Chic Speaks!

BAD BOOK! Very BAD Book!! Lost River-By David Fulmer

 Sometimes I read crap. I read about 5 novels a month and I try to read a variety of things so its inevitable. But I rarely write about it on my blog because as a writer I understand that sometimes my opinion is simply my opinion. I've come to realize that a novel can be great even if the wonderful me does not enjoy it. But as I get back into academic mode I am embracing my inner critic and  books like Lost River by David Fulmer make it far too easy to do so.

Currently I am researching New Orleans for a new writing project and I found this book at the library. This is where the crap comes in.

Lost River is book 4 in the Valentin St. Cyr detective series. It is 1913, Creole Detective Valentin, and I mention Creole because this fact becomes one of the biggest problems in the book ( I'll explain that soon), is trying to keep his nose out of trouble. Valentin was a renowned street detective in New Orleans, Storyville. Storyville was known for its Bordellos, both high and low, where women of all varieties (at one point there was a blue book that listed 2000 prostitutes), serviced the roving population of men. It thrived with wild Jazz music, gambling and crime. It has served as inspiration for many great novels. When we meet up with Valentin he has started a new life away from Storyville with his ex prostitute girlfriend, they use to call them sporting girl's, Justine. But though he is working for a law firm, helping the lawyers protect the secrets of their rich but despicable clients, and enjoying a calmer life with Justine, he still feels the tug of Storyville. Soon men, enjoying the services of the sporting girl's, are showing up dead and Valentin is the only one who can find out who is behind these strange murders. I'll leave the synopsis there because frankly the story is very predictable, by the 30th page or so you know the two people behind the murders you just have to figure out when Valentin will track them down.

Now I'll get to the crap part. It is an art to create characters and when writers choose to write about cultures and time periods they are not a part of or lived in, it can be a tricky enterprise. I myself am writing about the Creole culture and in my first book the main character has a Slovak friend, so I understand how delicate the research into this is. It is hard to understand the nuances of a culture if you are not immersed in it. Some do this brilliantly like the novel, Memoirs of a Geisha  by Arthur Golden, but here you can sense both Fulmer's fascination with Creole culture and the New Orleans created by black Jazz geniuses, yet he has no real understanding of those people and that time and little flare when exploring the characters. I should have known there was a problem when in the second paragraph of the book he writes, "Then the pictures would come to life: a curve of brass glimmering off hot lights, the wild and hungry faces, then bodies of midnight black, fair brown, and light coffee writhing in eclectic animation." It was a slightly cheesy way to describe the various complexions of us black folks but I let it go.  I actually became grateful for that cliched attempt at color description because very soon he just become completely lazy and began using racial signifiers instead. What do I mean by that? Well, without fail, whenever he writes about a person of color in the book he specifies their race, examples. "With the causal efficiency of veterans, the mulatto driver and his Negro helper climbed down..." (pp.32). Or, "The younger attendant wandered out of the room, and the mulatto perched atop the desk..." (pp. 29). "The Negro assured her that he had heard it correctly," (pp.53). Even a brief mention of the great jazz artist Louis Armstrong gets the Negro tag just in case we forgot folks.  Then there's his references to the "Prettiest of the octoroons and quadroons..." Octoroons and Quadroons were the name given to Creoles according to how much African blood they had in them.  But the Negros,' Mulatto's, and octoroons are not the only ones specified every single time they enter a scene but also the rare Italian's that dare to step on the scene. Shockingly enough Fulmer even racialized his main character every single time he is discussed in the novel. At times calling him the "Creole detective," or "Saracena, which was the name that was on the Creole's birth Certificate." This carries on until the very end, "Valentin St. Cyr. So, the Creole had visited..."(pp.63). I get it he's Creole!!

Clearly Fulmer wanted to place his book in an "exotic" world with "exotic" characters but does not see the characters as real life people within the text but rather racial props. I should note white characters such as Officer Weeks and McKinney, are never called white or "the Caucasian." Character Tom Anderson or as he likes to remind us on every page, "The King of Storyville" is white but its never mentioned that's why I know he's white. It becomes so glaringly repetitive at times that I was shocked the editors allowed this. I have white characters in my novels and I don't refer to them as "The caucasians."

Then there is is salacious need to call the prostitutes every cool tag line he can get. Some of the goodies are, "Harlots." "Sluts." "Whores." (This was all found in three paragraphs on page 30). Or this gritty sentence, "The deeper into the District, the faster and cheaper the action, until it reached rock bottom with the Robertson Street crib whores, those filthy drunken, degenerate sluts who would do anything for a price" (pp. 4). Then there is is priceless description of a toothless Negro whore who gets brutalized by some rich white youth when they tie her up naked to a lamp post and stick a fire cracker inside of her and actually light it. It is a horrific gag and she doesn't get hurt but after wards she is forced to still service them. Shakespeare anyone?

There is also Valentin's "Creole" girlfriend, Justine, who is always naked and willing, exposing her "brown curves," wrapping a Kimono around herself.  And anytime he even looks at her he either literally has sex with her or marvels at how much he wants to have sex with her. This is love amongst the Creoles, I guess. It must be the African blood. 

Then there is his almost humorous lines that are suppose to make us bite our nails in suspense. Like this one folks. "She bit her tongue. It wouldn't be long before her name was on lips from one end of the city to the other. They would all find out soon enough. Once she finished shedding her skin, no one would be able to deny her" (pp. 37). OOOHHHHH, you must be shaking in your boots. No? Okay, neither am I.

