Posts
Elizabeth Zelvin
As a writer, I have ambivalent feelings about Kindle, its parent, Amazon, and e-readers in general. As a reader, I like paying a lower price for books and not having to carry bulky tomes around in order always to have something to read at hand. When I finally got a Kindle as a gift, I hoped that I would fall in love with it.
I’d heard a lot of users say they loved their Kindle, whether or not they expected to before they got it. In our era of constantly changing technology, there are some devices that manage not to become objects of widespread if not universal love-hate at best. I love Sadie, my GPS, who’s navigated me through strange cities all over the country to bookstores and libraries on obscure streets and back roads. I love my EZ-Pass, which has saved me endless road hours and upper arm stress that I once would have spent rolling windows up and down and scrambling for change at toll booths on highways and bridges. I love my iPhone, which gives me long distance calls for free, connects me with help when I’m lost or late or stranded, and allows me to show the latest videos of my granddaughters dancing to my friends and anyone else I can grab hold of when the kvelling fit takes me.
So far, to my disappointment, my Kindle has not joined this select company. I like it, but I don’t love it. For one thing, in spite of having heard over and over before I got it how hard it is to format books for e-readers, I’m shocked at the unprofessional quality of the text.
To do the big publishers justice, the traditionally published new novels I’ve seen so far are as free of errors as the general run of print books. But, like many new Kindle users, I’ve been stocking my e-library with classics that are in the public domain and therefore offered either free or at a nominal cost. I’ve been reading my way through the works of Louisa May Alcott (23 books for $1.00) and of L.M. Montgomery (14 novels and numerous stories for $0.99), and the errors in both are downright weird. I don’t know if humans or electronics are responsible for repeated instances of “blas” for “blasé” and “piq” (was was it “picq”?) for “pique,” but they jolted me out of my reader’s trance over and over.
In Agatha Christie’s early books, the drawings and diagrams that are an essential part of the puzzle are missing. Chapter III of The Mysterious Affair at Styles begins: “To make this part of my story clear, I append the following plan of the first floor of Styles. The servants’ rooms are reached through the door B. They have no communication with the right wing, where the Inglethorps[ rooms were situated.” No plan. No indication, eg “[PLAN]”. No footnote. Frustration for the reader.
I’ve managed to learn to use just about all of the features of my iPhone, thanks to tips from other users and the helpful folks at the Verizon and Apple stores as well as trial and error. Not so the Kindle. I have the Kindle Touch, and I can turn the page forward or back with a simple tap on the right or left. But periodically, an inadvertent hand movement sends it skipping whole chapters forward or back through the text. So far, the only way I’ve found to correct this is to go back to the beginning of the book and “leaf” through it (tap-tap-tap-tap-tap....) until I find my lost place.
Electronics manufacturers delight in making their products increasingly “interactive.” Is this really a benefit? Maybe so, to the younger generation who tell all their Friends on Facebook every time they brush their teeth. But not to me. Every time my pinkie accidentally brushes the screen as I read, the ever-helpful folks at Amazon give me a thorough definition of the word, I’ve hit, most frequently “the” or “was.” What makes them think I need it?
At the end of each book, a screen invites the reader “Before you go...” to “Rate this book (on a five-star scale) and “Share you’ve finished.” I live in dread of accidentally tapping the “Share” button. I’m afraid that doing so will broadcast my reading choices to the millions of readers on Amazon, and of course no explanation of the feature is offered, so if I’m wrong, I’ll never know. I wanted a read I could take on the subway—not a permanent relationship with Big Brother.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Forty Words for "Looked"
Sandra Parshall
(I'm at that hair-pulling stage again, feverishly working on last-minute changes to a new book for my editor and trying to root out all the overused words that dot the landscape of my novel like stubborn dandelions. This post, which first appeared here in slightly different form back in the earliest days of Poe's Deadly Daughters, remains as sadly appropriate as ever.)
People who keep track of such things report that the English language has almost one million words. Why, then, do I have so much trouble finding an alternative to “looked”?
Every writer will know what I’m talking about. It’s that broken-record thing your mind does without your conscious awareness. I can write a complete first draft without realizing that I’ve used a vocabulary of 200 words, tops. When I shift into rewrite mode, my inner editor is aghast to discover the same verb two dozen times -- in every chapter. She looked. He looked. They both looked. Again and again and again.
[Pause to bang head on desk.]
Out comes my copy of the Rodale Synonym Finder. Peered? A specialty word to be used sparingly, but great in certain contexts. Peeked? How many adults ever peek? Glanced and stared are easy to abuse, and like looked, they can multiply faster in a manuscript than hangers in a closet.
When I begin a manuscript with the intention of avoiding looked, some other word invariably moves in and takes over. Glared is one of my worst rough draft habits. My characters, always a high-strung lot, glare at each other, at traffic, at stormy skies, at inanimate objects and life in general, all the way through the first draft. I never realize I’m doing this while I’m doing it.
[Pause for more head-banging.]
My only remedy is to read through the first draft and make a list of overused words so I can replace them next time around. I’m dismayed at how little this list varies from one manuscript to the next. [Do you ever learn? Apparently not.]
English sometimes feels like a blunt-force weapon to me, lacking the delicate calibration of other languages. We don’t have marvelous words like Weltschmerz and Schadenfreude and hikikomori to convey complex emotional states. To say the same thing, writers and speakers of English have to string several words into a phrase or an entire sentence. Even angst and macho are borrowed from other languages.
Alaskan Native Americans have forty words for snow, to denote its many states and textures. I have three: snow, the generic white stuff; slush, what the generic white stuff becomes when it lands on warm pavement; and snirt, the dirty mounds of once-white stuff that are created by plows and always seem to last into May.
English may not have forty words for snow, but it has plenty of alternatives to said, and enthusiastic writers try to use all of them. I am no exception. Ironically, though, said is one word that should be allowed to stand in most cases, because our characters become ridiculous when they’re constantly exclaiming, shouting, pleading, crying, whispering, expostulating, etc. Said is believed to be invisible to the reader, regardless of how many times the writer uses it -- unlike, for example, looked and glared. So I often find myself striking some of the alternatives and upping my said total in later drafts. Then my editor tells me to replace most of the dialogue attributions with action.
