Odd Couples

Here's a couple books for you to check out that have unusual couples, unusual in that you might have an "ick" or "what tha..." moment here and there reading about them, but the writing is so good, I had to throw some props their way!

THE GIANT'S HOUSE by Elizabeth McCracken

(National Book Award Finalist .. figured it couldn't totally suck..)

This is the story of Peggy Cort, a 26 yr old "spinster" librarian living in the Cape Cod area in the 1950s where she meets 11 yr old James Carlson Sweatt, who suffers from gigantism. By the age of twelve, James is 6'5. James and Peggy develop a friendship at the library, Peggy giving him books that take his mind off of his disability and social awkwardness. Somewhere in the midst of their friendship, Peggy finds she's actually falling in love with James but realizes this is an inappropriate feeling to have towards someone still not legal. She can't seem to shake her deepening affection for him so she just keeps it to herself, struggling with seeing James grow up over the years, learning to flirt as a teenager, struggling with not knowing how to dance, etc. With everything that goes on, at the toughest moments James always comes back to Peggy, one night confessing his own feelings. You'd think this book would be really awkward to read but nothing inappropriate happens. James grows up, becomes a man and Peggy continues to help him as his condition worsens. It's actually really sweet (and bittersweet) the way this relationship develops between them. The one problem I did have with the story was the last few chapters, the way McCracken decided to wrap things up confused me, it felt a little disjointed and then like she quickly brought it back and tried to tie things up neatly.  But definitely give this one a try. It's a slow burn kind of read, doesn't really race through, but the development in itself is powerful.

There's some great quotes in this book. Check it out:

On history:

For some people, history is simply what your wife looks good in front of. It's what's cast in bronze, or framed in sepia tones, or acted out with wax dummies and period furniture. It takes place in glass bubbles filled with water and chunks of plastic snow; it's stamped on souvenir pencils and summarized in reprint newspapers. History nowadays is recorded in memorabilia. If you can't purchase a shopping bad that alludes to something, people won't believe it ever happened. 

LOVE

On Love:

Despite popular theories, I believe people fall in love based not on good looks or fate but on knowledge. Either they are amazed by something a beloved knows that they themselves do not know; or they discover common rare knowledge; or they can supply knowledge to someone who's lacking. Hasn't everyone found a strange ignorance in someone beguiling?

 sad love

I loved him because I wanted to save him, and because I could not. I loved him because I wanted to be enough for him and I was not.

 sweet couple

Truthfully, this is the fabric of my all my fantasies: love shown not by a kiss or a wild look or a careful hand but by a willingness for research. I don't dream of someone who understands me immediately, who seems to have known me my whole life, who says 'I know, me too.' I want someone keen to learn my own strange organization, amazed at what's revealed; someone who asks, 'and then what, and then what?' But you can't spend your life hoping that people will ask you the right questions. You must learn to love and answer the questions they already ask. Otherwise you're dreaming of visiting Venice by driving to Boise, Idaho. 

THE MOST WANTED by Jacquelyn Mitchard

This is the story of Arlington "Arley" Mowbrey a 14 yr old girl who, partly from a dare, partly out of a sense of charity, decides to write to Dillon LeGrande, an inmate at a South Texas prison who just happens to be 25. It starts out innocent enough because Arley doesn't expect anything more than a simple pen-pal sort of communication. But Arley feels a freedom in telling all her inner feelings to someone she figures it won't matter to. She figures the guy will think she's crazy and not write back. To her surprise (but not to the reader's 'cause c'mon 400+ pages here.. of course he wrote back!) she gets a letter from Dillon with him saying how moved he was by her honesty... and so starts the blossoming of their relationship. Did I mention Arley lied about her age to impress this guy she thought wouldn't care about her? Ahh plot muck :-). Well Dillon's not a total perve.. I guess.. he does take a pause and consider "okay.. she's 14" but then that leads to "well she's a mature kind of 14". Okay... bit of an ick moment there but hear me out. No, I'm not a wackadoodle myself endorsing these kind of things, I was disturbed by a lot in this book but because it was so well written I kept reading. And it helped that the story is broken up and alternated between the POVs  of Arley and Annie, her lawyer, who acts as the voice of reason in the story... oh, and Annie has a sweet, legal love affair of her own ;-)

 I thought Arley was a well developed character in that in the beginning we see her acting as if she knows exactly what she's doing but later as things get twisted up (as any adult could see from a mile away that they would), she freaks out and wants to be free of everything, though Annie tries to tell her it's too late, the proverbial bed's been made. I like that the teenage character actually sounded her age without going to the cliche airhead tone, but instead you get to see the mix of almost-adult thinking with the "can I get my mom to write a note" stage of life still in there. This book gets pretty dark as the story moves along. I hoped for Dillon to be that one in a million case of rehabilitated former sick puppy... seems like there were shreds of good guy in there. I was curious to know more about the backstory of Dillon and his brother but there wasn't much given. Oh, and Arley's mom? OMG.. that lady was pretty much flat-lining on the mom-o-meter. I don't think I've read such an exaggerated case of a woman having kids for the welfare money!

She did not neglect her children; neglect might have required more concentration than Rita was able to muster up.. Arley's mother simply did not love her, and not only did she not love her but she regarded Arley's school successes, as well as her timid attempts to involve herself in extracurricular activities, as a source of irritation, an obstacle that got between her and her right to cheap labor. 