I realized that he probably has good intentions but he is unable to capture the voice and the rhythm of the multi-racial characters, so like a blind voyeur, he must constantly remind us, "READERS THIS IS A COOL CREOLE OR A UNEDUCATED BLACK SERVANT." Rather than create unique characters that speak for themselves and authentically represent the time they exist in and the unique expressions within their culture. What's shocking is that this guy has won awards for his detective novels. I have not read any others so maybe they're great. But I must say I try to always finish a book even if I despise it but this one was so predicable, tacky, and poorly written, he literally repeats information that he's just told you on the page before, that after page one hundred I started skipping twenty pages at a time just to get the gist of it.

If you care to to savor its awfulness please DON"T WASTE A PENNY ON IT. Go to the library like I did. Or do one better, take a long nap. And though I fear I wasted a day reading this piece of work, as the great writer Stephen King says, "bad books have more to teach than the good ones." Yeah, it gives writers hope that if this can get published so can they.

Maya Angelou: At Roy Thomson Hall

About three weeks ago I went to Roy Thomson Hall to see Dr. Maya Angelou speak. She was part of RT's Unique Lives series. I'm glad I went, she is 80 now and who knows how many chances to see her will arise in the future. I found her very entertaining, charismatic, and it was clear that she really enjoys being in front of an audience. The poet, actress, and singer shared many memorable stories and is endlessly quotable. Here are some of my favorite quotes from the evening.

"I seek intelligent people, not educated people because educated just means trained."

"Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently. You can practice any virtue erratically, but nothing consistently without courage."

"Women in particular, men in general, don't whine. Don't even complain. Protest! Whining only makes you ugly at best, at worst it lets a brute know a victim is in the neighborhood."

"Try hard not to die until you've done something good for humanity."

On how we don't pay attention to others in our daily lives: "Sometimes we forget, we pass each other as if we've slept together, without a word."

Next book Review: Dorothy Dandridge A Biography by Donald Bogle

I love the actress Dorothy Dandridge, and thought that it was about time I read her bio, and review it on Chic. So stay tuned folks...coming soon. Enjoy these beautiful pictures in the meantime!

What Fresh Hell is this?

Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is this? A Biography by Marion Meade

Last month, I was having dinner at a friends house, when her roommate, a very accomplished film set designer, asked me if I had ever heard of Dorothy Parker? The name sounded familiar but I wasn't sure if I had. She became very excited, and said that, "every writer should know Dorothy Parker!" When I left that night she handed me the bio, Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell is this? A Biography by Marion Meade. I began reading it right away and found her life very interesting.

The title, refers to Parker's habit of answering the telephone with the unusual question, What Fresh Hell is this? Always bracing herself for some catastrophe, prepared with a sarcastic response. Dorothy Parker was a renowned wit, and poet in her time. She was also one of the members of the famed, Algonquin Round Table, a collection of friends, many unknown in the beginning, who happen to be talented critics, writers, actors, and wits, who began meeting regularly, and whose careers and legacies grew from these legendary meetings. The New Yorker magazine was created during this time, and Parker was one of the first writers of the now revered magazine, though for many years The New Yorker struggled to stay a float, and writers like Parker often wrote for free, reluctantly.

Parker was known for her great, sarcastic, scathing wit. Endlessly quotable, her witty verse, was only second to my favourite, Edna St. Vincent Millay. Like Millay, she lived a wild, destructive life, threw herself into alcoholism with a passion, tried to kill herself numerous times, and oddly enough died in her seventies, after outliving most of her friends, and her younger husband. She, of course, had many love affairs, often with men who were very wrong for her. She captured these doomed relationships in much of her verse.

Lady, lady, should you meet

One whose ways are all discreet,

One who murmurs that his wife

Is the lodestar of his life,

One who keeps assuring you

That he never was untrue,

Never loved another one…

     Lady, lady, better run!

_________________________________

By the time you swear you’re his,

      Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

       Infinite, undying-

Lady, make a note of this:

       One of you is lying.

_________________________________

The sun’s gone dim, and

       The moon’s turned black:

For I loved him, and

       He didn’t love back.

_________________________________

She was also a daring woman, who was not afraid to attract the wrath of both enemies, and even friends. In the book, Meade discusses how she began her job as Theater reviewer for Vanity Fair, with a bang.

From the beginning, she set out to make herself noticed. In her first column, New York's only woman drama critic described herself as "a tired business woman" who was "seeking innocent diversion"-which was the reason she had chosen to review a batch of five musical comedies. With the exception of Wodehouse's Oh, Lady, Lady!, where she deemed it politic to lay praise on thick, she proceeded to slice up the rest with a poison stiletto. Since it is always more fun to revile than extol and because abuse was practically reflexive with her, she made it her modus operandi. One show, for example, got her recommendation as an excellent place to do knitting and "if you don't knit, bring a book." With another, she refused to print the names of author or cast, declaring that she was not "going to tell on them." There was a show she ignored entirely, instead reviewing the performance of a woman seated  next to her who had been searching for a lost glove...Altogether her debut in the April 1918 issue of Vanity Fair was a bravura performance that assured maximum pleasure to Vanity Fair readers and maximum annoyance to Broadway entrepreneurs (pg. 45).

Though she had major accomplishments under her belt, such as, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Oscar Nomination for one of her screenplays, best selling books, she was also a lazy writer, who often bit the hand that feed her. Unapologetically ungrateful at times, a neglectful businesswoman, and often disinterested in really writing, she struggled financially throughout her career, experiencing great financial highs that she seem to misuse, only to find herself struggling yet again. Even friends often feared what would be said about them the minute their back was turned but she had a great empathy for those struggling through injustices, and ultimately left her little wealth to Dr. Martin Luther King, who she had never met, in her will.

