Oprah Chooses Dickens

Oprah recently selected Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and Great Expectations as her new book club picks. Clearly, I was so excited about this news a month ago that I didn't rush to post anything about it. Meh, Dickens. I've never read anything by him and I know it's a gaping hole in my literary education but...meh, I just can't get up the enthusiasm for it. I've previously attempted both of these books and never made it past page 5.

So why am I posting, you ask? One, because I posted about Freedom as her last pick and I'm trying to be more consistent with ye olde blog. But mostly because I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the cover design of the Oprah Dickens edition. I love it so much that I am considering buying it, despite the fact that I already have copies of both books...and no interest in actually reading them. (Apparently most people don't agree with me: USA Today reported that the new edition failed to crack the Top 50 on the bestseller list, theorizing that people already own these books or realize they can get them for a lot less or even for free on e-various readers.)

Apparently there's been quite a hubbub over the suitability of these classics for the average American reader. Hillary Kelly of The New Republic felt that Oprah is leading millions of the unwashed tribe astray by suggesting Dickens as a holiday hot-chocolate companion. Alan Jacobs of Wheaton College presents the counter-argument on his blog that any reading is always worth it; Beatrice.com calls Kelly's view profoundly elitist. I think all arguments have some merit - Dickens is probably not the right choice for this particular audience and I dislike the cattle mentality of Oprah's book club and yet...reading is good. So if you should choose to take up the gauntlet, I must point out that Oprah.com has posted a high school-esque reading guide to get you started.

#21 and #22: The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins

I read the The Hunger Games and Catching Fire back-to-back in October, after reading about the upcoming movie adaptation in Entertainment Weekly and generally hearing this series bandied about as "the next Twilight" (despite a distinct lack of vampires and werewolves). You know, I'm a teacher now, so I try to keep up with what the kids are reading - though despite the bestseller status, I have yet to spy one of these books in a kid's hand, alas.

The Hunger Games is the monomyth-based tale of 16-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives in District 12 of Panem, a post-apocalyptic country that stands in the place of a destroyed America. Every year to remind the people of the damage that rebellion can do, the Capitol demands that each district send them a teenage boy and girl to fight in the televised Hunger Games, a to-the-death battle in a horror-house arena. The tributes, as the sacrificial teens are called, are drawn by lottery and when Katniss' younger sister's name is drawn, she volunteers instead...which sends her out into the world on a hero's journey. (Like all monomythic heroes, she lacks at least one of her parents - in her case, a father - and she has a mentor, though he's not so magical. Harry Potter has a wand, Luke Skywalker has a light saber, and Katniss wields a bow.) Since the story is a trilogy - I have the third installment, Mockingjay, waiting for me at the library when I get home - I think you can pretty much guess how things turn out for Katniss in the arena as she learns the necessary lessons and achieves her destiny.

It's an interesting tale, considering it's a series about teenagers killing teenagers. Collins did a good job in navigating the minefield of how the reader can root for Katniss and want her to win, and still accept the horrific things that have to happen. I genuinely liked the first book. The second, not quite as much - despite its initial promise, Catching Fire unexpectedly mimics the premise of the first book. Which worked, I guess, for Harry Potter and Twilight but I've always found that repitition kinda boring. Still, I'm looking forward to Mockingjay, which seems likely to tread its own path.

#20: The Best of Friends, Mariana Pasternak

The Best of Friends is an interesting, troubling, strange book. As author Mariana Pasternak details her fractious friendship with (former) longtime pal Martha Stewart, she claims to be meditating on the bonds between females, hoping she will "inspire other women to take a close look at the intimacy of our friendships," as she writes in the final pages. But c'mon, we're all smarter than that! Really, The Best of Friends is a nasty tell-all marketed toward people like me who want to know more about one of the most famous/fascinating/vilified women in America. And it's written by someone who is nowhere near as famous - an oh-so fabulous Eastern European emigree/victim who will benefit by becoming just a little bit famous for writing said tell-all. These sorts of books are always strange, and hypocritical, and it's an icky strangeness and hypocrisy that the author and the reader participate in together.