I confess to feeling a mean little spark of glee when I realize that a well-known writer has failed to tame a bad word habit. One bestselling author is addicted to the word coursed. Adrenaline coursed through him. Anger coursed through her. Panic coursed through her. Joy coursed through her. And, of course, desire coursed through him. The author’s books are popular all over the world, which indicates that little or no irritation has coursed through her fans.
Are writers the only people who notice these things? Do they matter at all to readers who are not writers themselves? Maybe not. Maybe a book with incessantly glaring characters would go over well with readers. But as long as my overused words make me want to bang my head on my desk, I’ll continue to keep my list and spend days finding alternatives before I declare a manuscript finished.
(I'm at that hair-pulling stage again, feverishly working on last-minute changes to a new book for my editor and trying to root out all the overused words that dot the landscape of my novel like stubborn dandelions. This post, which first appeared here in slightly different form back in the earliest days of Poe's Deadly Daughters, remains as sadly appropriate as ever.)
Every writer will know what I’m talking about. It’s that broken-record thing your mind does without your conscious awareness. I can write a complete first draft without realizing that I’ve used a vocabulary of 200 words, tops. When I shift into rewrite mode, my inner editor is aghast to discover the same verb two dozen times -- in every chapter. She looked. He looked. They both looked. Again and again and again.
[Pause to bang head on desk.]
Out comes my copy of the Rodale Synonym Finder. Peered? A specialty word to be used sparingly, but great in certain contexts. Peeked? How many adults ever peek? Glanced and stared are easy to abuse, and like looked, they can multiply faster in a manuscript than hangers in a closet.
When I begin a manuscript with the intention of avoiding looked, some other word invariably moves in and takes over. Glared is one of my worst rough draft habits. My characters, always a high-strung lot, glare at each other, at traffic, at stormy skies, at inanimate objects and life in general, all the way through the first draft. I never realize I’m doing this while I’m doing it.
[Pause for more head-banging.]
My only remedy is to read through the first draft and make a list of overused words so I can replace them next time around. I’m dismayed at how little this list varies from one manuscript to the next. [Do you ever learn? Apparently not.]
English sometimes feels like a blunt-force weapon to me, lacking the delicate calibration of other languages. We don’t have marvelous words like Weltschmerz and Schadenfreude and hikikomori to convey complex emotional states. To say the same thing, writers and speakers of English have to string several words into a phrase or an entire sentence. Even angst and macho are borrowed from other languages.
Alaskan Native Americans have forty words for snow, to denote its many states and textures. I have three: snow, the generic white stuff; slush, what the generic white stuff becomes when it lands on warm pavement; and snirt, the dirty mounds of once-white stuff that are created by plows and always seem to last into May.
English may not have forty words for snow, but it has plenty of alternatives to said, and enthusiastic writers try to use all of them. I am no exception. Ironically, though, said is one word that should be allowed to stand in most cases, because our characters become ridiculous when they’re constantly exclaiming, shouting, pleading, crying, whispering, expostulating, etc. Said is believed to be invisible to the reader, regardless of how many times the writer uses it -- unlike, for example, looked and glared. So I often find myself striking some of the alternatives and upping my said total in later drafts. Then my editor tells me to replace most of the dialogue attributions with action.
I confess to feeling a mean little spark of glee when I realize that a well-known writer has failed to tame a bad word habit. One bestselling author is addicted to the word coursed. Adrenaline coursed through him. Anger coursed through her. Panic coursed through her. Joy coursed through her. And, of course, desire coursed through him. The author’s books are popular all over the world, which indicates that little or no irritation has coursed through her fans.
Are writers the only people who notice these things? Do they matter at all to readers who are not writers themselves? Maybe not. Maybe a book with incessantly glaring characters would go over well with readers. But as long as my overused words make me want to bang my head on my desk, I’ll continue to keep my list and spend days finding alternatives before I declare a manuscript finished.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
King Eddy Reigns Again
Sharon Wildwind
King Eddy was really popular in Calgary.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so informal. His full name was Edward Albert Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, By the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas King, Defender of the Faith, Emperor of India. He was called Bertie for obvious reasons.
If you’re still lost, try the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Prince of Wales longer than anyone else, and the second longest-serving heir apparent in British history. He’s the person that the Edwardian Era (1901 to 1910) was named after.
The Canadian prairie provinces were being settled like mad during the Edwardian Era. All across Canada King Edward streets, apartments, hotels, parks, and schools sprang up like mushrooms. In Calgary two of the King’s namesakes—the King Eddy Hotel and King Edward School—have not fared well in past decades, but that’s about to change.
Maybe.
The King Edward Hotel, lovingly known locally as The King Eddy, was originally a commercial traveller’s hotel, situated downtown across the street from the Canadian Pacific Railroad tracks. As you might imagine, the neighborhood has always been, well, iffy. Both the hotel and the neighborhood survived two world wars, prohibition (Yes, Alberta had its own anti-liquor laws), and many of Calgary famous boom/bust economic cycles. It morphed from a traveller’s hotel, to an illicit bar, to a single-room-only hotel to, in the 1970s, the best blues bar in Alberta. (Unless you’re from Edmonton, in which case you are likely under the misapprehension that Blues on Whyte was the best blues bar in Alberta.)
Though part of the building has been declared a heritage site, the entire building is now shut down, waiting to be a centrepiece of a new national music center, which is to be built, literally, around the hotel. I think the huge metal heart, which was welded across the front doors to secure them says it all. The King Eddy still has a place in a lot of hearts in Calgary.
The music centre and a lot of other things are part of a project, currently called the East Village Experience, to revive part of downtown. Reviving the east end is another thing that has survived multiple Calgary boom/bust economic cycles. I think this is the third revival promised since I moved to Calgary. I may have lost count. The other two never happened because of the bust part of those cycles, but I really hope this one goes ahead. Not only does that part of town need a make-over, but I would love to hear blues ringing once again from the King Eddy and its environs.