I love reading bio's, and I especially love reading bio's of famous writers and musicians. It is interesting to see their personal struggles with themselves, how some rebound, how others don't, and to read about the struggles they often have with their own talent. It often gives me great examples of what not to do, and also makes me realize that a life without risks, a life free of taking chances and going after ones dreams, is not a life worth living, or worth writing about.

When Chick Lit goes too far....

Cooking for Mr. Right

Susan Volland

240 pages

I love "Chick lit", I will never apologize for that. But at times "Chick lit" goes a little too far into the "chick" territory and it becomes glaringly clear why men often snub their noses at this otherwise wonderfully entertaining genre.

A clear example of this can be found in the fun and enjoyable book Cooking for Mr. Right by Susan Volland. Kate Linden, a sous-chef Seattle, is devastated when she finds out that her recent ex- boyfriend, and now best friend, Gatson, has become quickly engaged to Courtney, a sweet-as-pie schoolteacher, and a girl he has just met. Kate falls into a tailspin of determined despair, deciding that she was going to get Gatson back at any cost.

As she embarks on this mission, her artist mother hires a hunky, outspoken artist, Sam, to work for her at her art studio. Kate and Sam do not hit it off and a mutual dislike quickly becomes evident. In the meantime Kate gets fired from her job at a hot local restaurant, after fighting back with the demanding and celebrity hungry Chef/owner, who has taken advantage of her skills for years. As Kate weighs weather she should give up the career she thought she loved for the possible love of her life we are taken on a joy ride of mishaps and cunning plans all in the name of love.

While I enjoyed the book, it was a very predictable story. What I found interesting is that my sister read the book before me and as she got to the end I could see her become disinterested in reading the ending. I asked her if she was going to finish it and she said she would but she already knew how it would end. Interestingly enough as I came to the end I realized exactly why she became disinterested in finishing the book.

Volland ends the book with lengthy paragraphs of some of the most clichéd chick lit writing I have ever read. So clichéd, so cheesy and overdramatic that I was actually left stunned and ended up laughing out loud. Let's just say if Dido wrote an ending to a novel this would be it. No offense Dido (I do like some of her songs).

Here are some examples that I think sum up exactly what I'm saying: BEWARE they give away the ending but I just couldn't help it.

Sam to Kate:

I have to admit something, too. I wanted to come to this party with you the very fist time you mentioned it. But I couldn’t stand the idea of being just a decoy or some kind of stooge. But I couldn’t stand the idea of being just a decoy or some kind of stooge. It would have killed me if we came here together and you spent the whole night yearning for Gatson. Then I decided I’d rather be there than sitting at home wondering if tonight was the night. If tonight he won you back”.

I cock my head, curious if he really said what I think he said.

“I know I told you we would be just friends, and I meant it at the time, but its been killing me. Last weekend, when we pretended to be a couple for Mandy, I could barely let go of you, I anted to just hold you and call you pet names and make a complete fool of myself”.

"The last few times I’ve seen you, you’ve been hypnotizing. You’ve had this internal radiance, a glow and energy I’ve never seen before in a woman, and I can’t keep my eyes off you". He adjusts a tiny stone on my necklace. His fingertips linger, and my skin turns electric. I don’t say anything; just cover his mouth with kisses.

“ Now that I know this is a really date, I tell you, Kate, its going to be tough not to tear that dress off you right here and now”. (204-205)

When I read this I thought if I ever questioned if a woman wrote this book this section put those doubts to rest. I have known a lot of chatty, vulnerable open men but this is not a speech I could ever imagine hearing out of a mans' mouth.

Example Number Two:

I Blurt, “So, Rex. What are your plans with Iris? You serious about her?” Sam is sitting at the kitchen table. When I see him cover his eyes and grimace, I realize that I might sound a teensy bit like his meddlesome twin sister.

“You asking me what my intentions are, Kate? Whether I’ll respect Iris in the morning?”

I squirm, “Yeah. That’s about it.”

I want Rex to bowl me over. Last night, he was standoffish and kind of geeky. Today, well, I like him okay, but he’s a little nervous…I’m impressed that when the talk shifts to Iris, he stands tall and looks me dead in the eyes. His energy is focused and his mind engaged. He radiates an aura of strength and competence, and my fears are put to rest. This is a good man.

“Iris is going to be a star. She’s going to make it big.”

“Yeah.” All I can do is nod. I’ve always thought so, too.

“But music can be a rough business, and let’s face it, Iris isn’t as tough as she acts. Some smooth-talking sleaze ball could eat her alive.” I nod again.

“As for my plans with Iris? Let’s just say I’m going to stick to her like glue for a while. I know of a couple of labels that might be interested in her, and I’m not going to let those vultures tear her to shreds. I’ll make sure she doesn’t smoke too much, that she remembers to eat and gets some sleep, and that she leaves plenty of time to practice. A lot of people have wanted to work with me in the past, but Iris is the real deal. So if it’s okay with you, I plan to wake up beside her as often as I can. That way I can remind her the moment she opens her eyes that she’s an amazing woman with about ten tons of talent in that skinny little body of hers. In fact, I plan to do that right now before she gets her clothes back on, or before this coffee gets cold.”

There is a playful glean in his eyes. “Id’ prefer the cold coffee, personally.”