Interestingly, I left the book feeling sorry for Martha Stewart, which was very much not Pasternak's point. (I gathered the ultimate point was to take revenge on Stewart for involving her in the ImClone scandal.) I felt sorry for Martha Stewart mostly because my biggest pet peeve is when people blame others for their own choices - which is what Pasternak spends the entire book doing. She is a grown woman who barely acknowledges the fact that she made an ongoing choice to stay in an allegedly damaging friendship. And reading between the lines, you start to see why Pasternak put up with this for 20 years: She liked what she got from the arrangement. Friendship with Martha brought prestige, introductions to famous people, trips, invitations to amazing events and dinners, and opportunities for her daughters. And that's cool, but she never recognizes that she used as much as she feels she got used.

In a nutshell, the two meet as young, recently-ish married women. They hang out with their husbands as a foursome, then as a threesome as Andy Stewart departs the scene. Then Stewart and Pasternak become a twosome since Martha's post-divorce needs put too much of a strain on Mariana's marriage. Over time, as we all know, Martha becomes incredibly rich and famous - and it turns out that a wealthy Martha likes to take fabulously exotic trips. Mariana can't afford it but apparently feels like she must keep up with the Joneses, so she accepts a loan from Martha and is then shocked when she receives a carefully calculated bill post-trip. She doesn't say anything, feels bitter, and yet accepts the same offer again, multiple times, restarting the cycle. And it's not just about exotic vacations: Generally speaking, the women compete with each other over things like money/clothes/men, Martha does something, Mariana doesn't like it but doesn't say anything and loses out, and so the disturbing dance continued.

Reading the book, you see that for Mariana, money is about friendship, and for Martha, money means business. And really, either viewpoint is acceptable - the problem becomes expectation. And that's really what this book made me think about: how you don't ever get to control others' actions, and the only thing you are truly entitled to is your own reaction. Mariana never addresses the problems in the friendship and yet seems incredibly bitter that Martha didn't perform to her specifications (which is ironic, considering one of the chief complaints lobbed at Martha is that she expected others to do exactly this). On page 319, she writes, "That was a lot of effort for Martha to make for someone else, and it impressed me when she gave Charlotte the champagne wedding brunch at Skylands, but having it done for me could only mean that Martha was finally beginning to be the kind of treasured friend I had always wanted her to be."

That's what The Best of Friends is really about: Martha Stewart was not the friend that Mariana Pasternak expected her to be. And instead of confronting her friend at the time or acknowledging her own free will in the situation now, Pasternak wrote a blame book, blaming Martha Stewart for everything. And in this, The Best of Friends is fascinating.

#19: The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise, Julia Stuart

I've been a lazy blogger, oh so very lazy. And as a result a bit hard to remember what exactly happened in this book that I read more than two months ago. So let's see...the story revolves around a Beefeater named Balthazar, who owns the titular old tortoise, and as the book opens he is charged with the upkeep of the Royal Menagerie (or the titular zoo), which has just been moved to the titular Tower of London. And as it turns out, there are some strange folk who choose to make a 1,000-year-old stone prison their home, and The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise is really about how their hopes and their disappointments come together.

Overall, it reminded me of a Maeve Binchy novel, how a singular event sheds light on individual hurts, ultimately bringing together a community in a sappy sweet happy ending. Personally, I like those kind of books, and I liked this one, but they're definitely not for everyone.

So, I offer a test to gauge your interest: "For once, he didn't feel the urge to poke her awake in order to rid himself of the harrowing illusion of sharing his bed with his Greek father-in-law, a man whose ferocious looks had led his relatives to refer to him as a good cheese in a dog's skin. Instead, he quickly got out of bed, his heart tight with anticipation. Forgetting his usual gazelle's step at such times, he crossed the room, his bare heels thudding on the emaciated carpet."

The passage comes from page two, as Balthazar gets out of bed in the wee hours to pursue his favorite passion, collecting rain (I kid you not). The language is pretty flowery, with many multi-syllabic adjectives per page, and Stuart uses a lot of quirky descriptions. If you like what you see, I would definitely recommend The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise. It has a strange and lovely charm. But if the paragraph above doesn't suit, probably best just to move on.