Category: books

Lois Lowry on Book Banning

“By and large, the people who challenge and ban books are not the most intelligent people in the world. I’ll probably regret being quoted on that. But they are somewhat shallow in their reactions, taking things out of context and seeming to be unable to see the deeper meaning. Often kids are the ones who can see things clearly.”

When parents are genuinely concerned about the “dark content” of her books,

“I try to explain to them that, of course, we would all love to protect our children from everything. We can’t do that. It’s a troubling world out there. And the best place to learn about what the world is like is within the pages of a book within the safety of your own home, with your mum in the next room and people to talk to about it. I think that books are very valuable that way. And kids who aren’t allowed that experience go into the world unprepared, unrehearsed for what they’re about to face.”

Lois Lowry, interviewed at The Sydney Morning Herald

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Book Banned, Author Bemused

Why Science Book Titles Are The Best Book Titles

Browsing the science shelves at my local library yesterday, I found the following books:

How to Fossilise Your Hamster and Other Amazing Experiments for the Armchair Scientist

Dunk Your Biscuit Horizontally

Will We Ever Speak Dolphin?

The Velocity of Honey

Lies, Deep Fries and Statistics

The Joy of X

Do Polar Bears Get Lonely?

Ignorance

Actual book titles, people. And How to Fossilise Your Hamster is “The must-have companion to the No. 1 bestsellers, Does Anything Eat Wasps? and Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze?”

What I’ve Been Reading

'Daughter of Time' by Josephine TeyI loved The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey, a murder mystery in which a police detective solves a four-hundred-year-old crime while lying immobile in a hospital bed. Alan Grant, with the enthusiastic help of a young American working at the British Museum, examines the facts behind Richard III’s supposed murder of the Princes in the Tower and convincingly argues that the villain was actually . . . well, you’ll have to read it to find out. While I don’t think Richard III was quite as saintly as this author believes, the novel was well researched and fascinating, and I was amused (in a horrified sort of way) by the descriptions of the 1950s hospital setting (for instance, Alan lying in bed and CHAIN-SMOKING). It was especially interesting to read about Richard III, given the recent (disputed) discovery of his skeleton under a car park in Leicester. And yes, I did spend the entire book with this song stuck in my brain (“Can you imagine it, I’m the last Plantagenet . . .”). I’m also happy to say that Sydney City Libraries lived up to expectations and provided me with a lovely old volume from the library stacks – not quite a first edition, but pretty close (see picture).

I’ve also been engrossed in Fun Home, a funny, sad, insightful graphic memoir by Alison Bechdel (of Bechdel Test fame) about her father, who died when she was at college. She found it difficult to grieve, partly because he’d been such a complicated, miserable, angry person, and partly because she’d grown up in a family that suppressed emotions and unpleasant realities. At his funeral, she wonders, “What would happen if we spoke the truth?” and when a well-meaning neighbour says consolingly, “The Lord moves in mysterious ways”, she pictures herself screaming, “There’s no mystery! He killed himself because he was a manic-depressive, closeted fag and he couldn’t face living in this small-minded small town one more second!” The story of her father’s secret homosexual life (which included criminal charges and being ordered into psychiatric therapy) is told in conjunction with Alison’s own, much happier, coming-out story. My only criticism would be that there were an awful lot of references to Important Books (from The Odyssey and Ulysses to As I Lay Dying and The Great Gatsby), which seemed to have more to do with the author saying, “Look how well read I am!” than with the story being told.

A different take on the subject of coming out was provided by James Howe in Totally Joe, an endearing and funny middle-grade novel about twelve-year-old Joe and his friends (and enemies). While it’s definitely an Issues Novel, the characters are nuanced and the whole idea of Life Lessons is incorporated in an amusing way – Joe has to write an ‘alphabiography’ for English class and explain what he’s learned about life at the end of each chapter. His Life Lessons range from “Middle school is like being trapped in a reality show where there’s no way off the island and you’re always a loser” (after he’s falsely accused of kissing the boy he has a crush on) to “Religion is only as good as the people using it” (after his friend’s proposal for a Gay-Straight Alliance group at school is viciously opposed by the religious parents of the school bully). I’m a bit wary of middle-grade books that deal with pre-adolescent sexuality, whether gay or straight, but this book is about (very restrained) romance rather than sex. While Joe briefly has a boyfriend, their relationship mostly consists of them hanging out with their group of friends, dressing up as Bert and Ernie for Halloween, and on one occasion, holding hands “for all of maybe five seconds” (and Joe thinks kissing sounds disgusting, although maybe in about four years’ time, “I’ll be ready to exchange saliva”). It was nice to see Joe had supportive adults around him (his parents, his aunt, his English teacher who has a gay son), but there were also adults who needed time to grow into acceptance (his grandparents, his school principal) and some realistically unrepentant bigots (the school bully and his family).