Sam smiles into the newspaper. I have to laugh. How can I object to that? (211)

Now there are many types of cheese in this world and most of them stink. This passage was so cheesy from her, "I’m impressed that when the talk shifts to Iris, he stands tall and looks me dead in the eyes. His energy is focused and his mind engaged. He radiates an aura of strength and competence, and my fears are put to rest. This is a good man". To his long drawn out speech that was yet another example of something a man would never say in that way. To me these two examples put a damper on the book for me. I like neat endings but this ending was candy sweet meets stinky cheese. Especially the fact that the writer conveniently turns Courtney and Gatson into the messed up couple (when through the whole book they were actually in love until Kate and her manipulations damaged their relationship) was a little unnecessary.

That said for anyone who likes “chick lit”, check it out, at least the first 200 pages our fun!

The Self-Absorbed Genre

January 2007 book Reviews

In the past year I have read more then I have since I was a kid. I have overcome my phobia of libraries (I really did have a phobia), and now regularly go to the library to find myself 3-4 books per month and once I finish them I pick up another batch. In the last 2 weeks I have read three novels and today I will reviewing two of them (a review of my third novel will be coming shortly).

Often I go to the library on a mission, a specific writer I want to read for the first time, like Anais Nin or Zadie Smith, but ironically the two novels I am reviewing today I randomly picked up as I browsed the shelves. Why I say ironically is because these two novels are both some of the most self-absorbed tedious pieces of work I have read in a long time.

PARADISE PARK by Allegra Goodman (368 pages)

Allegra Goodman has the wonderful distinction of being a writer who is recognized and celebrated for her short stories that have appeared in NEW YORKER magazine. I thought it was weird when I came across her bright yellow book in the library and read the back discussing her renowned stories in the NEW YORKER, because I have recently started reading the NY magazine weekly, and was immediately curious about what makes her such an incredible writer. So I picked up Goodman's first two novels, Kaaterskill Falls (which I will be reviewing in a few weeks) and Paradise Park which I decided to read first because it look light and fun.

The inside sleeve of Paridise Park calls the main character Sharon Spiegelman, "one of the most endearing, exasperating, and indomitable heroines in modern literature," its a fairly accurate description of Sharon but they forget to include the phrase, "self-absorbed annoying and close to pointless characters that has ever existed", in that glowing little description.

The tone of the entire novel is like reading your roommates journals, they're not necessarily interesting but yet you can't put them down because you assume that because they have written so much that that must mean the action is coming soon. Unfortunately it never comes.

Here is an example of the tone that runs throughout the novel:

Well, the next few weeks were bleak, because I didn't actually know anybody, and here I was across the street from the university, and the summer session was starting, but, of course, I wasn't registered. And it wasn't like being unregistered at BU, where I knew people on campus and could walk around looking disaffected and too cool for everyone else. Here, I'd never  been a part of the scene to begin with, so there wasn't anything to be disaffected from, which, if you think about it, is the whole point of being cool, the whole raison d'etre (page 21).

You experience Sharon living through 20 years of life, from being deserted in Hawaii by her older dancer boyfriend in the 70's, to reconnecting with her Jewish culture and faith. It sounds like it would be inspiring, doesn't it? Well it wasn't. This character was maybe too real. Or maybe that was the point to create a character and a life that has major turns that lead nowhere, daily living that does not inspire, relationships that dissolve leaving you pretty much unchanged. It's not glamorous but that's life sometimes. I just found this character one of the most unlikable characters I've ever read, and not because she was evil, or manipulative or mean, she was simply so self-absorbed, defiant and boring all at once that I found reading the book entertaining in its tediousness.

Maybe I will see what the critics see in Goodman once I read her first novel Kaaterskill Falls. Maybe its like when I read Zadie Smith's second novel On Beauty, and couldn't understand what people saw in her work until I then read her first novel White Teeth and became a huge fan. We'll see...

THE INTERRUPTION OF EVERYTHING by Terry McMillan (365 pages)

Then I read The Interruption of Everything and was surprised that yet again I found myself reading another novel from the Self-absorbed fictional-journal genre.

McMillan's latest book revolved around Marilyn Grimes, a 44 year old mother of three, married twenty years to boring man whose suddenly going through a very evident middle life crisis. Marilyn feels like she needs a change, she's been taking care of everyone's needs for years and feels like she's forgotten her dreams in the process.  I originally read a excerpt from this book in Essence magazine and thought wow this sounds great. I've never been a fan of McMillan's work, and I once tried to read Waiting Exhale, when I was in high school but couldn't make it past the first chapter. Now I see why.

McMillan has a knack for dialogue but she seem to get caught up in writing witty sarcastic lines rather then developing an inner world for Marilyn. There were paragraphs so long-winded in this book that it felt over indulgent and pointless. Some of the lines that come out of this characters mouth is so over dramatic and cheesy I had to shake my head.

I'll put it this way. I'll be fifty before I know it and then sixty and hopefully seventy. I watch elderly people and some of them are weary ans some of them seem to have a look on their faces that says: "I've lived. I've been through a  lot. But I not only made it, I've come out ahead. It took some doing, but I did it. I paid attention to my heart and my brain once I stopped confusing the two. I finally got it right and there I am sitting on this park bench reading a good book, which I occasionally put down simply to watch all these young fools live as if life is some endless roller coaster when in fact its a waltz" (pg. 23).

This little speech is something she is saying to her girlfriends during one of their designated "Pity parties". It just rang so disingenuous and cheesy that I couldn't believe that a seasoned writer like McMillan kept it in. Ultimately the book revolves around a doormat with a sarcastic mouth. There are times in the novel where her husband is being so flagrantly disrespectful and selfish that I want the character to quit with the sarcastic remarks, and bitching to her friends, and actually put her foot down in a concrete way. At one point she kicks him out only for him to return hours later and she's to apathetic to do something about it. The book is literally just an unhappy housewife complaining, running around wondering "who am I", and then it ends and you wonder why McMillan couldn't have downsized some of the less important story-lines in the novel and actually spend time developing the evolution of this woman more significantly in all those 365 pages. Though she threw in some changes in the characters life I guess to show that she changes, the changes seem superficial because it is the inside of her that I wanted to see changed. In the end I read the book in a day just to get it over with.