While I do hope the music center project succeeds, what my fingers are really crossed for is the King Edward School project.
Calgary sits on a massive sandstone deposit. On November 7, 1886, a large number of downtown Calgary’s wooden buildings burned. After the fire City Council passed a law that downtown buildings and some other buildings, like schools, were henceforth to be built of sandstone. King Edward was one of those sandstone schools.
There was nothing iffy about the residential neighborhood in which the school was built, and nothing iffy about the school either. Hardwood floors. Sixteen-foot-wide halls. Huge windows. Monogrammed cast-iron doors on the basement boilers. Decorative Canadian maple leafs sandblasted into the side of the building.
Time took its toll. As student populations declined, one wing was partially torn down so there would be less space to heat or maintain. An assortment of functional (read unattractive) sub-buildings were attached hither and yon as need dictated. Eventually the school closed and the doors were padlocked.
Last week a consortium announced that the school and its former playground, will be turned into what's being called an arts incubator.
(If you choose to view the video about the project, my apologies for the political message that precedes the video. It's campaign time in Alberta, and I can't figure out how to turn off that annoying advertisement.)
The school's truncated wing will be restored to its original proportions by adding a glassed-in meeting space and gallery area. Classrooms will again be used as classrooms, this time for art classes and lectures. Art groups will have office space. Developers will build combined apartments/studio spaces where artists can live and work in the same place.
Even the thought that my husband and I might one day snag one of those studio apartments makes me salivate. It’s a long shot, but I can dream, and if we never snag one, there will still be classes, readings, art events, and all manner of fun things to do in that wonderful space.
Bring on the revival of both King Eddies!
-----
Quote for the week:
Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again. ~Joseph Campbell (1904 – 1987), American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Monday, February 20, 2012
Presidential Trivia in Honor of Presidents Day
George Washington's "wooden teeth" were actually made of walrus tusks.
PRESIDENTS LINCOLN, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy were assassinated in office.
ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS were made on the lives of Jackson, T. Roosevelt, F. Roosevelt, Truman, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, G. H. W. Bush, Clinton, and G. W. Bush.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were the only presidents to sign the Declaration of Independence, and they both died on its 50th anniversary, July 4, 1826.
James Madison was the first president to wear trousers rather than knee breeches.
James Monroe, like Adams and Jefferson, also died on the 4th of July, but in 1831.
John Quincy Adams was the only president elected to the House after his presidency.
Andrew Jackson was the first president to ride in a train.
Martin Van Buren and his wife spoke Dutch at home.
William Henry Harrison served only thirty days in office before dying of pneumonia.
Several American presidents had no formal education, including Washington, Jackson, Taylor, Fillmore, Lincoln, Johnson, and Cleveland.
Eisenhower was a skilled chef, and the first president licensed to fly an airplane.
Franklin Pierce memorized his entire inaugural speech. (3,319 words).
Rutherford B. Hayes was the first president to use a phone. His phone number was "1".
Theodore Roosevelt was the youngest person ever to be president.
John F. Kennedy established the Peace Corps in 1961.
Gerald Ford held his daughter's high school prom in The White House.
Jimmy Carter was the first of the presidents to be born in a hospital.
George Bush survived four plane crashes during WWII.
Barack Obama dislikes ice cream after working in an ice cream parlor as a teen.
I borrowed the facts above from this blog and this blog.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Canada Calling: Canada Reads
It all started in 2001. The Canadian Broadcasting Company (also known as the CBC or the Mothership) had this idea that everyone in Canada reading the same 5 books, discussing them, defending them, and picking their favorite would be a good thing not only for reading, but for the country in general. And so, Canada Reads was born.
This year marks the Canada Reads eleventh anniversary and, my, how the infant has grown. Here’s a summary of how Canada Reads works.
In the fall of the previous year (2011 for the awards given last week) Canadians were asked for recommendations of books by Canadian authors, currently in print, and written or translated into English. Previous years have all focused on fiction, but for the first time, in 2012, competition was for non-fiction books. A book could have been published in any year, as long as it was still in print.
Each recommendation garnered one point for that book. The 40 books with the most points at the end of the 18-day voting period made the cut.
A second round of public voting narrowed the list to 10 and that list was made public on two CBC radio programs at the beginning of 2011 November.
Each “read” involves five well-known Canadians selected to act as book defenders. This year they were a TV star, model, high-profile CEO, musician, and lawyer. Each of them picked one book from the top ten list, and those five, defended by their advocate, went into the final competition.
During one-hour debates, broadcast daily from 2012 February 6 to 9, the five defenders debated the merits of their chosen books. These programs were broadcast on CBC radio and television, and were live-streamed on the Internet.
Canadians have a reputation for being nice, so it was a surprise for a lot of people when on Day 1, one of the debaters—the lawyer—made comments that were somewhere between inflammatory and downright rude. Her book was voted off on Day 2. Controversies continued throughout the week.
The spin out this year reached incredible proportions: blogs, tweets, discussion on regional and local CBC programs, library and book store displays, discussions in coffee shops. Keep in mind this was about reading, a topic that rarely generates a yawn.
After four exhausting days, here’s how the results turned out:
Prisoner of Tehran by Marina Nemat, defended by Arlene Dickinson (eliminated on day 1)
The Tiger by John Vaillant, defended by Anne-France Goldwater (eliminated on day 2)
On a Cold Road by Dave Bidini, defended by Stacey McKenzie (eliminated on day 3)
The Game by Ken Dryden, defended by Alan Thicke (eliminated in a tough tie-breaker on day 4)
Something Fierce by Carmen Aguirre, defended by Shad (The winner)
There was one other winner. Each year the publisher of the winning book makes a financial donation to a national adult literacy organization. This year's recipient was Frontier College's Aboriginal Literacy Program. For over 100 years, Frontier College has used volunteers to deliver literacy programs across Canada. Their Aboriginal Literacy Programs operate in more than 60 First Nation and Métis communities; many are in the most isolated communities in Canada. Additionally, Frontier College contributes books into these communities.
