Flips, stripes, and all that jazz

Imagine my delight when I heard that the New York Review of Books was going to publish another Elaine Dundy novel, following The Dud Avocado. I stumbled upon it at Three Lives, the fantastic West Village bookshop that has quickly become my favorite in the city. I finished it this morning on the C train on my way to work.

I had a few problems with The Dud Avocado. I was bothered by the silly plot twist that occurs towards the end of the novel. It seemed a little overdone and implausible. This didn't stop me from loving the book, quite the contrary, but it certainly made me take it a bit less seriously. The Old Man and Me comes dangerously close to making similar mistakes. The circumstances that drive the plot, the protagonist, Honey Flood's impetus for going to live in London and pursue a man 3 times her age, are at times in danger of leading the novel down this path. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to find the writing, plot, and character development to be quite sophisticated on the whole.

This is due partly to a fearless expression of sexuality, and a bluntness when portraying the sexual relationship between a 20-something and 58 year old man, as well as Honey's diverse feelings on the subject. Additionally, Honey Flood is a fantastic character; mischievious, at times evil, stylish, and displaying a charming point of view to experience the novel through. All in all, The Old Man and Me was a delight.


I find that ever since finishing I've had the urge to continue celebrating the American girl abroad in the 1960s. I think I'll watch A Bout de Souffle again one of these days. And, next on my reading list is Francoise Sagan's Bonjour Tristesse. Reading Elaine Dundy again only whet my appetite for novels set in 1960s Europe.

Birthday snapdragons

I had a great birthday, in part because my boss gave me these beautiful snapdragons, which I've displayed on my desk since. It makes me wish that I always had flowers to adorn my work area.

Sunday morning perusals

Lured by Ed Park's essay about the invisible library to read Steve Hely's How I Became A Famous Novelist (just out from Grove). Reassured by Jofie Ferrari-Adler's interview with my boss's boss, Jonathan Galassi in Poets & Writers, which gives us many insights into the current state of publishing, and ponders its uncertain future. Annoyed by Anthony Lane's scathing review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and curious to see what the future holds for The Met after reading Rebecca Mead's profile of Philippe de Montebello's successor Thomas Campbell. And finally, I find myself wanting a lobster roll from Martha's Vineyard, a handmade leather satchel from J.R. Ledermanufaktur in Berlin, wishing I could go to the Musée des Arts Décoratifs exhibition of Madeleine Vionnet's couture, and remembering that I forgot to tell you all about the meal of my life at the Bazaar of LA's SLS Hotel. Molecular gastronomy, I am a fan of you (that would have been the gist). Those are my picks for Sunday morning/afternoon reading with a cup of tea by my side.

At Eat

I love drinking coffee at Eat (formerly Eat Records) in Greenpoint, even though I'm disappointed in them for changing their name. They still sell records. Why change the wonderfully cute name? My guess is that they're "restructuring" in response to the bad economy...changing their image so to speak. Everyone is. Exchanging some hipster for some sophistication. I didn't mind the hipstery-ness of it one bit.

I shouldn't complain. The back patio is still a heavenly place to sit and read, as you can undoubtedly see. The little bee that visited didn't bother me one bit. I was slightly puzzled as to why he/she was so fascinated by the bottle of water on the table. Additionally, I very much enjoy drinking coffee out of mason jars, and admiring the beautiful fresh flowers they have around. I've never eaten there, but they have good coffee, and I've never had a problem finding a spot to sit in the patio.




I also love Tiny Cup in Bed-Stuy...especially after this evening. At this very moment I'm sitting here after they've closed. The very nice man that works here took pity on me and let me stay while they were shutting down, which I very much appreciated after walking all the way there. He also gave me a left over red velvet cupcake to boot (which is fantastic, if a bit stale). Ah the little divine things that people do for each other. If only we did them more often.

Mutant Black-Eyed Susans

The Gift of Omniscience

I finished reading The Corrections last week, the one that hit a little too close to home and nearly drove me off a cliff. As I predicted, the pay off in seeing the book through to the last page was immense. It's an incredible and fascinating novel in its study of familial relationships and the way that we cope with failure, disappointment, and discontent.

For me, it ended up being a sort of handbook of how not to behave in relationships; how not to treat your mother, father, sister, brother, husband, or wife. In doing this, however, it also sympathizes with each character trapped in these prison-like relationships that are so difficult to help. It portrays the profound confusion that comes along with unmet expectation and disappointment, and the way that one is capable of taking their own sadness out on others.

Franzen seems to share Tolstoy's gift of perception. The key difference, is that Franzen's is an immensely cynical perception, which made certain scenarios seem slightly implausible, or a little too tragic. On the other hand, maybe I was naive in believing them implausible. I suppose people at times behave even worse than you could imagine. Regardless, the implausibility that I sensed didn't detract from the novel's ability to show me moments which I might objectively imagine happening, while giving me a perceptive image of how I would feel in the various situations. Because the reader isn't directly participating in the scene, he/she can perceive each perspective and the emotions that feed them; can better see where the characters are willfully misunderstanding or confusing the other's intention in order to perpetuate conflict, just for the sake of being right or gaining momentum in the ongoing struggle.

When we live it we find it harder to step outside of ourselves, observe our own behavior, and know whether we're right or wrong. I presume this is because there is so much emotion involved. The Corrections illustrates the frustrating moments in life when we distrust our own sanity or wrongfully indict another because we're so determined to be right, and believe them to be wrong. Even when a character is doing or saying something awful, something that makes me want to toss my book out the window, I find myself still having the capacity to sympathize. Maybe because the train of thought that motivates their craziness is so clear, where in reality it might not be so clear for the one living and feeling it.