Both books made me miss amazing novels like White Teeth, a novel that took me into another world and left me a little changed for the better after reading it.

The Budget Fashionista...fierce, fabulous, and frugal?

Yes folks it is possible to be the first two F's (fierce and fabulous) and also the third F (Frugal).

I've never liked that dirty F word, Frugal; in the past it made me think of old penny pincher's and deprivation. I love beautiful things; everyone who knows me knows the battle I have fought with...the credit card. I have fallen off the wagon; skipped off it, fell asleep on it as it wheeled me into a financial ditch. But recently I have started to practice discipline regarding my ferocious (another F word) spending habits.

As a way to get my spending habits in check but still find a way to get the objects I so desire, I've become a sale slut, mistress of haggling, reluctant budgeting diva. So as not to feel completely deprived and then go out and max out my credit card I buy myself one thing (or so) per month.

March- a vintage roots bag 

April-A pair of Aviator Sunglasses

May-Skinny Jeans (Dark Denim)

June-A pair of Brazilian sandals and Skinny jeans (light Denim)

June has actually put me half off the wagon because I had not budgeted for those two items plus things like renewing my websites and virus protection renewal for my computer, came up, ultimately I was forced to put it on my credit card. The best-made plans I guess. Which means this girls gotta tighten the reins for the next 6 weeks or so until so much deserved cash starts coming in.

Anyway (Enough about me, this is a book review). As I've embarked on this mission, I came across a great site (about a year ago), called www.thebudgetfashionista.com. The site has given me so many good tips, make-up, fashion, where to get discount items. So when Kathryn Finney (a.k.a. the Budget fashionista) released her first book this month, How to be a budget Fashionista (222 pages). I was very excited to read it, especially since my brain is a little tired of all the intellectual heavy fiction I've been reading lately.

This book is one of the first budget type spending books that I have related too. TBF wrote this book with chicks like me in mind, we want to be financially responsible but don’t want to sacrifice style and personal expression. Can’t a girl have both (plus a wonderful guy and cute wonderful babies and a fabulous career?)? I say yes we can!!!!!

Right away I loved the casual conversational tone of the book. She drew me in by sharing her shopping stories gone array, credit card debt out the ying yang, and love of fashion. Want I also appreciated was the fact that she did not subscribe to all those over used fashion terms we read in magazines right now (Thanks to sex and the city). She threw enough in to appeal to the chic lit girls but also wrote a book that will be relevant for shopaholics 10 years from now.

She gives tips on everything from how to budget, how to embrace sales, how to mix low-end pieces with high-end items to create your own style, also how to understand your personal style and what designers cater to that style (and how to get them for less). She even threw in little jobs that can help you earn the money to shop with out breaking the bank.

I just liked how Finney embraces shopping smartly. I folded and highlighted half the book and finished reading it in a few hours. I constantly make the mistake of depriving myself then going overboard, its something I’m working on, so I plan to use this book as my little road map to becoming a true budget fashionista. I don’t want to give away her tips but for anyone who can relate to wanting to be money savvy and chic, I recommend you grab the book before your next pair of Pradas.

White Teeth: White hot!!!

Okay, After finding a well-worn copy in the library a few weeks ago, I finally read White Teeth (read it fast actually because I couldn't renew it. There was a waiting list), and though I approached it with low expectations, I now see what all the hype was about! White Teeth was a 542 page funny-well written-absorbing-thought provoking-belly laugh of a book.  I would read it again, and plan to buy it for my exclusive Chic Reid's collection. The girl can write!

White Teeth was one of those books that hooked me in from the very first page. Free of all the overly descriptive text (she repeatedly fell prey to in On Beauty), White Teeth was soooooo well written. It flowed, it made me laugh (more on that later), and she showed an incredible way of writing about many different characters, culturally, age-wise, lifestyle, history, personalities, without overwhelming the book, and simultaneously staying true to each character relevance in the story.

Smith has an ear for voices, she can capture the vernacular, cultural ways of speech, and unique ways that our tongues pronounce words like no writer I have read in a long time (and few writers-including myself have that natural skill). Even the most minute character in the book has there own voice and presence in her work. It’s really impressive!

The book chronicles the lives of three main families, the Jones clan, The Iqbal family, and the Chalfen’s. The Jones and Iqbals become like family once Samad and Archibald (marry younger wives Clara and Alsana) and reunite after the war, and despite their extreme differences the two men become best friends. The Chalfen’s enter the lives of both families when their kids (Irie Jones, Millat Iqbal and Joshua Chalfen get into trouble at school). These families, bring together interesting pasts, extremely different ways of looking at the world, and ultimately collide in a power struggle that can only be experienced in places like London, Toronto, New York, places in the world where so many different cultures find themselves neighbors, foes, and ultimately family.

Below are some of my favourite characters in the book:

Hortense Bowden (Brilliant) this character only plays a small part in the beginning of the book but becomes one of the best characters towards the end. She is Clara’s mother and grandmother of Irie Jones (Clara and Archibald Jones daughter). The way that Smith wrote this character had me cracking up. Smith has the ability to show the ridiculousness of some of our beliefs without undermining the character themselves (or readers who may subscribe to the same beliefs), rather she shows us the funny side of some of our more earnest and passionate ideals. On my way to work one Sunday morning, I was reading on the train (a long train ride flies by when you're enjoying a good book) and there was one section where Irie talks about Hortense ability to interject God and damnation into the most mundane everyday tasks like doing laundry. This part was so funny that I was laughing hysterically and couldn't control myself. I looked around to see if anyone was looking (two women were a sleep and one man just ignored me). This was just one example of the many times Smith had me laughing out loud.