'Tea with Arwa' by Arwa El MasriFinally, Tea with Arwa: One woman’s story of faith, family and finding a home in Australia by Arwa El Masri was a gentle, simply told account of the life of a “proud and happy Muslim Australian woman”. Arwa’s parents had been exiled from Palestine after the Israeli occupation when they were small children, and although they eventually established a comfortable, middle-class life in Saudi Arabia (her father was an engineer and her mother a teacher), they were not permitted to become Saudi citizens, so they decided to migrate to Australia. Arwa’s story is unremarkable compared to some recent stories of migration – she herself didn’t flee a war-torn nation or arrive here in a leaky boat, her parents simply decided, quite reasonably, that their children would have a better future in a country where the family could become citizens. Arwa, arriving here as a primary school student with limited English literacy skills, had some difficulties adjusting to co-educational schools where students were often disrespectful to teachers and she occasionally faced racism, but just as often, she found Australians to be kind, helpful and interested in learning more about her life.
Arwa is careful to distinguish her religious beliefs from the cultural and family traditions of the Middle East, although it’s clear that both are immensely important to her and not to be criticised. For example, she feels it’s a little unfair that women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive, because there’s nothing in the Quran that expressly forbids it – but it’s okay, because they all have chauffeurs! She also states that “racism and prejudice do not exist under Islam” and that it’s a religion of “peace and harmony” (especially sad to read, given the hundreds of thousands of Muslims currently torturing and murdering one another in various parts of the world, not that Jews and Christians are much better). She has a tendency to state beliefs as though they are facts, and when this contradicts scientific evidence, well, “some aspects of science are yet to catch up to the Quran’s teachings”. She also discusses her decision, as a young married woman, to resume wearing the hijab, which she regards as “a simple way for a woman to protect herself against unwanted objectionable sexual attention in a world that sexualises women”. (Oh, if only putting on a veil really did provide magical protection against sexual harassment and assault. Then there’d be no rape or violence against women in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, but alas, that’s not true.) Anyway, this is a good reminder that multiculturalism means accepting the values and beliefs of everyone in society (providing they don’t break the law), even when those values clash with those of a modern, secular society. Multiculturalism is about much more than lots of yummy new foods, although a key part of Arwa’s philosophy is that sharing food is an important part of cross-cultural communication. Accordingly, the book includes a number of delicious-sounding recipes, from pavlova and sausage rolls with a Middle Eastern twist, to falafel, babaganoush and tabouli, with many descriptions of the meals Arwa has shared with family and friends. This would be a great book to give to your auntie/neighbour/work colleague who constantly complains about migrants taking over Australia but loves to cook – it might shift her ideas a little, as Arwa seems like a nice person to sit down with for a cup of tea and a chat.

Miscellaneous Memoranda

– YA author Simmone Howell, who recently taught a course on writing for young readers, has written a series of blog posts about aspects such as character, structure, voice and place, and why you probably won’t be able to make a living from your writing, with lots of useful links.

– Over at The Paris Review there’s an interesting interview with Robert Gottlieb, editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster and then Knopf, who edited books by Jessica Mitford, John Le Carré, Salman Rushdie, Ray Bradbury, Toni Morrison, Joseph Heller, Doris Lessing and many other writers. He discusses the role of the editor and publisher (“you don’t have to be a genius to be an editor . . .You just have to be capable, hard-working, energetic, sensible, and full of goodwill”) and how much the publishing industry has changed in recent years.

– Something I’ve been pondering lately is the distinction between ‘middle grade’ and ‘young adult’ fiction (mostly because I’ve just finished writing a book that falls somewhere in the middle of those two publishing categories), so I was pleased to see this article about the topic at Publishers Weekly (especially as it mentions A Brief History of Montmaray – thank you, Meghan from BookPeople in Austin, Texas!). Other interesting blog posts I’ve come across include Everything you ever wanted to know about middle grade…and were willing to ask, Where are the books for 13-year-olds? and Middle grade saved my life (the last written by Jeanne Birdsall, author of the wonderful Penderwicks books).

– Finally, I’m tickled that the Montmaray books have appeared on TV Tropes. For those who haven’t encountered TV Tropes before, it’s an enormous and quite addictive website devoted to discussing the tropes (that is, the stereotypes, clichés and overused ideas) in popular TV shows, movies and books. Tropes identified in the Montmaray books include Micro Monarchy and (slightly spoilery) Kissing Cousins and Never Found the Body. But come on, TV Tropers, you’ve missed a few! What about Ace Pilot, British Stuffiness, Everything’s Better with Llamas, I Was Beaten by a Girl and Upper Class Twit? And I’ve always thought of the Colonel as a bit of an Agent Peacock . . .

‘Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith’ by Valerie Grove

I picked up this biography with great enthusiasm, but found, on the very first page, this description of Valerie Grove, the biographer, reading I Capture the Castle:

“Like so many readers before me, I was captured from the opening sentence: ‘I am writing this sitting in the kitchen sink.'”

Grrr! It’s “I write this sitting in the kitchen sink”, one of the most famous opening lines in modern English literature, and a person who can’t see or hear the difference between those two sentences probably should not be writing books at all, let alone writing biographies of Dodie Smith. However, I pressed on and found that the biographer seemed to have done a very thorough job of investigating Dodie’s life – assisted by the millions of words Dodie wrote about herself in her journals, her letters to her friends and her multiple volumes of autobiography.

