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Thursday, November 28, 2002
What I Finished Reading Today:(0) comments
The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin
OK, so I never saw the movie. But of course I haven't escaped hearing about the creepy flick in which all of a suburban town's wives are turned into emotionless, perfect automatons - it's part of our pop culture lexicon. So when I saw this book at an estate sale a while back, I thought it might be a fast, fun read. It was. But what surprised me is that it's also a pretty nifty piece of very timely social commentary (or at least it would have been at the time it was written, in 1972).
I realized years ago that some of the most successful horror movies (and books) are those which exploit and make obvious a specific fear running just under the surface of the social currents of our society. In the 1950s, when people were learning to live with the knowledge that nuclear fission was possible - and were very scared of it - we got a lot of movies about radiation-enhanced mutant monsters of one sort or another. In the 1980s, when many baby boomers were settling into what were becoming long-term marriages, and perhaps dealing with outside temptations and the fears of either being trapped forever in one relationship, or destroying their families by stepping outside the bonds of marriage, we got Fatal Attraction, and its picture of what can happen as a result of an illicit sexual affair. And in the early '90s, when baby boomers were still having children, but worried about how to raise them well and still have time for their own busy lives (just who can you trust with your children, anyway?), we got The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, which brought to life everyone's worst nightmare of a nanny (and played very effectively on the guilt of parents who do bring in help to raise their kids).
Because it seems to be somehow cathartic to see our worst fears brought to life and played out on screen, in someone else's life and not our own, movies that hit these kinds of nerves can be wildly successful at the box office. And now, after reading The Stepford Wives, I can see exactly why it was such a big hit -- both as a book and as a movie -- and why it has stayed with us for so long.
In the 1960s and 1970s, women began making huge strides in creating identities for themselves outside the boundaries of home and family. But these moves toward independence and individuality created deep fears in both men and women. Simplifying greatly, men feared that the helpers and caretakers they had come to expect in their lives would somehow disappear forever...while women often feared they would suffocate and die if they could never be any more than someone's wife or mother. And Stepford quite handily hits both those nails square on the head.
The story centers on a woman - Joanna, a housewife and aspiring photographer - who has just moved from the city to a quiet suburb with her husband and two kids. But while the husband very quickly settles into the suburban lifestyle, and happily joins the local men's club, Joanna has a hard time making friends with the local women...none of whom share her interests outside the home, and all of whom seem oddly obsessed with cooking, cleaning and laundry.
Finally, Joanna does make a couple of friends who seem different from the others, Bobbie and Charmaine, who are also both relative newcomers. But after a weekend alone with her husband, Charmaine suddenly does an about-face and becomes as drone-like as the other town women. Bobbie and Joanna become afraid there's something in the town's water supply that is drugging the women there, and both start pressuring their husbands to move before whatever it is gets them, too. But then, a few weeks later, Bobbie spends a weekend alone with her husband, and she, too, emerges a changed woman...which sends Joanna into an absolute panic.
The book is only 150 pages long, and it's so simple it can be read cover to cover in not much more than an hour. But it's actually pretty surprising how beautifully Levin's simple story so completely captures its small but significant part of the early '70s zeitgeist. (And he seems to have a talent for this kind of audience-grabbing story -- he's also the author of Rosemary's Baby, The Boys from Brazil and A Kiss Before Dying, all very successful in their day as well.) I've heard a remake of the movie may be in the works today...but it's hard to imagine it being as successful today on screen as it was in 1975, when the first movie came out, simply because I think we have moved forward a bit since then, and today's men and women have slightly different fears. If Levin - or anyone else - can figure out what today's fears are, however, and come up with another story as simple, iconic and of-the-moment as this one, they'd certainly have another huge hit on their hands.
posted by Elizabeth 8:21 AM
Wednesday, November 27, 2002
What I Finished Reading Today:(0) comments
The Velveteen Father by Jesse Green
I can imagine that a certain portion of the population, who seem to hate any work based largely on navel gazing (one person's attempt to intimately examine their own reasons for being or doing), would really, really hate this book. I, however, am not one of those people, and as long as the self-reflection comes off as honest and the prose is engaging, I'm quite happy - often even eager - to peek through someone else's self-revealing windows. So I will say right up front that I really loved this book, which is, indeed, a lengthy self-examination of one man's "unexpected journey to parenthood."