Alsana Iqbal (favourite): she was just a loud mouth, honest, entertaining character. So good!

Irie Jones: A girl I could relate to. She was real.

Samad Iqbal: Funny, Funny, Funny without losing the seriousness of beliefs that this character held dear.

Joyce Chalfen: Interesting woman. I’ve met women like her before (can’t say I like them much).  Had a disturbing way of using her young son to mask her interest in Millat.

Shiva (The waiter): he was arrogant, rude, but very funny because he simply told it like it was. His delivery was obnoxious but the words were true.

Joshua Chalfen: Cute little Character.

Marcus Chalfen: Well written!

Smith straddles so many worlds, with the ability to show the pretty and ugly side of all without judgment or passivity. Her humour, her fascination with people, life, our motivations, and our secrets is all captured beautifully. She tells us off and protects us and makes us laugh at the same time. I’m a fan!

Here are some of my favourite quotes in the book:

Clara understood that Archibald Jones was no romantic. Three months in one stinking room in Cricklewood had been sufficient revelation. Oh, he could be affectionate and sometimes even charming, he could whistle a clear, crystal note first thing in the morning, he drove calmly and responsibly and he was a surprisingly competent cook, but romance was beyond him, passion, unthinkable. And if you are saddled with a man as average as this, Clara felt, he should at least be utterly devoted to you-to your beauty, to your youth-that’s the least he could do to make up for things. But not Archie. One month into their marriage and he already had that funny glazed look men have when they are looking through you (48).

Holding the car boot open against a wind determined to bring it down. Samad was first amused and then depressed by the items his wife and son determined essential, life or death things (222).

Millat (Son)

Born to Run (album) Springsteen

Poster of De Niro in “You talkin’ to me’ scene from Taxi Driver

Betamax copy of Purple Rain (Rock movie)

Shrink to-fit Levis 501 (red tab)

Pair of black converse baseball shoes

A Clockwork Orange (book)

Alsana (Wife)

Sewing Machine

Three pots of tiger balm

Leg of lamb (frozen)

Footbath

Linda Goodman’s Star signs (book)

Huge box of beedi cigarettes

Divargiit Singh in Moonshine over Kerala (musical video)

…But he knew other things. He knew that he, Millat, was a Paki no matter where he came from; that he smelt of curry; had no sexual identity; took other people’s jobs; or had no job and bummed off the state; or gave all the jobs to relatives; that he could be a dentist or a shop-owner or a curry shifter, but not a footballer or a film maker; that he should go back to his own country; or stay here and earn his bloody keep; that he worshiped elephants and wore turbans; that no one who looked like Millat, or spoke like Millat, or felt like Millat, was ever on the news unless they had recently been murdered. In short he knew he had no face in this country, no voice in the country, until the week before last when suddenly people like Millat were on every channel and every radio and every newspaper and they were angry, and Millat recognized the anger, thought it recognized him, and grabbed it with both hands (234).

But Irie didn’t know she was fine. There was England, a gigantic mirror, and there was Irie, without reflection. A stranger in a strange Land (266).

And underneath it all, there remained and an ever-present anger and hurt, the feeling or belonging nowhere that comes to people who belong everywhere (269).

I’m as liberal as the next person,’ complained Alsana, once they were alone. ‘But why do they always have to be laughing and making a song-and-dance about everything? I cannot believe homosexuality is that much fun. Heterosexuality certainly is not’ (285).

He’d taken never ending insult all his damn life, and survived, coming out the other side to smug (297).

It is only this late in the day, and possibly only in Willesden, that you can find best friends Sita and Sharon, constantly mistaken for each other because Sita is white (her mother like the name) and Sharon is Pakistani (her mother thought it best-less trouble) (327).

The English are the only people,’ she would say with distaste, ‘who want to teach you and steal from you at the same time,’ Alsana’s mistrust for the Chalfens was not more or less than that (356).

Oh he loves her; just as the English loved India and Africa and Ireland; it is the love that is the problem, people treat their lovers badly (361).

Now that Miss. Z has been christened by Chic Reid I have a funny little feeling this writer will go on to a brilliant career…such as Oprah did once I gave her the thumbs up back in 1988. And considering the fact that TIME magazine listed her as one of the worlds 100 most influential writers entertainers http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187314,00.html I think the old Chic magic is already working :)

The many lives of Anais Nin

Anais Nin-Scandalous, Glamorous, dark, unforgettable!

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are”.

Remember when I said that March would be dedicated to writer and diarist Anais Nin? Well obviously that didn't happen. I got so absorbed in the first of the two bios that I read of hers that I never got a chance to actually read her work.

"Throw your dreams into space like a kite, and you do not know what it will bring back, a new life, a new friend, a new love, a new country.

It's funny how you can feel a connection to a person, artist, stranger even before you know anything about them, that was the case for me and this writer (for many years). The fragrance named after her, Anais Nin, was the first adult perfume my mother ever bought me at 12 (I remember begging her to buy it because it reminded me of one of my favorite grade school teachers).

