Revolutionary Road

I finally got around to reading this book, Revolutionary Road, I have yet to see the movie, though now my interest is piqued and I think that I will have to. If there were ever any doubts that a man could write masterfully about domesticity from both sides, this book would dispel them. Richard Yates did a fantastic job of turning this 1950's marriage inside and out. It helped that the couple spent so much time talking, it helped in terms of writing the novel, it certainly didn't help in terms of the couplehood which was in sad decline from the get-go. There was a short period in the middle of the novel where the reader had a sense of hope for Frank and April Wheeler, this hopeful period was shrouded though in the reader's mind. Reading this book one does get a sense of doom.

In my opinion it was a great romance. Depressing, surely, but great nonetheless. I am not, nor have I ever been a sappy, happy romance kind of gal. Nicolas Sparks is not for me. I like pivotal realities in the relationships that I read about or view cinematically. While I don't like the fact that love and romance isn't all happy, I like it even less when books and movies make it into something that defies everything, even individuality. Revolutionary Road did not defy individuality. Even when the couple was their most together, one sensed that the individual would come out, the foreshadowing was there. All-in-all a fantastic read.

Goin' Old School

Thankful for Advances in Women's Health

Warning (i.e., Loud Larry) this post may be TMI for some participants.

Early this morning I had a mammogram. My mother is a post-menopausal breast cancer survivor and I am very thankful for these advances in women's health. I am also keenly aware that these advances do not exist in many parts of the world, particularly in parts of the world where women, and thus their health, are not valued. It is not hard to find derision for feminism in the media or in every day conversation. I wonder if women have really thought long and hard about what the world was like prior to feminism. One really need look no further than the Middle East for a plethora of examples, but only a century ago things were not so different for women even here in this country. Yet, people seem to want to go back to that time...a time when women died in childbirth due to poor nutrition and health care, a time when women were not allowed to vote or own property, a time when women were not allowed to travel alone or file for divorce from an abusive husband, a time when a woman would lose custody of her children simply because she was a woman, a time when it was considered obsecene for a woman to work, these are but a few examples of the pre-feminist world. Call me crazy, but I am going to take today to be thankful for women's health and thankful for the technology that may one day save my life.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson

I picked this short read up from the library recently. I liked the title. It is supposed to be almost summer, but in my neck of the woods (Seattle) the seasons can't seem to make up their minds so we go from freezing, raining, wind storms to hot and sunny all within a matter of days. My expectations of this book were not high, I thought maybe it would be boring. As I was only checking it out and not buying the book, I figured that I would take a chance. What a nice surprise. As it says in the introduction, it is almost as though this book is about nothing. However, it is about something, it is about the relationship between a young girl and her grandmother. The girl's mother has died and she and her father and grandmother summer, as they always have, in their cottage on an island off of the Finnish coast. Sadly, I had not heard of this author/illustrator, Tove Jansson, prior to this book. She is quite well known in her own country for her artwork and writing, she died in 2001.

In this book the child and the grandmother have many simple and wonderful adventures together. The father is more a backdrop in this story, he is present usually sitting or working, not interacting. It is the granddaughter and grandmother that are wound in their own secret world. Their adventures include such things going for long walks in the woods, discovering secrets in the attic, and sharing in nature, animal, and people exploits together. Grandmother has some interesting ideas about human behavior, many of which match my own, that I have not heard articulated in a book prior to this. For example, the granddaughter wants to hear about grandmother's long ago exploits as a Girl Scout. Grandmother searchs her mind to try and remember. She does remember that when she wanted to share these exploits with her family, no one was interested and now she just can't remember anymore. I understand that. A newcomer builds a huge house across the water from the family's cottage. Grandmother and granddaughter row out to it and it is padlocked. Grandmother says that they should pick the lock and go inside as no one on the island has ever locked anything before, people with class would never trespass, but to be faced with a padlock and a "no trespassing" sign is like a slap in the face to the common decency of the islanders. Like I said, it is a charming narrative. I will be looking for more by this author soon.

Deep Thoughts from a Friend of Mine

Tequilla should always be sold with an instant camera attached to it so the next day you have some idea of what happened!

Love Actually

Alas! I am in the throes of yeat another busy day and I am lazy about writing these days so I really wanted to do a video post today. When I set out to do a video post it is usually something very specific and today was not any different. What I wanted to appear on my blog was the introduction to the movie Love Actually. I wanted to show the beginning scene where travellers are meeting at Heathrow Airport and everyone is embracing and well wishing. Unfortunately that scene does not seem to be available for downloading. I found a British version and a Portuguese version. The British version could not be downloaded in this country (United States) and the Portuguese version had the embedding disabled. Now this is frustrating as this post really deserves a visual. Sans visual, I will write that this is my favorite movie introduction and seeing it gives me the faith in humanity that I sometimes lack. I don't mean to be a cynic, but so much garbage happens out there in the world everyday that it is easy to lose sight of those ties that bind us to one another here on earth and sometimes I need to be reminded of that. Today I will think, love actually and maybe try to practice a little love instead of cynicism.

Deep Thoughts

Sometimes naked
Sometimes mad
Now the scholar
Now the fool
Thus they appear on earth
The free men

-Hindu verse