Friday, February 17, 2012
The Right Annie Moore
by Sheila Connolly
This week my husband and I joined our daughter at a local Trivia evening, held at a bar slash bowling alley. She plays there regularly with several other people, two of whom were also there. In age they fall midway between the rest of us. One of them is scarily knowledgeable about almost anything (good man to have on your side!). I think our daughter invited us just to make sure we acknowledge how clueless we are. (Our team came in fourth out of ten or twelve.)
One of the last questions of the evening was about Annie Moore, the first person to enter this country through Ellis Island when it opened on January 1st, 1892. The Trivia question was, what was her nationality?
I had never heard of Annie Moore. And she was Irish. I bow my head in shame—I had grandparents who came through Ellis Island in 1907. Of course I had to fill in this conspicuous gap in my knowledge after I came home.
For the distinction of her arrival Annie received a $10 gold coin. She was either 13, 14, or 15 on that day (the ship's manifest says she was 13 but it was apparently wrong, and her birthday was January 1st, so she would have turned 15 on the 1st). She left from Queenstown (now Cobh), County Cork, and spent twelve days at sea on the S.S. Nevada, as one of 148 steerage passengers, which also included two of her brothers. They arrived on December 31st but were not processed until the next day. Then she disappeared into New York, to join her parents.
That would have been the end of that little footnote in immigrant history, except for the erection of a bronze statue of Annie Moore during the renovation of the Ferry Building on Ellis Island, completed in 2008, when her story was revived.
Problem is, they got the wrong Annie Moore. And the wrong one became famous.
This little mix-up was discovered by genealogist Megan Smolenyak, who was working on a documentary on immigration and wanted to track down the descendants of Annie Moore (as she told host Renee Montagne in a 2006 NPR interview). She did a little digging and discovered that documents for the Annie of the statue showed a birth location of Illinois. All right, mistakes happen in immigration documents all the time (and now and then, people lie!). Then she found more with the Illinois reference, and wrong Annie's cover was blown.
What was the source of this mix-up? Ms. Smolenyak says that after an earlier PBS documentary about Ellis Island, that referred to the correct Annie, somebody claiming to be from her family called the makers of the documentary and said, hey, that's my great-grandmother. And theirs became the accepted story—without any documentary verification. Maybe it stuck because it was an appealing story—the wrong Annie lived a difficult life in Texas and died tragically. The right Annie lived out her life in New York and had eleven children. Half did not live to maturity, but the rest did well for themselves.
When Ms. Smolenyak called the descendants of the right Annie, most of them said, "sure, we knew that." It didn't seem to bother them that some other Annie was getting the credit.
In these days of rampant identity theft, and poaching of people's information from any number of Internet sources, it's interesting to step back to a time when your life could be measured by a handful of documents—birth, marriage, death, maybe a deed or two—and your story was passed on (and often mangled) orally by family members. And it's also interesting that the dramatic story rather than the more ordinary one captured the public imagination.
Is it any wonder that genealogy is great training for writing mysteries?
This week my husband and I joined our daughter at a local Trivia evening, held at a bar slash bowling alley. She plays there regularly with several other people, two of whom were also there. In age they fall midway between the rest of us. One of them is scarily knowledgeable about almost anything (good man to have on your side!). I think our daughter invited us just to make sure we acknowledge how clueless we are. (Our team came in fourth out of ten or twelve.)
 |
| The Ellis Island statue |
I had never heard of Annie Moore. And she was Irish. I bow my head in shame—I had grandparents who came through Ellis Island in 1907. Of course I had to fill in this conspicuous gap in my knowledge after I came home.
For the distinction of her arrival Annie received a $10 gold coin. She was either 13, 14, or 15 on that day (the ship's manifest says she was 13 but it was apparently wrong, and her birthday was January 1st, so she would have turned 15 on the 1st). She left from Queenstown (now Cobh), County Cork, and spent twelve days at sea on the S.S. Nevada, as one of 148 steerage passengers, which also included two of her brothers. They arrived on December 31st but were not processed until the next day. Then she disappeared into New York, to join her parents.
 |
| Ship manifest: Annie's entry is the second line |
That would have been the end of that little footnote in immigrant history, except for the erection of a bronze statue of Annie Moore during the renovation of the Ferry Building on Ellis Island, completed in 2008, when her story was revived.
Problem is, they got the wrong Annie Moore. And the wrong one became famous.
This little mix-up was discovered by genealogist Megan Smolenyak, who was working on a documentary on immigration and wanted to track down the descendants of Annie Moore (as she told host Renee Montagne in a 2006 NPR interview). She did a little digging and discovered that documents for the Annie of the statue showed a birth location of Illinois. All right, mistakes happen in immigration documents all the time (and now and then, people lie!). Then she found more with the Illinois reference, and wrong Annie's cover was blown.
What was the source of this mix-up? Ms. Smolenyak says that after an earlier PBS documentary about Ellis Island, that referred to the correct Annie, somebody claiming to be from her family called the makers of the documentary and said, hey, that's my great-grandmother. And theirs became the accepted story—without any documentary verification. Maybe it stuck because it was an appealing story—the wrong Annie lived a difficult life in Texas and died tragically. The right Annie lived out her life in New York and had eleven children. Half did not live to maturity, but the rest did well for themselves.
When Ms. Smolenyak called the descendants of the right Annie, most of them said, "sure, we knew that." It didn't seem to bother them that some other Annie was getting the credit.
In these days of rampant identity theft, and poaching of people's information from any number of Internet sources, it's interesting to step back to a time when your life could be measured by a handful of documents—birth, marriage, death, maybe a deed or two—and your story was passed on (and often mangled) orally by family members. And it's also interesting that the dramatic story rather than the more ordinary one captured the public imagination.
Is it any wonder that genealogy is great training for writing mysteries?