Over the years I've become known as a Quote collector, I even had an ex boyfriend accuse me of always speaking in quotes, and as I looked back through my many journals I see quote after quote I've saved from Nin's work. So finally I decided to read her bios and what a trip that was. As a bio lover I can say that I am rarely shocked at the strange lives people concoct for themselves, but Nin's life was one shocker! In the award winning, 520 page bio, brilliantly written by journalist and literary scholar Deirdre Bair, there was almost nothing this woman didn't do. Bigamy, incest, lies, deceptions, abortions, buying love, ego, narcissism, sexual seduction and conquests that had no bounds (even gay men she seduced) and most of all manipulation of herself and others that was limitless.

“We travel, some of us forever, to seek other states, other lives, other souls”.

Anais was born in France (on February 21, 1903) but raised in Spain. She was part Cuban, French and Danish ancestry. throughout her life she was a nomad, living throughout the world, never feeling as if she really had a home. From a very young age she developed an attachment to journal writing that completely defined and controlled her life and writing career until her death. The journal became her home, her one constant. As a journal writer myself (from the age of 9) I understand the compelling need you develop to capture every moment of your life on paper. There was many years when I wrote almost everyday or spend hours each week writing what I had missed. For the last 5 years or so I have been much more sporadic, only finding myself writing regularly when I'm really experiencing things that I need to release by writing about it. But Anais wrote daily, hours a day, more then once a day. She made her husbands and lovers read her journal and insisted they also keep journals. She used the journal as her only true confidant, the one place she felt the need to be honest at all times, (ironic sense it was later revealed that much of her early diaries were revised numerous times so that she could get interest in them for publication) ultimately her journal took on a life of its own.

"I will not be just a tourist in the world of images, just watching images passing by which I cannot live in, make love to, possess as permanent sources of joy and ecstasy”.

Though she got married at 18, and remained married to the same man Hugo Guiler until her death on January 14 1977, she had numerous affairs. Most notably with Henry Miller (famous writer of Tropic of Cancer). Her affairs with some of these men were so bold, and lasted years (Miller was 10 years), and she went on to enter into a second marriage with Rupert Pole (an actor 16 years her junior), even as she remained married to Guiler, convincing both men that she was loyal to each one, even as she traveled back and forth (supposedly on writing assignments) living months at a time with both men. At the time of her death she set up her will so that Guiler would receive her royalties from her writing until his death (as a way to make amends for, and reciprocate, all the financial and emotional sacrifices he made for her throughout there tumultuous marriage) and once he died the remaining royalties would go to Pole who she remained with even after she confessed to him she was still married to her first husband (Pole and her received and annulment and remained lovers until her death).

As a writer and a woman I found that though I related to her in the early years of her life, towards the middle and onward her choices became a prime example of exactly how I do not want to live my life. Always carrying the deep deep scars of being deserted by her father as a child (whom she later reunited with and had a sexual affair with! Yes, I said affair with her own biological father!) Anais became obsessed with using her beauty, charms and money to get men, care for them and control them. She was extremely promiscuous, meeting with many of her men within the same day, having many abortions through her life, and constantly trying to walk this tight rope of a life in which she ultimately sacrificed her growth as a writer, and joy as a woman, by giving all her resources away, sexuality, money, time, attention, even her own writings (which they some went on to interpret and gain fame from) to men who recognized the opportunity, took it and used her for all it was worth (especially Henry Miller). It's an example of how insecurity and a strong need for adoration and attention can be used against you by people with their own agendas and desires. At the same time she was conscious of her addictions and willingly went forward with them. It was not until her later years that she wished she had not spent so much energy trying to buy love and take care of others.

“There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do”.

Because of this need of hers to live "only the high moments in life" and "live the dream" she was always chasing a fantasy, obsessively absorbed in her own world, which made it difficult for her to become the writer she dreamed of, which requires one to look outside yourself and lose yourself in order to capture life in words so that others can relate and enjoy it. This is why she never received the recognition she longed for, even now though her work is popular and her persona of sex, passion and confessions remain fascinating, she is still not regarded as one of the great writers of her time. Which devastated her even in her own time (she wrote honestly about watching artist that were once friends and lovers become revered in their own time). Because she wrote about herself obsessively, she never grew completely out of journal writing and herself as the subject, she became known as a "major minor writer". Critics of her books (and readers) often found her fictional work lacking depth, lacking realistic well developed characters, and weakly veiled attempts at publishing her journals in the guise of fiction.

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage”.

Despite it all I admire her passion, her vivacious personality, her daring attempts to achieve her dreams, and the way that she relentlessly worked to get her work recognized despite the tremendous rejection she received. Though she lied about a lot of things (including her age), she did not let age define her lust for life and desire to grow and learn new things, meet new people, and become a new person. She was always reading, traveling and taking on daring risky challenges, all in the search for that dream, the dream she once said, was always a few steps ahead of her.

In the 70's after she began to enjoy great fame (especially amongst feminists) she received a backlash, one for lying in her journals and two, for pretending that her wild, free, artistic life was achieved without the support of a man. She had purposely took out any mention of her long marriage to Guiler (who loved her unconditionally and provided the money she used to take care of herself, her lovers, and get her work published) in an attempt to be viewed by the world as a woman who had lived on her own terms (which she had) and done it on her own (which she had not). This need to create a image (completely true or not) has both destroyed and illuminated her life and image to this day.

in many ways Anais was also a very insightful woman, having a rare ability to capture a feeling, belief, experience in just a few lines. I guess that's why her work is so often quoted. Well hers was a very interesting life, interesting read and is a prime example that living your life to the fullest (mistakes and all) is the only way to live.

“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person”.

Hanif Kureishi: Desperate Husbands, Desperate men

Desperate Housewives meet your match!

