One day left on the calendar and that day is today.

Old in a new way

         

Anne Frank: The Book, The Life, The Afterlife
            by Francine Prose

Consider this: what's the difference between a diary and a memoir?  Answer: The Diary of a Young Girl.
Huh?

It's both.  The originally published version--the one I read a a child--was a diary.  Anne wrote the diary but later revised it, taking out some of the personal storms of adolescence and adding in pieces of universal interest.  Anne's father took the original and revised versions and (if I understood this correctly) restored much of the original content but sometimes kept the revised words and phrases that were superior to the original.

Anne's revisions were aimed at producing a book for publication after the war--a memoir.  I never knew any of this, nor did I ever consider that the content had undergone extensive revision by Anne, herself, as she advanced as a writer.  I don't have a copy of "the critical edition", to compare the copies, but maybe I'll get one someday.

This book by Francine Prose made me look at a childhood classic from an adult perspective and I thank her for that. Ms. Prose's work is not, as I expected from the title, a 3-part volume with an artificial boundary between the three topics of book, life and afterlife.  It's an adventure in mind, space and time, simultaneously explaining who wrote what, what it meant, and what it has come to mean now.  Good work!

Long on the list and short on content

It's Kind Of A Funny Story
by Ned Vizzini




I committed the unpardonable sin of watching the movie before I read the book.  That kind of takes away the freshness, you know?  If I'd read the book first, I might have liked it better.


This book gets top ratings for the description of "cycling"--the unending circle of painful thoughts in the mind of the depressed.  Also top ratings for the ending.  For the stuff that comes in between--well, it just happens.  There wasn't enough in the middle--dialog, description, action, anything. 

Thor: The Dark World

Nothing like those machine gun-equipped space alien dark elf space ships, huh?

Quick review (because I don't know what to say)

                              Big Machine
                              by Victor LaValle

Blown away.  Flabbergasted.  Confused as heck.

I think I get the message, but I don't understand one thing in particular--what was Solomon Clay trying to do?  Or maybe I do understand, sort of.

Victor LaValle is probably the equal of Neil Gaimon in coming up with mind-altering literature. And I sense there's a whole lot of meaning in here.  Since I'm not literary or even all that perceptive, I'm not sure exactly what that meaning is. Other people might even find other meaning.  It's that kind of deep, you know?

The calendar is looking good.

The cold front is heading this way

...and I have a headache.  (An actual twinge, not a thinly veiled reference to a teenage daughter.  I have one of those, too, but it's not giving me a headache at the moment)

Too bad I didn't get home before dark.  I could have taken autumn foliage pictures before it all falls off and turns into soggy mush.




So I will read books.  I finished the audiotape of Speak a few days ago.

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

It's simultaneously a humorous expose of the insane world of high school and a deeply personal journey from betrayal to recovery.  To tell more would be telling.  I'll just say that it touched me where it hurts.  High school has got to be the hardest time in the average person's life--you're full of hormones and haven't yet learned to recognize them; you desperately need to grow up but still want to be a kid sometimes; and you sometimes have a very painful secret that threatens to destroy you....

Well, some of you do.  I didn't, but it was still a hard four years.

The parents in the story are so unbearably clueless, it hurts to hear them talk.  They remind me of a lot of parents I've met in books--they do fine with babies and children but can't seem to recognize they have an emerging adult in the family. They try avoidance, denial, control and anger, but never compassion, patience, friendship and support.   I hope I'm not like that--I miss my fun little kids, but it's kind of nice to have someone that I can take to grownup movies.

For my listening pleasure

Saffy's Angel
by Hilary McKay

On the surface, this is the story of a hilariously eccentric family and a misfit's search to find her place in it.  Underneath, it's more.  And it works well on both levels.

Saffron is a girl of thirteen, living with older sister Cadmium, younger brother Indigo and little sister Rose.  Only they're not her real family, as she became painfully aware at age eight when she studied the color chart and found her name wasn't there.

People often describe a book or movie as "deeply satisfying." Well, this book most definitely isn't "deeply satisfying"--and I still say it's a great story. Other reviews say that it ends too quickly, but I don't agree--it makes a nice conclusion.  But like many works of great fiction, you find yourself wanting more.  I did.  In particular I wanted to see the father wake up to discover that he really wanted the family that he so happily rode away from every Sunday evening.

It's also funny enough to contend in the category for best YA humor.  Cadmium (Caddy's) driving lessons, with or without hamsters, are ticklish.