The Graveyard Book- Nobody's story

Neil Gaiman won out last weekend. I knew I could count on him to provide me with a real story that would feed my need for story. So I picked up the copy of The Graveyard Book that Aaron and Abby gave me for Christmas.

It is designated "juvenile fiction," but I find that some works in this genre are more compelling than a lot of adult fiction. What matters to me is that is an enjoyable story with interesting characters and both depths and surprises to it. It follows a toddler who escapes death at the hands of a determined killer when the ghostly inhabitants of a graveyard take him in. A couple who never had a child become his parents and a non-living, non-dead gentleman takes the role of guardian.

The book is episodic, looking in on the child at different ages as he learns from the dead around him as well as an occasional living person. The ghosts are varied as they come from different eras of history. Nobody is an appealing child, vulnerable, curious, daring, sweet, and rebellious. How he is at various ages is consistent with children of those ages. He is quite a typical child, if you leave aside that he lives in a graveyard and learns from ghosts and other mystical creatures. But you can't leave that aside and that is what makes the story intriguing. This is a coming of age tale with a definite fantastic bent. It has suspense, horror, yearning, mystery, and a bittersweet ending. Or is it an end? I would love to see the adventures of Nobody Owens as he explores the wider world.

Starved for Story

It has been hectic lately. A lot of time/energy spent preparing for parent-teacher conferences. It's also basketball season, so there have been some games to watch (Go, Duke!) I don't watch a lot of T.V. but it seems several of my favorite shows are up and running new episodes at the same time: Lost, Heroes, and Top Chef. So I realized today that I have not been reading any fiction for a couple of weeks. And I am missing it. The power of Story to refresh me, to invigorate me, to get me to think and feel, and to give me an escape from hectic times, is amazing. When I go for a while without reading fiction, I start missing it with increasing intensity. And I feel duller.

Well I finished up conferences today, so now I'm ready. The only problem is deciding what to dive int0: Shall I finally dive into Neal Stephenson's latest (Anathem)? Would a mystery be lighter fare I would enjoy after working my brain hard? What about the new Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book) that Aaron & Abby gave me for Christmas? Or should I start rereading the Orson Scott Card Ender books, as I have been wanting to after listening to the first part of an audio adaptation of Ender's Game?

The Stuff that Dreams are made...on?

My husband Henry writes poetry (http://henryspoetry.blogspot.com/). Recently he wrote a poem that made a reference to a line from The Tempest: "We are such stuff as dreams are made on." When he read the poem to me, I had a sense that it was not exactly right. Isn't it "stuff as dreams are made of?" He proved his point with Google. Of course he was right. He was in a production of The Tempest when he was a teenager and as a Middle School teacher he has produced several versions of it over the years.

So why was it stuck so clearly in my mind as "of?" I've seen the play a number of times over the years. I can usually rely on my memory for things like that. So I wanted to see why I had it wrong in my head.

First I went to my collection of Sandman comics for the issue that focused on the writing of The Tempest, with William Shakespeare as a character. But of course Neil Gaiman got it right. I closed my eyes to see what came to mind. Very clearly I saw Humphery Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, "the stuff that dreams are made of." He was responding to a question of what the Maltese Falcon was. I googled it and sure enough he said "of" rather than "on." I'm not sure if I should be chagrined or not that I remember a Shakespeare line based on how it was misquoted in a movie!

Mysteries

I love a good mystery. Of course, I have my own idea of what a good mystery is. I like a complex puzzle, but I also like interesting and, at times, surprising characters. I like some suspense but not so much it completely overshadows the story. Too much horror or graphic gore can turn me off. And while I can enjoy some humor as part of a mystery, too flip a tone also puts me off. (I tried those "cat" mysteries a while back, and they were not my cup of tea.)