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Patricia Wentworth and Miss Silver
Elizabeth Zelvin
British mystery writer Patricia Wentworth, creator of the beloved Miss Silver, was born in 1878, the same year as my grandmother, and published dozens of novels from an early age to her death in 1961. I’ve always preferred Miss Silver to Miss Marple, and Wentworth’s books, of which I have more than forty, are still among my comfort reads. As the genteel whodunit falls further and further out of fashion, I keep checking my emotional temperature to see if my response to books like these is diminishing or if they still hold my interest. To this end, I’ve reread quite a few of them in a row recently and can share my latest observations.
In the 1940s and 1950s, when most of the Miss Silver books were written, it was acceptable to write to a formula. Today, even in a long-running series, the author is challenged both to sustain interest in the formula (because we and our publishers still want readers to get attached ot our characters and come back for more) and to break the mold in some way in every book. Wentworth uses stock epithets to describe Miss Silver, from the intelligent and perceptive gaze that sees through the human race “as if they were glass-fronted” to her dowdy Victorian mode of dress and her flat with its curly-legged yellow maple furniture and bright (or faded, depending on the date) peacock-blue curtains. (How many times in the Iliad did Homer refer to “rosy-fingered Dawn”? Stock epithets are a literary fashion that evidently ebbs and flows.)
In Miss Silver’s traditional world, like Miss Marple’s, the classes know their place. Girls are either good or bad, intelligent or silly, filled with integrity, venal, or what we would now call wimpy. Men are gentlemen or not, though some of the gentlemen are bounders or villains. Housemaids and charwomen are never clever. Working class men are never brave or talented above their station. On this round of re-reading, the women’s limitations annoyed me a little more than they used to. Too many of the romances feature girls who, underneath a façade of independence, long for their menfolk to be high-handed. This is a romantic convention that I have to accept for what it is if I want to read pre-feminist novels at all, but it does get a little wearisome.
Certain themes and literary devices recur frequently in these books. Amnesia and blackmail crop up again and again. Many of the books included extended descriptions of a character’s dreams, not as a plot device or to be analyzed in any way, but as an expression of character. While Miss Silver lives in London, the setting is more likely to be a seaside village or a big house set above forbidding cliffs. Part of the appeal of Golden Age mysteries was the portrayal of country-house life. The upper classes had endless leisure time to pay extended visits to beautifully furnished homes with extensive grounds and large staffs of servants. In Wentworth’s era, spanning World War II, that life was vanishing, which might even increase its charm for the nostalgic reader.
Some of these books were written or published during or just after the War. One feature of them that fascinates me in a bizarre kind of way is the curiously naive view of the Nazis, persisting as late as 1945. There are references to the fifth column and the Blitz, spies, secret formulas or weapons, and German concentration camps. But no mention is made of gas ovens or slave labor. In one story, when a young woman who got stuck in France and interned reappears in England three years later, she explains that she was put in a concentration camp, but they let her out because she got sick! My fascination with this innocent scenario suggests that I experience reading a book written in that era, limited by what people knew at the time, as a kind of time travel into a past in which widespread ignorance of atrocities like the Nazis’ was possible, whereas today it's as extinct as those armies of servants attending the country houseparty.
British mystery writer Patricia Wentworth, creator of the beloved Miss Silver, was born in 1878, the same year as my grandmother, and published dozens of novels from an early age to her death in 1961. I’ve always preferred Miss Silver to Miss Marple, and Wentworth’s books, of which I have more than forty, are still among my comfort reads. As the genteel whodunit falls further and further out of fashion, I keep checking my emotional temperature to see if my response to books like these is diminishing or if they still hold my interest. To this end, I’ve reread quite a few of them in a row recently and can share my latest observations.
In the 1940s and 1950s, when most of the Miss Silver books were written, it was acceptable to write to a formula. Today, even in a long-running series, the author is challenged both to sustain interest in the formula (because we and our publishers still want readers to get attached ot our characters and come back for more) and to break the mold in some way in every book. Wentworth uses stock epithets to describe Miss Silver, from the intelligent and perceptive gaze that sees through the human race “as if they were glass-fronted” to her dowdy Victorian mode of dress and her flat with its curly-legged yellow maple furniture and bright (or faded, depending on the date) peacock-blue curtains. (How many times in the Iliad did Homer refer to “rosy-fingered Dawn”? Stock epithets are a literary fashion that evidently ebbs and flows.)
In Miss Silver’s traditional world, like Miss Marple’s, the classes know their place. Girls are either good or bad, intelligent or silly, filled with integrity, venal, or what we would now call wimpy. Men are gentlemen or not, though some of the gentlemen are bounders or villains. Housemaids and charwomen are never clever. Working class men are never brave or talented above their station. On this round of re-reading, the women’s limitations annoyed me a little more than they used to. Too many of the romances feature girls who, underneath a façade of independence, long for their menfolk to be high-handed. This is a romantic convention that I have to accept for what it is if I want to read pre-feminist novels at all, but it does get a little wearisome.
Certain themes and literary devices recur frequently in these books. Amnesia and blackmail crop up again and again. Many of the books included extended descriptions of a character’s dreams, not as a plot device or to be analyzed in any way, but as an expression of character. While Miss Silver lives in London, the setting is more likely to be a seaside village or a big house set above forbidding cliffs. Part of the appeal of Golden Age mysteries was the portrayal of country-house life. The upper classes had endless leisure time to pay extended visits to beautifully furnished homes with extensive grounds and large staffs of servants. In Wentworth’s era, spanning World War II, that life was vanishing, which might even increase its charm for the nostalgic reader.