Author Jesse Green is a gay man who, like many gay men, never considered having children...until he fell in love with another man who had just adopted a baby boy. While Green's identity as a homosexual is certainly integral to the book, however (it's the context he uses to explain many of his feelings about parenthood, family, and the societal forces that act on him day in and day out), it's really not the main point of his story. Instead, what he provides is a surprisingly universal musing on the nature of parenthood, why people have children, and how the process of becoming a parent changes a person.
And this is where Green's position as a gay man actually becomes a major boon to his position as narrator. Because, as he points out, most people who become parents (which is most people, period), don't often think too much about their reasons for doing it before they have children. Parenthood is something most people simply grow up expecting will happen to them, and when it does - whether planned or by accident - sliding into the role of parent is something people often just do without too much reflection on the whys and wherefors.
As Green points out, however, parenthood has not been a traditional part of gay male culture in this country, and when a gay man begins to consider becoming a parent, he is forced to consider details other people generally don't have to put much thought into...starting with just how or where to acquire a child. And having to confront all those details -- from how to find a child to what your parents and friends might think of the idea...not to mention all the day-to-day, nitty gritty details of raising a child -- forces people in his position to really think long and hard about the reasons they may or may not want to become a parent. And as he discovers, those reasons are no different for gay men than for anyone else.
The book begins with the story of Andy, the man Green eventually falls in love with. Andy is nearing 40 and determined to have a child, despite the faint (and sometimes not so faint) disapproval of his friends and family. At first, Andy agrees to be a sperm donor for a couple of lesbian friends who also want to have a baby...but this arrangement goes awry after a long and difficult time spent trying to create a pregnancy through artificial insemination. So Andy finally decides that he needs to have his own child, and not be merely a biological participant in someone else's attempts to conceive.
Eventually, Andy adopts a baby boy, whom he names Erez (Hebrew for "cedar"), and when he breaks the news to his mother, she adamantly declares, "It's not going to be my grandchild." The very next day, however, she calls Andy back to ask how many people she should invite to the bris. And it's this same pattern of denial/rejection, reconsideration and, finally, enthusiastic acceptance - from casual acquaintences, friends, family and even themselves - that both Andy, and later Green himself, face again and again as they grow into their roles as parents.
In fact, this same pattern plays out when Green meets Andy at a party, less than a year after Erez' adoption. When he sees the handsome man enter with a diaper bag, he assumes Andy must be holding it for someone else. And when he discovers that it's Andy's own bag, for his own child, Green is a bit startled. But his initial attraction wins out, and he spends the next several hours in fascinated conversation with Andy.
Green's own conversion to parenthood, which comes as a result of his relationship with Andy, and his growing desire to share all parts of Andy's life, is a bit slower and more reluctant than Andy's. Unlike Andy, Green never spent long years longing for a child...and had never developed a sense of what he'd be like with children. But as he falls in love with Andy, he falls in love with Erez, too...and when Andy decides, a couple of years later, to adopt another baby, Lucas, Green plunges into family life with only mild trepidation.
Green is a fine writer, and his prose is friendly and easy to read. He also does a nice job of including peeks into the lives of other friends and acquaintences who have considered adoption and faced the many issues it raises for parents and children. One of the most interesting of these asides involves Green's neighbor, the actress Mercedes Ruehl, who longs to find the son she gave up for adoption 20 years earlier. Eventually, Ruehl adopts a baby of her own...just a few months after she does locate the son she gave up - Christopher - who becomes the new baby's godfather.
In the end, Green notes that fewer than half of all American households now consist of two married, heterosexual parents of the same race, raising children. He expresses hope that this signals a greater degree of acceptance for "alternative" families...and notes that, with these numbers, perhaps now we're all "alternative" in some way.