'Dear Dodie: The Life of Dodie Smith' by Valerie Grove Dear Dodie contains detailed descriptions of Dodie as a spoilt only child surrounded by doting older relatives in a wealthy, theatre-loving Victorian family; of the deaths of both her parents by the time she was eighteen; and of the years she spent as an unsuccessful actress in the 1920s, before she gave up and got a job at Heal’s, the London department store. Dodie was “not temperamentally suited to the shopgirl’s humdrum life of clocking in from nine to six”, but as she was having an affair with the (married) owner of the store, she knew she was unlikely to be sacked, despite her tardiness and temper tantrums (she once “flung one of [the] assistants, a heavy girl, across the china department”). She then had enormous critical and commercial success in the 1930s as a playwright, before being “forced” into exile in the United States during the war, so that her younger husband Alec could avoid conscription.

Dodie seems to have hated America, even though she managed to make quite a lot of money writing screenplays in Hollywood. When she and Alec finally returned to England in 1953, it was to a country that was no longer interested in her cosy plays set in rich people’s drawing rooms, and she never again had much success as a playwright. Her first novel, though, was I Capture the Castle, an international bestseller, which was followed by even greater commercial success with her children’s book, The Hundred and One Dalmatians, which was subsequently made into a beloved Disney film.

But did this make Dodie happy? No. She complained bitterly about any less-than-gushing book reviews and was outraged when the play of I Capture the Castle was not sufficiently appreciated by critics or audiences. She spent money extravagantly, then moaned about how impoverished she was. She was fiercely critical of all her friends and acquaintances, and in later life, preferred to avoid people altogether. Animals, particularly dogs, were her passion, although she took this to extremes – for example, feeding mice and rats in her country cottage, until the kitchen was “carpeted with mice” and the lawn “alive” with rats. (Mind you, her love of animals didn’t prevent her from eating meat or wearing fur coats.) She became increasingly peevish and obsessive about her routines, and was indignant when her husband died, because he was supposed to look after her till her death:

“As Christopher Reynolds-Jones [her cousin] tells, Dodie telephoned him and he asked her how she was. ‘Oh, I’ve had a terrible morning,’ said Dodie. ‘My breakfast didn’t arrive, so I went along to see what was happening and found Alec dead.'”

It seems to me that this biographer didn’t actually like Dodie much, which must have made writing the book a bit of a struggle:

“[Dodie’s] life was essentially limited and, to a degree, pampered. Though she had to struggle in her actress days, even at her poorest she never cooked herself a meal, and even as a ‘shopgirl’ there was always someone to wake her and fetch her breakfast. After her mother’s death, she never had to look after anyone – husband, children or aged parents; and she was nannied by her husband for fifty years. A writer who has no family, no responsibility for other people, nobody to consider but himself and his own work (and there have been legions of such writers, most of them men) lives a peculiarly privileged and self-indulgent life.”

The biographer also feels, for some reason, that we need constant reminders of how Dodie was “plain”, “unbeautiful”, “ugly”, “witchlike” and “dwarfish” (she was five feet tall, only an inch shorter than I am, and she looks like a perfectly normal middle-aged woman in most of the photos). Perhaps this is relevant when explaining Dodie’s failure to become a leading stage actress, but what does it have to do with the rest of her life? Do we really need to be told that Dodie dressed up for the opening night of one of her plays, “although elegance was hard to achieve, for a woman five foot high . . .”?

'I Capture The Castle' by Dodie SmithOn the other hand, the biographer acknowledges that Dodie worked extremely hard and was intelligent, witty, resolute, spirited and highly perceptive. Dodie could be very generous to those she liked, and she had fascinating friendships with other writers, including Christopher Isherwood and Julian Barnes – and, of course, she wrote some wonderful books. My favourite part of this biography was about the process of writing I Capture the Castle. The castle setting was borrowed from the autobiography of Margot Asquith, who’d grown up with her sister in a remote Scottish castle, where they’d walked on the turrets at midnight and kept their clothes hanging in a tower. Mortmain’s book, Jacob Wrestling, was meant to be a fictional version of Joyce’s Ulysses. Cassandra, originally called Sophia, was a younger version of Dodie (although Ambrose Heal, her former lover, claimed Dodie was Topaz). In the US, the Literary Guild ordered more than half a million copies before publication, but asked her to make Cassandra kinder to Stephen, which she did. Dodie was astonished when they said they would have preferred Cassandra to marry Stephen, but was “relieved to be allowed to keep the ending ambivalent: she wanted readers to finish the book hoping that Cassandra would marry Simon.”

Fans of I Capture the Castle, then, will find much of interest in this book, and dog lovers will enjoy the amusing anecdotes about Dodie’s own Dalmatians. Dear Dodie is well-researched and provides a clear, chronological account of the life of a very successful writer. Just don’t expect to feel very fond of Dodie by the end of it.