Some of these books were written or published during or just after the War. One feature of them that fascinates me in a bizarre kind of way is the curiously naive view of the Nazis, persisting as late as 1945. There are references to the fifth column and the Blitz, spies, secret formulas or weapons, and German concentration camps. But no mention is made of gas ovens or slave labor. In one story, when a young woman who got stuck in France and interned reappears in England three years later, she explains that she was put in a concentration camp, but they let her out because she got sick! My fascination with this innocent scenario suggests that I experience reading a book written in that era, limited by what people knew at the time, as a kind of time travel into a past in which widespread ignorance of atrocities like the Nazis’ was possible, whereas today it's as extinct as those armies of servants attending the country houseparty.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
That name sounds familiar...
by Sandra Parshall
How many young Emmas, Isabellas, Jacobs and Ethans do you know? According to databases of popular baby names, parents in the U.S. have been stuck on those names for years, so if you haven’t come across a lot of kids with those monikers, you soon will. (We have two Isabellas of different ages on our 10-family cul de sac, and one Jacob. In our own household, we have a 10-year-old cat named Emma.)
Despite all the colorful baby names that catch our attention, and the modernized spellings some parents think are so clever, Americans have remained remarkably steady in their preference for traditional names that are both attractive and mainstream. Even during the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, when society was turning itself inside out, couples continued naming their babies Michael and Lisa, David and Michelle, James and Jennifer. John and Mary aren’t at the very top anymore, but over the past century they have been the most enduringly popular baby names in the U.S.
A handful of unusual names have gained footholds in the top ranks. Jax, Jaxen, Jaxon, and Jaxton are all on the list, as are Unique and Precious. Cheyenne (for a girl) appeared at #84 in 1999 and was #229 in 2010, and Jayden, a unisex name that is also spelled Jaden, Jaeden, and Jaiden, has risen quickly. According to the Social Security Administration’s database, Jayden was the #4 boy’s name in 2010 and the #212 girl’s name. Jaden, for boys, was at #91, and #762 for girls. Variations of the name first jumped into the top 1,000 baby names in the late 1990s. Where did it come from? Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have a 13-year-old son named Jaden, and it might seem the name was created to honor the mother, but it appeared in written records a century before any of the Smiths were born. And it was already gaining popularity before the Smiths named their son Jaden, so they may have been following a trend rather creating one. (Show business now has another baby boy named Jayden, Britney Spears’s son.)
Celebrities’ names for their offspring have little influence on most parents – and for that we should probably be grateful. Moms and Dads have not rushed to follow Gwyneth Paltrow’s example in calling her first child Apple. It’s too soon to tell, though, whether names of celebrity babies born in 2011 will strike a chord with other parents. I fervently hope Alicia Silverstone didn’t ignite a trend when she named her baby boy Bear Blu. Beyonce, as you no doubt know, has a little girl named Blue Ivy. Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon named their twins Moroccan (boy) and Monroe (girl). Mike Tyson chose the shorter Morocco as his son’s name. Viola Davis and her husband adopted a boy and named him Genesis. In similar spirit, Natalie Portman named her son Aleph, for the first character in the Hebrew alphabet. Mike Myers and his wife thought Spike was the perfect name to hang on an innocent child who was too young to defend himself.
The celebrities who arguably have the greatest impact on baby naming trends these days are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. After the birth of their daughter Shiloh in 2006, the name appeared among the top 1,000 for girls and has been there ever since. Maddox, the name of one of their sons, appeared on the list for the first time ever in 2003 and was at #180 in 2010. Their twins’ names, Vivienne and Knox, landed on the list for the first time after the Jolie-Pitt pair were born. Pax and Zahara’s names haven’t caught on, though. The parents have perennially favored first names, and now Jolie is also popular for girls.
A few odd names show up on the top 1,000 list, fade away for a while, then reappear. Unique (for a girl) is one of those, and Maverick (for a boy) is another. A few old-fashioned names, like Ethel and Gertrude, seem to have disappeared permanently, while others have hung on. Why, I wonder, have Cora and Cornelia remained steadily in the top 1,000, while Cordelia hasn’t appeared since 1950?
My own name has been on the list every year except one since 1913, and during the decade I was born it was at #5 or #6 for eight years in a row and at #8 or 9 for another three years. That explains why I meet so many women my age named Sandra. It remained in the top 100 until 1984 and has been dropping slowly since then. In 2010, Sandra ranked #517. Soon baby girls with my name may be rarities.
Writers use various lists to find out how common a name was in the year a character was born (or would have been if he or she were real), but anybody who wants to avoid giving an overused name to a baby would be smart to check the rankings too. In addition to the Social Security site (which hasn't yet been updated with 2011 information), you’ll find helpful data at BabyCenter.com and Parenting.com. Parenting predicts that the most popular baby names in 2012 will be... pretty much the same as in the past few years.
What are your children’s names? Why did you choose them? Do you think it's better to give a child a traditional name or something unusual?
How does your own name rank in popularity?
How many young Emmas, Isabellas, Jacobs and Ethans do you know? According to databases of popular baby names, parents in the U.S. have been stuck on those names for years, so if you haven’t come across a lot of kids with those monikers, you soon will. (We have two Isabellas of different ages on our 10-family cul de sac, and one Jacob. In our own household, we have a 10-year-old cat named Emma.)
 |
| "You named me WHAT?" |
Despite all the colorful baby names that catch our attention, and the modernized spellings some parents think are so clever, Americans have remained remarkably steady in their preference for traditional names that are both attractive and mainstream. Even during the turbulent late 1960s and early 1970s, when society was turning itself inside out, couples continued naming their babies Michael and Lisa, David and Michelle, James and Jennifer. John and Mary aren’t at the very top anymore, but over the past century they have been the most enduringly popular baby names in the U.S.
A handful of unusual names have gained footholds in the top ranks. Jax, Jaxen, Jaxon, and Jaxton are all on the list, as are Unique and Precious. Cheyenne (for a girl) appeared at #84 in 1999 and was #229 in 2010, and Jayden, a unisex name that is also spelled Jaden, Jaeden, and Jaiden, has risen quickly. According to the Social Security Administration’s database, Jayden was the #4 boy’s name in 2010 and the #212 girl’s name. Jaden, for boys, was at #91, and #762 for girls. Variations of the name first jumped into the top 1,000 baby names in the late 1990s. Where did it come from? Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith have a 13-year-old son named Jaden, and it might seem the name was created to honor the mother, but it appeared in written records a century before any of the Smiths were born. And it was already gaining popularity before the Smiths named their son Jaden, so they may have been following a trend rather creating one. (Show business now has another baby boy named Jayden, Britney Spears’s son.)
