheel and fell apart. It wasn’t the gentle flow of tears you might release when recalling an isolated action or event, but the violent explosion that comes when you realize that all such events are connected, forming an endless chain of guilt and suffering.

I instinctively reached for the notebook I keep in my pocket and she grabbed my hand to stop me. ‘If you ever,’ she said, “ever repeat that story, I will never talk to you again.’

In the movie version of our lives, I would have turned to offer her comfort, reminding her, convincing her that the action she’d described had been kind and just. Because it was. She’s incapable of acting otherwise.

In the real version of out lives, my immediate goal was to simply to change her mind. ‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘The story’s really funny, and, I mean, it’s not like you’re going to do anything with it.’

Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorow — it’s not like you’re going to do anything with it. Is this the brother I always was, or the brother I have become?”

Telling a story–telling a true story–can be a powerful thing, which is naturally why we love them so much, especially when someone like Sedaris is the story-teller. Those tales are real, real people, real circumstances… of someone who is not us, who we don’t feel bad about laughing at. In Sedaris’ case, though, he often makes sure we are laughing with him, with his family and friends. We laugh because we see ourselves there. And that is no mean feat.

Read this book. Read this book if, especially if, you don’t usually read books. It may just give you the bug.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars – Book club selection

So I received a reading list in the mail from a writer’s organization I used to be involved with at ASU, one that was too expensive for me to continue to be involved with, sadly. Sigh. They were putting together an online book club of sorts and, though I didn’t really feel like paying any money to be a part of such a group, I have no problem using their free list for my own purposes when I can’t seem to think of what I want to read next. This book was the October 2006 selection.

I guess I should have heeded the red flag in my head when I picked up the reserved book from my library and noticed a bright, green “Teen” label on the spine. Teen? I thought. Really? But I dismissed the thought because, after all, the recommendation had come from a reputable, college organization who wouldn’t have me reading childish bullshit. And there are quite a few good novels that cross the border between adult and chidlren’s lit. In my opinion, this did not turn out to be one of them.

The Burn Journals is the autobiographical tale of Brett Runyon, who set himself on fire when he was 15 in an attempt to commit suicide. He then survives a lengthy recovery and a change of heart about the purpose of his own life. While Brett is all grown up now, he still writes in the stilted and simplistic style of an adolescent boy, where he dismisses most emotional concerns in order to remember what then-popular program was on television. I think that Runyon is trying to explain why he would do such a thing with this book–I was wondering that too. Aside from some generic remarks about being “sad,” I am still wondering. There are emotional currents beneath the surface, currents I wanted to explore but that the narrator supresses (out of vulnerability? embarassment?).

It was like a real, teenage boy was stitting there telling me this story, brushing off my questions, trying to be cool about it all. And I wanted to wring his neck and have him tell me what was really going on, even if he didn’t quite know himself, even if the thoughts were incomplete and conclusionless. The book does serve a purpose within the genre so neatly stamped upon its spine: Every teen needs to know that they are not alone in having these nameless, unknowable, apocalyptic feelings and that, yes, they do pass. Things do get better, if not easier, with age because you have more control over yourself and your environment.

Runyon is doing the right thing reaching out to that group, especially the boys, who are under-represented in literature. But I have no idea why ASU would want me to read such a book or why they thought it would be worth discussing and critiquing as a group. I think the conversation would have only one basic thought and direction, something along the lines of:

“That was sad. I wish he hadn’t done that to himself. But now, he can help other kids not set themselves on fire, plus he graduated college. Good for him.”

To summarize, fire and depression bad. Helping others and sharing feelings good. Any questions?

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars = paperweight