May Book a Month Challenge: Mother

Jackson, Shirley. Life Among the Savages. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Young, 1953.

Shirley Jackson is best known today for her sophisticated horror novels, such as The Haunting of Hill House, but in the late '40s and early '50s she was writing light domestic comedy for the likes of Good Housekeeping, Harper's, and Mademoiselle. These columns were gathered together and published as Life Among the Savages, which tells of an urban pair of writers with two children who move from a New York apartment to a house in suburban Vermont. In 1997, a review in Library Journal described it as "good fun of the Erma Bombeck kind," which, while useful for identifying the genre and most likely readers, does not do it justice. Jackon's work in the antecedent of the rest of the American domestic comedies: Bombeck is good fun of Jackson kind.

While Life is well written and entertaining, it has two flaws that made it difficult for me to read at times. The first, and larger, problem for me is the tone of voice with which Jackson tells her stories. She frequently invokes a "cutesy ironic" tone, which might have been amusing in the '50s for her target readership of homemakers, but often grated for me. For example, while I can understand the humour inherent in a mother of three suddenly having to learn to drive, the naivete exhibited while the characters are car shopping is far broader than necessary ("We lacked only a car. This was adjusted by a gentleman who, saying he acted only from pure friendship, sold us one of his cars.").

The second flaw is that the stories feel slightly dated. Tales of the problems of hiring and dealing with mothers' helpers, the challenges of getting together for a night of bridge, and running short of money because one forgot to cash the cheque from one's husband do not resonate with the modern reader. I found it particularly difficult to accept the idea that Jackson was so dependent upon her husband for household cash while at the same time being a successful writer with her own income. Another example is Jackson's description of packing to go to hospital to deliver their third child: the idea that one plans for a relaxing getaway of a week or so in hospital following a normal childbirth is, today, inconceivable.

Over all, Life Among the Savages is an amusing light read, but not up to the level her other writing.

April Book A Month Challenge: Beauty

Fables: Legends in Exile. Bill Willingham, writer, et al. New York: Vertigo, 2002.
Fables: Animal Farm. Bill Willingham, writer, et al. New York: Vertigo, 2003.

Hundreds of years ago, the lands of fairy tales and fables were overrun by "The Adversary" and the characters of our favourite stories, forced into exile in the real world. The human fables live quietly in New York, ruled by King Cole, the Mayor of Fabletown, who is merely a figurehead. The true power behind the throne is Snow White, Director of Operations, who is supported by her Sheriff, Bigby (i.e. "Big B.") Wolf, transformed into human shape somehow. That is the premise of the Fables series of graphic novels, which are collections of the Vertigo comic books of the same title. Each title in the series is a complete story arc from the original books.

Legends in Exile, the first novel in the series, is a standards murder mystery, solved by the traditional means of the genre, with no dependency on the special skills of the characters (beyond the fact that Bigby can ID the crime-scene blood by smell). All the usual suspects are dragged out to solve the mystery of the murder of Snow White's estranged wild sister, Rose Red: her sometime boyfriend, Jack the Giant Killer; the wealthy and mysterious Blue Beard; Snow's ex-husband, Prince Charming; and there's even a cameo by the witch of the Black Forest, last seen dining on children in her gingerbread house. Legends is a light take on the noir hard-boiled detective genre, and Bigby doesn't disappoint, solving everything while managing to piss off everybody.

The second volume in the series, Animal Farm, is, as suggested by the name, a tale of political upheaval and revolution. In Legends, we get glimpses of a talking pig, one of the "three little" tormented by the big bad wolf in the homelands, wandering through the scenery as a bit of porcine stage business. At the beginning of Animal Farm it is revealed that Colin has escaped from "The Farm," a sanctuary for the non-human fables in upstate New York. Snow White, and Rose Red leave the city for the Farm to return Colin and to check in with the manager of the Farm. While there, they discover that many of the animals are unsatisfied with they're lives for forced seclusion and dream of returning to the Homelands to fight off The Adversary. This dissatisfaction has risen to the level that many of the animals are considering armed revolt against the human government of Fabletown merely for the chance to try to recapture the Homelands. Because of the animosity of so many animals towards Wolf, he's banned from visiting the Farm, so White and Rose are on their own in the middle of the conflict.

These stories are well-told modern tales featuring the characters we remember from childhood (with a few obscure, or more modern references to pique our curiosity). Because of a small amount of sex and slightly larger amounts of blood and violence, the books are not suitable for younger children, but should be fine for young adults (if they're watching CSI, they can read these).

Oh, and Legends in Exile opens with Snow White trying to explain to a couple why she can't help them with marriage counseling: Beauty and the Beast.