I am always looking for a new series I would enjoy. I find there is some comfort in the familiar detective around whom a new story and new characters develop. I use the term detective broadly, as some are professionals and some are not. Some of my favorites: Miss Marple, Adam Dalgleish & Kate Miskin, Alan Banks, Spencer Arrowood, Kate Martinelli, Inspector Wexford, Richard Jury, Jim Chee & Joe Leaphorn, and Kate Fansler (in not too large a dose.) So there are often mysteries on my shelf. Some are recent reads waiting for a home on one of the bookshelves throughout our house. Some are waiting to be read. What a delight to have a lineup of promising books calling out to be read. Too little time!

Eat, Pray, Love- Finale (possible spoilers)

I finished Eat, Pray, Love recently. Overall I enjoyed the book and found things in it worth considering. The last section on her time in Indonesia was involving. I was looking forward to it especially after reading the title for that section: "36 Tales about the Pursuit of Balance." Balance is something that I am focusing on in my own life: balance between school life and personal life, balance in where I put my energies at school, balance in terms of being centered and thoughtful in my life. The balance the author is seeking is between pleasure and spirit, or as she put it "what I want to learn is how to live in this world and enjoy its delights, but also devote myself to God." While she seems to find some sense of this by the end of the book, I found a sense of let down as I finished it. In part I found the focus of her quest distracted by romantic developments (will she or won't she), though that is certainly one form of enjoying the world's delights. I also would have enjoyed more at the end about her return to her "regular" life. Pursuing pleasure in Italy and God in an ashram in India are one thing (or two?), but bringing what she learns back to modern day life in our culture would be quite another.

Eat, Pray, Love-Italy & India

I'm two-thirds through the book now. The first section was enjoyable as it was centered on her time in Italy. It also was the part in which she outlined the struggles she was having before she began her quest/journey. That part was more painful. Her tales of Italy spoke of incredibly delicious food prepared with love and deep care. It made my mouth water.

For a fiction book to work for me, I have to buy into it through the often referred to "suspension of disbelief." If you can't suspend the disbelief, you keep pulling yourself out of the story and thus the story does not really work. It loses its power, it casts no spell. With memoirs it seems something else has to suspended. Cynicism and/or being judgemental perhaps? To embrace a memoir fully I have to be open to how the author is experiencing things. I mention this as I process the section about India in the book. Her experiences in the ashram are different in many ways from my life, just as she, as a person, is different in many ways from me. Yet as the book progresses, I find myself noticing more and more the connections between the author and me rather than the differences that I focused on earlier in the book. While her journey is not mine, I am drawn into her experiences and her revelations. I use them as a lens through which to view my own experiences.

'Tis a puzzlement

I love crossword puzzles and double-crostics. I inherited this love from my mother (though I have not yet mastered the cryptic crosswords that she also loved.) So on my bookshelf is a clipboard where I keep several puzzles to work on. I subscribe to the NY Times puzzles which I can get online. I've tried working them on my computer, but I much prefer to work them with pencil and paper, so I usually print them out. I know this is less "green," but I do print them on the back of paper I have already used for something else. I always do the Sunday puzzle and it remains my favorite. I often do Wednesday through Friday or Saturday. The last two days can sometimes give me fits. For the most part I try to work them without resorting to looking up things, but if I still have gaping holes after a few days, I'll pick up a reference book. Last resort for me is googling.

The NY Times site also has acrostics a couple of times a month. I also like to do the Los Angeles Times puzzles. The News & Observer, which we have delivered, has the LA Times puzzle on Sunday. If I do it other times, I get it from the LA Times website. It carries some nostalgia for me, as the Louisville Courier-Journal carries it and that is the puzzle my mother used to do regularly. On the whole it is almost up there with the NY Times puzzle in terms of cleverness and difficulty, but every now and then it will surpass the NY Times. I occasionally get puzzles from the Chronicle of Higher Education and the Wall Street Journal online. I also have an email subscription to 2 puzzles that Ben Tausig sends out weekly through Google Groups "Weekly xword" group. These tend to be a little more modern in topic and sensibility (a touch of potty humor at times and sexual humor, as opposed to the more indirect sexual innuendo that may appear in the more "prim and proper" puzzles.)