The only note that feels just a wee bit off in Green's narrative - and makes me doubt his expressed enthusiasms just a bit - is that we don't learn until the very end that the whole time he's growing into his role as a second "daddy" to Erez and Lucas, who obviously accept and love him without question (as does their father, Andy), that Green isn't actually living with the rest of the family. Near the end, he makes a "big" move from Manhattan to Brooklyn, to be closer to the others...but he still officially lives several blocks away from them, and walks over several times a day to participate in things like dinner and the boys' bedtime. At the very end, Green decides to pursue legal status as the boys' second parent...and says he will eventually live with them "when the time is right." But one can't help wondering at this point, after all of Green's rhapsodization about finally becoming a "real" parent, why the time still isn't right...and when it might ever be, if not now, while he's still so besotted with the whole situation.
Aside from this one slight chink, however, the rest of the book is truly charming, and probably a must-read for anyone having children, or contemplating having them...no matter who they may be or in what way those children will come into their families.
posted by Elizabeth 9:49 AM
Tuesday, November 26, 2002
What I Finished Reading Today:(0) comments
Living in Style (Without Losing Your Mind) by Marco Pasanella
I saw this on a friend's bookshelf a few months ago and, being hopelessly addicted to looking at living spaces, thinking about living spaces and tinkering with my own living space, decided to give it a read.
As you'd expect from almost any interior design book worth its salt, this one is beautifully photographed, and contains lush full color plates of a wide variety of eclectic living spaces (note: also as with many interior design books worth their salt, such lushness doesn't come cheap -- this fairly slim volume retails for $30.00...but I picked up a like-new copy for less than $5.00 on Half.com - yay, Internet!).
The most interesting thing about this book is that it's probably the only interior decorating text - ever - based primarily on Strunk and White's famous literary style guide, The Elements of Style. Like Strunk and White's philosophy of writing, Pasanella's main admonishment to people designing and decorating their own private retreats is to keep it simple: just as artists should never use an unnecessary line, and writers should never use an unnecessary word, Pasanella says decorators should never use an unnecessary piece of furniture or accessory.
Beyond this basic pragmatic advice, Pasanella gives a few other common sense tips, some of which may be most welcome to people trying to decorate on less than a decorator's budget. First and foremost, he urges folks to figure out what they like, no matter where it comes from (he even OKs moderately priced chain stores such as Ikea or Pottery Barn) and go from there. The key, he notes, is to use mass-produced furnishings sparingly and in combination with more personal touches, to prevent rooms from becoming soulless catalog pages. Personality and comfort come not from furnishings pre-matched by a manufacturer, retailer or designer, he maintains...but from unique combinations of items that accurately reflect the owner's own sensibilities.
Further into his common-sense theory, Pasanella also advises using all five senses when decorating, and including furnishings that are naturally pleasing to the touch, to the ear and to the sense of smell whenever possible. And this doesn't mean stocking up on drugstore-sale potpourri, but perhaps placing a collection of potted herbs on a windowsill, a goldfish in a bowl next to the bed, or some extremely soft pillows on the couch.
For the most part, it's all very logical advice -- perhaps just a bit too logical, since much of it has probably already occured to people who have a passion for their own environments. I'm one of them, and I will admit there weren't any big "a ha!" moments here for me. Still, I did enjoy Pasanella's low-key, everyone-can-do-this style, and I loved looking through the beautiful photos of thoroughly personal domiciles that fill the book. It was a very quick read, but definitely got me thinking anew about possibilities for my own home...which is the most fun - and definitely dangerous - aspect of books like this.
posted by Elizabeth 7:27 PM
Sunday, November 24, 2002
What I Finished Reading Today:(0) comments
Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong
I got this book for Christmas last year, but it wasn't until I read another Armstrong book, The Battle for God, recently that I was finally inspired to pick up this one and read it, too. After reading Battle, and learning about the history of fundamentalism in the world's three major religions, I was definitely primed to learn a bit more about the history of Islam, and to read more of Armstrong's insightful religious history and analysis. Also, while I learned a lot from The Battle for God, much of the Islamic history (especially names, dates and specific terminology) didn't stick with me in great detail because I was so unfamiliar with it going in, and because I was reading mostly to glean an overview of religious history, with an eye toward fundamentalist movements within it...and not aiming to pass a quiz on historical names and dates in any one religion. Reading Isalm, however, I was hoping to reinforce what I'd learned from the other book, and to more firmly cement in my brain a few historical details about this particular religion.