Book A Month Challenge for March: Craft

Morris, William. 1894. The Wood Beyond the World. A facsimile of the Kelmscott Press ed. New York: Dover, 1972.

Although Morris was a late-Victorian contemporary of Conan Doyle and Kipling, he affected a 17th Century style of English in this romantic fantasy about a young man driven to a quest by misfortune at home and by visions of a beautiful Lady and her two mismatched servants.

Golden Walter, our Hero, is an honourable and handsome, but common, young man. Cursed at home by an unfaithful wife, he leaves on a trading ship to avoid causing a feud between his father's family and that of his estranged wife. While trading in far lands, he sees visions of the Lady, her beautiful maidservant, and an ugly dwarf, but resists the natural urge to hunt for the source of these visions out of his sense of duty to his father's ship. In the farthest reaches of the empire, he receives word that his attempts to avoid a feud have failed, and that his father has died, so he sets out to return home. Unfortunately, the elements conspire against his honour and drive him into strange heathen lands and the country ruled by the Lady of his visions and the maidservant with whom he falls in love. The novel has a strong episodic structure, with Walter moving (or being moved) from encounter to encounter, meeting all of the usual fairy tale tropes until the typical "happily ever after" ending.

A note on the edition: While many libraries have The Wood Beyond the World, my copy is a photo-facsimile of the Morris's original Kelmscott Press edition, which takes some time to get used to reading for the modern reader, but is very pleasing to the eye.

BAM Challenge: Heart

Bennet, Alan. The Uncommon Reader. New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.


Bennet starts with a simple premise: "What would happen if the Queen suddenly developed an interested in reading for pleasure?" This short novel, a mere 120 pages, is a light exploration of that question, and shows how reading leads to neglecting one's duties and avoiding human companionship.

But it also shows how she grows through her reading. The Queen, after even just a brief exposure to fiction, seems to think more about the people around her, and show genuine concern for her staff in small ways that she never did before: reading, and exposure to the human condition, has given the Queen more of a heart, made her more compassionate.

(Sometimes it can be a stretch to fit a book into the theme, but I know I can do it!)

Book A Month Challenge: Changing Times

Phillips, Julie. James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006.

In recent months, I've begun to notice that the movie studios are creating different trailers and ads for the same film, each with a different emphasis. So we have the "comedy" trailer and the "chick flick" trailer. I even once saw "chick flick" and "action" trailers for a film, which was a bit of a stretch. This biography of Alice Sheldon could easily be promoted the same way, but more honestly. One could write the proto-feminist review, the Lesbian/gender identify review, or the literary biography review. In keeping with January's theme of “Time ”, I read the biography of someone who lived through much of an extraordinary century and saw amazing changes in world around her.

Sheldon led an adventurous life from the very beginning: when she was six, her parents took her with them on safari to unexplored Africa. She was literally one of the first white people the Kikuyu tribe of Kenya saw. She was one of the first WAC officers in World War II, interpreting spy-plane photos of enemy territory, and she worked briefly for the newly founded CIA. She earned a PhD in Psychology. Her accomplishments were also regularly dismissed because she was a woman:

When [she] got an all-time high grade on a qualifying test, the county agricultural agent who wrote to congratulate her pointed out, "Your husband didn't do bad either. I expect Mr Sheldon could have really beat you but wanted to be real gallant and diplomatic and let his wife win (p. 151).

She saw the birth of modern feminism and corresponded closely with Joanna Russ, but she watched the movement from the outside and did not benefit from it. She was working as a man at the time (that's the "Lesbian/gender identity" review breaking through).

Her experience among the Kikuyu in 1922 informs the headlines we've been seeing out of Kenya for the past month. Imagine living in central Africa and being transported from an isolated village that has seen no change in hundreds of years into the 21st century in just three generations.

Phillips has written a well researched biography with extensive, though unobtrusive, notes. This is not a "popular" biography, but an academic one. The early chapters are focused primarily on Sheldon's parents, and are slow-going, but they lay important groundwork for later discussion of Sheldon's relationship with her mother, who was famous in her own right.

The back matter includes a bibliography of Sheldon's works, the notes, a bibliography of published sources, and an index. Unfortunately, the index is not as strong as I would like: there are no entries for "Army" or "Intelligence" (the latter is listed under "World War II, intelligence work in"), nor is there a cross reference from "WAAC" or "WAC" to "Women's Auxiliary Army Corps" or "Women's Army Corps". The index does include entries for significant text in the notes, which are indicated by italic page numbers. (This use of italics is not explained in the index.)

For most readers, these issues are minor and will not detract from the reading. For an academic studying Sheldon or the science fiction of the 1970s and early '80s, they will make referring to the text more challenging, though.