Is it any wonder Arley turned out such a confused girl? Still, here's another book that offers great writing if you can get passed the taboo subject matter. 

infatuation

"You asked somebody, they'd always say kin is kin. But that doesn't mean the same thing to people everyplace. When you grow up with all kinds of love from your blood kin, maybe you don't have that desperate hope for someone out there waiting who can make up for all the things blood never brought you. Someone who can look deep inside you and see things no one ever bothered to tell you were there." * Arley

Oh and btw.. wondering about Arley's name? Yeah.. her mom's one of those women who named all her kids after the towns they were conceived in... Arley is for Arlington, Texas... awkward name to try to pull off as feminine... poor girl  :-(

Quick Meade Read - April 2012

"Fire Fancies" by Arthur Hacker (1858-1919)

It will be Poverty Castle, my loves, and we'll have to stint and scrape and contrive; but at any rate we'll be merry when we can be merry, and we'll forget our troubles in doing good to others. ~~ Aunt Susy in A Modern Tomboy

Just a quick suggestion on a cutesy L.T. Meade novel to check out if you like. This one is unique in that it had a slightly darker tone than most of her works, but in a humorous way. It's sweet, but not so much so that it's sickening. It feels more real in a way, I guess because in this one, the world is shown as still potentially beautiful despite being less than rosy-colored. There is something apropos about it, given these modern days of recession, in that a professor and his wife, finding hard financial times, decide to open their home as a boarding school for girls simply to make ends meet, calling it "Sunnyside" (funny, when you consider the inspiration for opening the school in the first place). 

One student, Rosamund Cunliffe, turns out to be the rebel in the crowd. She struggles with rules and conformity in general. She doesn't see the purpose and resents the attempts made on her to stifle her passion for being free and living. Rosamund feels that school is just a place where you're told what living is like, rather than being given the chance to experience yourself... least not til one is older. I certainly knew that infuriating feeling of being imprisoned myself as a child!

It is a curious fact that there are some weak but loving people who are not loved in return. If they are sincere and honest they always inspire respect. If they are at the same time unselfish, that noble quality must also tell in the long run. But to look at them is not to love them, and consequently, they go through life with a terrible heart-longing unknown to their fellow men, only known to the God above, who will doubtless reward these simple and earnest and remarkably beautiful souls in His own good time in another world. Such a person was Emily Frost. She was very patient, very brave, very unselfish; but no one particularly cared for her. She knew this quite well; she had a passionate hunger for love, but it was not bestowed upon her. She was well educated and could teach splendidly, but she could never arouse enthusiasm in her pupils. A far less highly educated woman could do twice the amount poor Miss Frost could ever achieve, simply because she possessed the gift denied to the latter.

Gibson Girl Gone Golfing

Fate, luck, circumstances, whatever you want to call it, puts Rosamund in the path of the ridiculously wealthy widow, Lady Ashleigh and her even more ridiculously spoiled daughter, Irene. Irene is a few years younger than preteen Rosamund. For reasons unknown, the wild, bohemian Irene responds to Rosamund's more calm nature. For the first time in her life, Irene tones down her bossy nature and starts to act like something resembling a young lady! But it's not all smooth sailing. Irene, much like an addict trying to reform themselves, falls off the goody-goody wagon a number of times, continuing to play malicious pranks on her mother's estate staff, one of the worst being an incident where Irene, acting unusually sweet to her nanny Emily Frost (nicknamed "Frosty" by Irene, perhaps partly as a joke for her prim, serious behavior), attends to the woman one day when said nanny doesn't feel quite herself. Pretending to get Frosty's digestive pills, Irene actually trades them out for white woodlice (you may  be more familiar with their other name, "roly-poly" bugs)

Yeah... little brat made Frosty eat these!!

Not that it matters, after all, how we get our diseases; the thing is to cure them when we have acquired them.  ~~ The professor in a moment of naivety in A Modern Tomboy

>>> an interesting link between a couple of Meade's stories for those that follow her works -- in this book,

dyptheria outbreaks are mentioned, as is "the new treatment of antitoxin". In another of Meade's works, Sweet Girl Graduate, the outbreak used is that of typhoid. <<<<<<<<

"The Blue Rowboat" by Claude Monet

There was a line in this book - about Irene wearing "a garish red dress",

sailing on the lake in "a blue sailboat tipped in white" -

such a simple line but it created such an image in my mind!

Girls' Edwardian Costume

(how I kinda pictured Irene's "garish red dress")

Parts of this book reminded me of a Tim Burton movie - what with Irene's red dress, the blue boat tipped in white, and Irene insisting on calling her mother "Mumsy-Pums". The vivid colors and patterns described, the quirky characters, dream-like estates the lower classes aspire to ... such a cool era!

Not sure if this book was one written in a rush or what, but I found a few continuity issues within the story. 

** Aunt Susy, the aunt of Lucy (Lucy's mother owns and runs Sunnyside School) tells the story of the unexpected death of her twin sister. The story explains Susy as Lucy's maternal aunt -- that kind of story would've never come up before? Her own mother wouldn't have mentioned losing a sister??

***Lucy's father, the professor, is described as having black hair at the beginning of the story, but in less than a year's time his hair is described as white, with no explanation given. 

There are multiple themes running throughout this story -- the pain and damage one experiences as a result of being bullied, the power of a reformed spirit, beauty in friendship, in fighting through life's barriers. Everything to leave you uplifted. :-)