As you might expect with the history of any religion, it wasn't too surprising to learn that the history of Islam is full of major reinterpretations and turning points, during which the focus and goals of its followers changed significantly. What I was a bit surprised to learn, however, is that, at least in the very beginning, Islam, far more so than either Christianity or Judiasm, was an extremely tolerant belief system. In fact, while the Quran advocated monotheism, the big, new idea in religion at the time (which was also espoused by Christianity and Judiasm), it definitely did not in any way try to state that "the Muslim god is the one true god" or "you must believe in Islam for salvation." Instead, the Quran insisted that its "one" god was the same as the "one" god of the other faiths, which meant that each of them was truly a divinely revealed faith, revealing many of the same essential truths. In fact, the Quran instructed Muslims against religious coercion of any sort, and insisted that all the major monotheistic religions were equally legitimate. And it wasn't until later in history, when various Islamic leaders and groups began to fear that both their own religion and others had strayed too far from Islam's original principles, that various splinter groups began to claim they were the only true followers of god or proper religious principles, and that groups or individuals who did not share their beliefs were infidels.
I also learned that the Quran also contains very adamant prohibitions of things like violence and murder, and although founding prophet Muhammad, in the custom of the day, did have several wives, he also fought hard for the emancipation and empowerment of women (he legalized divorce and female inheritance centuries before other cultures). Also, while the Quran does speak a bit about the veiling of the some of the prophet's wives under certain circumstances, it makes no requirement that all women be veiled at all times (this is a much more recent decree, by Muslim societies and groups aiming to create a more particularly Muslim identity and distinguish themselves from the rest of the modern world).
Of course, after Muhammad's death, the squabbling and splintering began, and there are still splits within the Muslim world between followers who argue over which of Muhammad's colleagues really carried on the true spirit of the religion after his death. Shii Muslims, for example, believe that Ali, Muhammad's closest male relative and husband of one of Muhammad's daughters, was the true heir of the faith and should have been chosen to lead the religion after Muhammad's death...while Sunni Muslims revere the Rashidun, four companions of Muhammad's who were his immediate and official successors (Sunnis are the majority of today's Muslims).
After going on to explain other splinterings over the centuries and major developments such as the creation of the Shariah (the set of laws that govern Islam) and Islam's pre-18th century spread of power across the globe, Armstrong goes on to do a terrific job of describing how these very powerful nations also quickly declined after the west began its great wave of modernization in the 16th century...and the problems modernization created within the Muslim world.
Armstrong ends the book with a look at the rise of fundamentalism in Islam, which is sort of a capsule version of the themes she expands on in much greater detail in The Battle for God (e.g. the idea that fundamentalist movements are a wholly modern phenomenon in which groups who have come to fear modernization and its increasingly secular deveopments call for a return to more pre-modern ideals and ways of life). This final section would definitely be a good introduction to her theories for those who haven't read Battle, and a good review for people who have.
In short, I learned a lot from this book, and I think anyone who hasn't been exposed to the history of Islam, but is aware of world events and the extent to which Islam is currently a major player on the world stage, would find it both useful and enlightening. And it has definitely maintained my interest in both Armstrong and her writings -- to the point that I'm now hoping to read at least two of her other books, The History of God, (another all-encompassing look at the developments of Christianity, Judiasm and Islam) and Through the Narrow Gate, which describes her own experiences as a Catholic nun who eventually left the convent. Both of these will definitely appear on my Christmas list this year.
posted by Elizabeth 7:57 AM
All material © 2002-2004 by Elizabeth Fuller. Please do not reproduce anything you find here without the author's permission.