Franzen's intuition allows him to write these moments brilliantly, provoking an understanding that we couldn't possibly have in real life. All we can do in real life is assess our own reaction rather than having the luxury of objectively peering into the subconsious of the characters with the knowledge that an omniscient narrator gives us.

My simultaneous frustration and comprehension lead me to wonder about how often I do silly things when I'm sad or angry or disappointed with the way an event in my life unfolded. So often when I feel these things and react I try to step outside myself and decide if what I'm doing is logical or crazy. How is the other person in the situation perceiving what I'm doing? What would I be thinking of me if I were them?

The frustrating and maddening thing is, if we analyze our behavior to that degree, we're only going to confuse ourselves more. Maybe we're better off going with what we feel. But that inevitably begs the question: what if what we feel is the wrong thing to feel? It's a hopeless process. I suppose the trick is to trust ourselves, while making sure that we treat those around us in the best way possible.

On another, more basic note, throughout reading the novel I would consistently marvel at the way Franzen would construct sentences and images. It's staggering how intensely the placement of a single word or phrase affects a novel. His gift brought it to a level of brilliance that is hard to fathom. It's a fascinating novel even down to the bare bones.
(Photo credit: Pier Paolo by a bout de souffle)

The Studio

My grandmother's studio in Palos Verdes:

This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force.

I borrow a line from Dorothy Parker to illustrate an evil irony in the life of a determined and dedicated reader. I got a copy of Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, which has been on my list for what seems like forever, and which many a friend of admirable taste has recommended. Forthwith, I decided that my upcoming trip to Los Angeles, to visit my family, would be the perfect opportunity to read it.

Fast forward to said trip, and one look at me reading The Corrections would tell you that it was making me want to jump out of my skin. My stomach was flip-flopping, and my chest was constricting with the all-too-familiar pains that come along in moments of anxiety, hurt, stress, and sadness. The Corrections was giving me an anxiety attack. It's true.

I'm not sure if it was the medley of the immensely stressful week of work I had leading up to my departure from New York and my impending visit with my own dysfunctional family that set me off, but the dysfunctional Lamberts of Franzen's novel were making me want to rip the hair out of my head.

It's heartbreaking, because it is a staggeringly well-written work of fiction, at least thus far. Albert and Enid Lambert, however, failed to spawn a single progeny that is likeable, and sadly are infuriating themselves. The constant failures to communicate feelings, the repeated misunderstandings due to this failure to communicate, and the awful realization that the relationships in the novel are depressingly realistic, sent me to the bookstore for another book.

I'll pick it up again when I get back to New York because the books that infuriate and bother us the most are the ones that are most worth finishing. Agreed? The missteps and idiocies of characters in the fictional relationships of books can teach us profound things about the psychology of our own relationships, and show us exactly what we want to avoid doing ourselves. They can even teach us something about our own stupid mistakes.


The two other books that immediately spring to mind that had a similar effect on me are Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea and Ian McEwan's Atonement. The former, despite the tribulations of the generally despicable rake Charles Arrowby, taught me much and ended up becoming a favorite. Impressive Iris, considering how often it inspired the impulse to toss it emphatically out the window.


The latter on the other hand remains one of the most disliked novels of my acquaintance. To this day I still affirm that Ian McEwan is evil, and enjoys toying with his readers' tender emotions. We'll see which camp The Corrections ends up in.

Anna Karenina

(Portrait of an Unknown Woman, Ivan Nikolaevich Kramskoi, 1883)

Throughout reading Anna Karenina I was repeatedly struck by how grossly I underestimated how tragic it would be, and also by how much the story would captivate me. Tolstoy has an incredible gift of portraying the diverse feelings and points of view of each character involved in the many troubling relationships they find themselves in. As I read I thought, "yes, that's exactly how I would feel if I were Anna (or Vronsky or Karenin or Kitty)." And of course, the myriad of moments when I was unable to relate so perfectly illustrated the complete madness of the story.

I will admit that 300 pages into Anna Karenina I lost interest. About 5 months ago, staring down the next 700 pages, I put it down because I was dying to read something else and saw no end in sight. I picked it up again 2 weeks ago, determined to conquer it, and found myself constantly reading, entirely entralled, in love. In love with Tolstoy's way of describing Anna's beauty, madness, and her power of captivating others. I was also drawn by the moral conundrums of the story. I found it impossible to choose a side. Every character is sympathetic and partly to blame for their tragedy. This I realized is what makes Anna Karenina such a masterpiece. It's what makes it realistic. Rarely in life do we find ourselves in situations of good and evil; in our own dramas there is rarely a clear enemy, no matter how little or great that drama may be. So often fiction takes one side or the other, rather than setting the ambiguity of good and evil as the centerpiece of the story.

Talking dogs, chubby children, and the elderly

On Friday, rather than heading to Gagosian to view "Mosqueteros," I opted to see UP, the new Pixar movie, with Kalah. Every time I see previews for Pixar films I always think they seem delightful, but I rarely feel compelled to see them. I'm just not generally as interested in animated films, and never remember how wonderful they ALWAYS are. When Kalah suggested UP, I agreed mainly because I wanted to hang out with her, but was secretly ambivalent about the idea.

It ended up being, easily, the most adorable movie I've ever seen. In order to enjoy, one must suspend disbelief, the plot is pretty much over-the-top impossible. That is the only possible flaw, and once I got past it, I wholeheartedly enjoyed myself. A movie hadn't made me that genuinely happy in a long time. As my title suggests, I think the key to the adorableness of UP is the trifecta of CUTE: talking dogs (a corgi no less), chubby children, and a crotchety elderly man with the voice of the inimitable Ed Asner. See it!


Next Friday afternoon will be devoted to Picasso. I think that's the only possible time I can go without having to wait in line for a century to get in.