One of my goals is to dedicate each month to one author, this February was Hanif Kureishi's month. Kureishi is a very accomplished British author and screenwriter. Last year I rented his fascinating film, The Mother. At the time I knew nothing about him, but now, after reading his books, it gives me a better understanding of him as an artist and confirmed the conflicted thoughts that lingered with me after the film. Kureishi has made an art out of creating characters you want to understand and strangle at the same time. His work is uncompromising and completely absorbing. This month I read four of his books, Intimacy (recently adapted to film), The black Album, The Body and Love in a Blue Time (a collection of short stories in which My son the Fanatic was turned into a film). I would also like to read his award winning novel The Buddha of Suburbia.

Intimacy: is about a man leaving the woman he has lived with for ten years and their two sons. It deals with the conflicting emotions he feels about ending the life he once knew but no longer wants. Uncompromising look at relationships and what many people try to hide.

The Black Album: Deals with Shahid a young Muslim youth trapped between his British western life and his desire to be loyal to his faith and his culture. Very timely though written in 1995

The Body: A famous writer decides to change his old body for a young body (temporarily) to see how it feels to have the best of both worlds, a mature mind and youthful body. Unfortunately the consequences of his action come fast and furious. This book was very disturbing but so so interesting. I enjoyed it!

Love in a Blue Time: A collection of various short stories. My favorite was "With Your Tongue Down My Throat". "We're not Jews" and "D'accord Baby" and "My Son the Fanatic". It was a great collection of stories.

It was interesting reading various books written by one writer, back to back. It began to feel like reading someones journals. There was definitely a strong and recurrent theme in most of his work. I began to wonder how much of Kureishi are in these stories, and if I had to take a guess, I would conclude a lot of him is, they definitely feel vaguely semi-autobiographical. Kureishi is undeniably a great, observant, passionate writer. Whether you like each and every character or not you get drawn into the lives and worlds of the people he writes about.

His books are consumed with the trials and tribulations of middle aged, middle class male angst (with the exception of The Black Album and a few of his short stories). Most of the men are writers of some sort, bored with any woman they have slept with for more than a year, filled with seething resentment towards women and domestic life while constantly looking to escape into a world of drugs, younger women's panties and pubs. You begin to get this image, that he does not work hard to dispute, of emotionally impotent men, aimlessly stumbling through life looking to screw any female that moves, get high, and boo hoo about how disappointing life has been since the hopeful glory days of the late 60's and 70's. They all feel trapped by success or the desire for success and most have an obsession and envy of youth, admittedly offering little to the people in their lives since they were too overwrought by self absorption and neediness to look outside of themselves for longer then a moment. Ultimately they're all disillusioned men pleading for love and acceptance, fearful that they have wasted their lives, and unable to accept most women.

Most of the wives and long term girlfriends in his novels are cold, dominant (feminist), who are withholding and disapproving. The men walk around, sleep around, drink around and pour out their souls trying to analyze the nature of relationships and the "bourgeois" trappings of success and faithfulness, (Kureishi did get a degree in Philosophy so maybe that's where all this "What is the meaning of life?" stuff comes from). Rarely are the men faithful, and the casual self righteous way that they carry on affairs with various women, many young enough to be their daughters becomes tedious. He also loves the word "arse," every third page seems to refer to fucking a woman's arse, wanting to kick someone up the arse, human beings behaving like, "arse's" etc.

But I did find a great deal of enjoyment in his books not necessarily from the characters but rather the brilliant way that he writes about them and writes about their lives. His characters tend to be either white or Asian, Kureishi parents are Pakistani (father) and English (his mother), he seamlessly expresses and writes about both the English and Asian culture wonderfully (filled with nuance and respect while remaining honest about the faults and weaknesses of both cultures), which I really enjoyed. Kureishi is so detailed, so observant, that each character immediately comes to life, and though he rarely goes into great physical detail about the characters, I could see them clearly in my mind. Kureishi is obviously very fascinated with the human condition and can sum up a person's essence accurately and magnificently within a short paragraph or even sentence.

Shahid looked up to see the man Riaz had called "the dissipater" shouldering through the queue with the assurance of someone used to line-jumping and with the fastidiousness of someone who didn't enjoy crowds...In Chilli's hand were his car keys, Ray-Bans, and Marlboros, without which he wouldn't leave his bathroom. Chili drank only black coffee and neat Jack Daniel's; his suits were Boss, his underwear Calvin Klein, his actor Pacino. His barber shook his hand, his accountant took him to dinner, his drug dealer would come to him at all hours, and accept his checks. At least he wasn't smoking a joint. The Black Album Pg. 47

Rocco tried to think of specific illustration that wasn't petty. He couldn't tell Bodger he hated the way she poked him in the stomach while trying to talk to him; or the way she blew in his nostrils and ears when they were having sex or the way she applied for jobs she'd never get, and then claimed he didn't encourage her; how she always had a cold and insisted, when taking her temperature, that insertion of the thermometer up the backside was the only way to obtain a legitimate reading; or how she was always losing money, keys, letters, even her shoes, and falling off her bicycle. Or how she'd take up French or singing, but give up after a few weeks, and then say she was useless. Love In A Blue Time: Lately, pg. 149.

Kureishi has a great sense of humor and uncanny way of presenting the most disturbing/selfish human problems in a way that allows you to understand and even empathize with the person(s). He reveals the hypocrisy of the world we live in without blanket judgments or neat (cliche) solutions. I found myself writing down and underlining quote after quote in his all of his books. Three out of the four books I finished in one afternoon and then quickly delved into the next. He left me with a lot of food for thought and challenged me. My only real suggestion is that he lay off the male angst thing, he has covered it from all angles now as thoroughly as possible. It's time to explore elsewhere.

My author for March is Anais Nin.