Celebrities’ names for their offspring have little influence on most parents – and for that we should probably be grateful. Moms and Dads have not rushed to follow Gwyneth Paltrow’s example in calling her first child Apple. It’s too soon to tell, though, whether names of celebrity babies born in 2011 will strike a chord with other parents. I fervently hope Alicia Silverstone didn’t ignite a trend when she named her baby boy Bear Blu. Beyonce, as you no doubt know, has a little girl named Blue Ivy. Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon named their twins Moroccan (boy) and Monroe (girl). Mike Tyson chose the shorter Morocco as his son’s name. Viola Davis and her husband adopted a boy and named him Genesis. In similar spirit, Natalie Portman named her son Aleph, for the first character in the Hebrew alphabet. Mike Myers and his wife thought Spike was the perfect name to hang on an innocent child who was too young to defend himself.
The celebrities who arguably have the greatest impact on baby naming trends these days are Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt. After the birth of their daughter Shiloh in 2006, the name appeared among the top 1,000 for girls and has been there ever since. Maddox, the name of one of their sons, appeared on the list for the first time ever in 2003 and was at #180 in 2010. Their twins’ names, Vivienne and Knox, landed on the list for the first time after the Jolie-Pitt pair were born. Pax and Zahara’s names haven’t caught on, though. The parents have perennially favored first names, and now Jolie is also popular for girls.
A few odd names show up on the top 1,000 list, fade away for a while, then reappear. Unique (for a girl) is one of those, and Maverick (for a boy) is another. A few old-fashioned names, like Ethel and Gertrude, seem to have disappeared permanently, while others have hung on. Why, I wonder, have Cora and Cornelia remained steadily in the top 1,000, while Cordelia hasn’t appeared since 1950?
My own name has been on the list every year except one since 1913, and during the decade I was born it was at #5 or #6 for eight years in a row and at #8 or 9 for another three years. That explains why I meet so many women my age named Sandra. It remained in the top 100 until 1984 and has been dropping slowly since then. In 2010, Sandra ranked #517. Soon baby girls with my name may be rarities.
Writers use various lists to find out how common a name was in the year a character was born (or would have been if he or she were real), but anybody who wants to avoid giving an overused name to a baby would be smart to check the rankings too. In addition to the Social Security site (which hasn't yet been updated with 2011 information), you’ll find helpful data at BabyCenter.com and Parenting.com. Parenting predicts that the most popular baby names in 2012 will be... pretty much the same as in the past few years.
What are your children’s names? Why did you choose them? Do you think it's better to give a child a traditional name or something unusual?
How does your own name rank in popularity?
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Premeditated Acts of Kindness
Sharon Wildwind
While I write this blog, my husband is in the kitchen washing dishes. Which I love not only because the dishes get washed, but because it was a deliberate, premeditated act of kindness.
Forget this random act nonsense. The problem with randomness is, in the words of Paul Stookey’s song, For if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for? I suspect random kindness has more to do with what the giver gets than the recipient.
A couple of days ago I was in line behind a woman who was three cents short of the amount she needed to make a purchase. I had three cents in my hand. It would have been so easy to say, “Here, let me get that,” and hand the clerk the money. But I didn’t. Money might be a sore spot for this woman. My random act of kindness might have embarrassed her, or made her feel worse than giving her an opportunity to rummage in her purse and come up with the three cents herself.
If she hadn’t found the three cents, abandoned her purchase, and started to walk out of the store, would I have stepped in? Maybe. Probably. I’m not sure. Sometimes emotion takes over for common sense.
Does this mean that I’m advocating for only planned, rational giving? Not at all. I love surprises and grand gestures as much as the next gal. In fact, I’d love to see people give more often, give more, and put some thought into those gifts.
Here’s my virtual bouquet to all of you for Valentine’s Day. Let’s pass those hugs around. And a little chocolate, if you’re so inclined.
Hugs from Calgary.
Monday, February 13, 2012
The Love List: A Gratitude-Raising Exercise
The winner of a signed copy of Deborah Crombie's No Mark Upon Her is SUE HANNON. Sue, please send your mailing address to sandraparshall@yahoo.com. Congratulations!
by Julia Buckley
Since tomorrow is a nationally celebrated day of love, I thought I would share a list of things that I love, and to recommend that you make your own list. I do this on occasion, either when I need cheering up or when I feel that I'm not being grateful for what I have. The act of making the list, psychologists say, actually increases a person's happiness level by more than fifty percent. (Note: I made up that statistic).
In any case, making a love list is fun, and one list is never the same as another, because you're listing what you love TODAY, right now. This will include not only the memories that you find accessible in that moment, but the things which have recently left impressions upon you.
Here's a love list I made just for this post:
I LOVE:
--my two teenage sons. They are inarguably violent and constantly bickering with each other (and with me), but they are smart and funny and mostly fun to be around.
--my hard-working husband. He's at work right now, proving my contention.
--the works of William Shakespeare, particularly THE TEMPEST, (and whoever may have written them--I'm content to be in ignorance forever).
--all of my pets since childhood: Midnight the cat, Buffy the dog, Simon the dog, and all of these cats: Max, Holly, Cato, Clouseau, Kahlua, Pibby Tails, Rose, and Mr. Mulliner.
--print books AND Kindles, because both of them give me access to the great storytellers.
--my own memory. I know it might someday fade away, so I treasure it highly now.
--watching tv. It may sound lowbrow, but I do love my television.
--flowers. The roses pictured above are a wee Valentine's Day present to myself (along with the red vase).
--my job. I get to discuss literature EVERY DAY.
--my mom and dad, my two brothers and two sisters. We're far apart, but still close.
--Griswald, the ancient teddy bear my mother brought me from Germany in 1971. There is a long and beautiful story behind his arrival in the U.S., but I'll save that for another post.
--Baby pictures of my children. No one else wants to see them OR talk about them, but they bring me such joy.
--ALL FOOD. But especially things made with chocolate. And extra-cheesy pizza.
--The classical station I listen to on the way to work, and the cool announcer who talks so softly I have to turn the volume way up.
--All kinds of music. Today I am especially appreciating the music of Emmylou Harris, ABBA, and Gordon Lightfoot. Oh, and The Beatles (George was my favorite).
--My vacuum cleaner, which transforms my cluttery house filled with cat-hair dustballs into something nice again.
--Going to the movies. It may be old fashioned, and the popcorn I like may be filled with horrible trans fats, but I still like going to a theatre and, yes, eating a tub of popcorn. The popcorn even gives me a stomach ache sometimes, but I want it anyway. Love is complex.
--A great mystery novel. And a great romance. And, based on my new love for the GAME OF THRONES series, I guess I enjoy fantasy, as well.
--Musicals. Today I was singing a song from "Oklahoma!" in the Jewel parking lot. I also love THE SOUND OF MUSIC, ANNIE, BRIGADOON, KISMET, THE MATCHMAKER, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, and NO NO NANETTE.
--Babies. Any babies.
--Games. My favorite is TRIVIAL PURSUIT.
--My car. My son will be 20 by the time it's paid off, but everything in it works, and I'm glad to have it when I see all the people waiting for the bus. (It also has the very first car cd player I've ever had, and despite the fact that this is now "old" car technology, I am thrilled with it).
--The student who daily asks me what I have in my lunch. She's curious in a very sweet way. She also likes to write poetry on my whiteboard during the free period--and it's always rather beautiful poetry.
--Poetry. Today I am appreciating Edna St. Vincent Millay.
--The late Erma Bombeck.
--Candles--all shapes and sizes.
--Perfume! I am a bit of a fragrance-o-phile, and I never like to wear the same scent two days in a row. Today I am wearing Lolita Lempicka.
--Okay, last one--but this list was really fun to make! You'll think this makes me sound ultra boring, but I love MY BED. It has been so cold in our little attic room this winter that I have three blankets on our tiny bed (full size, while my husband longs for King)--but once I'm under those covers, my bed is the warmest, best place in all the world, and I have to be dragged out of it every morning.
What would be the first thing (besides your family, of course) on your love list?
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!
by Julia Buckley
In any case, making a love list is fun, and one list is never the same as another, because you're listing what you love TODAY, right now. This will include not only the memories that you find accessible in that moment, but the things which have recently left impressions upon you.
Here's a love list I made just for this post:
I LOVE:
--my two teenage sons. They are inarguably violent and constantly bickering with each other (and with me), but they are smart and funny and mostly fun to be around.
--my hard-working husband. He's at work right now, proving my contention.
--the works of William Shakespeare, particularly THE TEMPEST, (and whoever may have written them--I'm content to be in ignorance forever).
--all of my pets since childhood: Midnight the cat, Buffy the dog, Simon the dog, and all of these cats: Max, Holly, Cato, Clouseau, Kahlua, Pibby Tails, Rose, and Mr. Mulliner.
--print books AND Kindles, because both of them give me access to the great storytellers.
--my own memory. I know it might someday fade away, so I treasure it highly now.
--watching tv. It may sound lowbrow, but I do love my television.
--flowers. The roses pictured above are a wee Valentine's Day present to myself (along with the red vase).
--my job. I get to discuss literature EVERY DAY.
--my mom and dad, my two brothers and two sisters. We're far apart, but still close.
--Griswald, the ancient teddy bear my mother brought me from Germany in 1971. There is a long and beautiful story behind his arrival in the U.S., but I'll save that for another post.
--Baby pictures of my children. No one else wants to see them OR talk about them, but they bring me such joy.
--ALL FOOD. But especially things made with chocolate. And extra-cheesy pizza.
--The classical station I listen to on the way to work, and the cool announcer who talks so softly I have to turn the volume way up.
--All kinds of music. Today I am especially appreciating the music of Emmylou Harris, ABBA, and Gordon Lightfoot. Oh, and The Beatles (George was my favorite).
--My vacuum cleaner, which transforms my cluttery house filled with cat-hair dustballs into something nice again.
--Going to the movies. It may be old fashioned, and the popcorn I like may be filled with horrible trans fats, but I still like going to a theatre and, yes, eating a tub of popcorn. The popcorn even gives me a stomach ache sometimes, but I want it anyway. Love is complex.
--A great mystery novel. And a great romance. And, based on my new love for the GAME OF THRONES series, I guess I enjoy fantasy, as well.
--Musicals. Today I was singing a song from "Oklahoma!" in the Jewel parking lot. I also love THE SOUND OF MUSIC, ANNIE, BRIGADOON, KISMET, THE MATCHMAKER, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, and NO NO NANETTE.
--Babies. Any babies.
--Games. My favorite is TRIVIAL PURSUIT.
--My car. My son will be 20 by the time it's paid off, but everything in it works, and I'm glad to have it when I see all the people waiting for the bus. (It also has the very first car cd player I've ever had, and despite the fact that this is now "old" car technology, I am thrilled with it).
--The student who daily asks me what I have in my lunch. She's curious in a very sweet way. She also likes to write poetry on my whiteboard during the free period--and it's always rather beautiful poetry.
--Poetry. Today I am appreciating Edna St. Vincent Millay.
--The late Erma Bombeck.
--Candles--all shapes and sizes.
--Perfume! I am a bit of a fragrance-o-phile, and I never like to wear the same scent two days in a row. Today I am wearing Lolita Lempicka.
--Okay, last one--but this list was really fun to make! You'll think this makes me sound ultra boring, but I love MY BED. It has been so cold in our little attic room this winter that I have three blankets on our tiny bed (full size, while my husband longs for King)--but once I'm under those covers, my bed is the warmest, best place in all the world, and I have to be dragged out of it every morning.
What would be the first thing (besides your family, of course) on your love list?
HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!
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