What I Would Like to Say to Jean Auel

Tags

durc, Earth's Children, jean auel, literature, Shhh, I'm Reading

Dear Ms. Auel,

I have just read that the The Land of Painted Caves will come out next spring, and I want you to know that I am delighted. Not so much because I want to read it, (although I do, and plan to buy it) but because I am hopeful that it will free you up to write the book we have all been waiting for.

You see, The Clan of the Cave Bear was an excellent book, and all of your Earth’s Children books are stunningly detailed, if somewhat idealized, picture of this cold and ancient land. Ayla is a lovable, if frustratingly perfect, character. Jondalar is a bit of a whiner, but basically a nice guy.

However, it is time for us to be honest with you – the reason everyone keeps reading each book that you produce is because we want to find out what happened to Durc and Uba and Broud and the rest of them, and we keep hoping that the NEXT book will finally address this.

Seriously. This is what everyone says. Whenever someone sees one of your books on my shelf, they ask how I like it. I say that the first book is amazing, and you keep reading the others in the hope that you’ll find out what happens. The person always says “that’s what everyone tells me…”

This is the book that we really want to read:

Durc’s story.

Did he remember his Mama leaving? Did he believe that she was really dead, or did he inherit Ayla’s ability to question the world as it is presented to him? How did the Clan react when Broud cursed their luck, as well as pieces of their own spirits (because they were never reclaimed from Ayla) to the underworld? Did this motivate them to help protect Durc against Broud’s hatred? Did Durc grow up loved and protected by the clan, or did Broud make his life a misery? Did he hurt Durc? Did he curse Durc? Did Oga stand up to Broud again for Durc’s sake? Did Vorn protect the adopted son of his hearth, for Uba’s sake? Did Grev stand up to his own father to protect his “milk brother”? Did Brun restrain his son?

We keep reading each book you produce, hoping to find the answers to these questions. Maybe The Land of Painted Caves will address them, but I think that’s unlikely. Even if it does, we want more. We want a whole book of Durc. We want him reunited with his mother, or at least, we want to know that he’s ok. I don’t indulge in fan fiction, because I believe that the world and characters belong to their author, and that other people can not come in to that author’s reality and tinker around with it, so I have no outlet for my frustrations.

He’s the son of everyone, remember? He’s ours, too. People have been worrying about him since 1980. Please put us out of our misery.

Respectfully,

Me.

Reason 1,999,998 why I love my husband

Tags

breastfeeding, Perfect Husband, pregnancy, Shhh, I'm Reading

PH (coming out of the bathroom): “Oh my gawd. I was just reading The Pregnancy Bible and in the section on father bonding after birth, it recommends asking to bottle feed your breastfed newborn so you can bond with it better.”

Me: “Well, you are supposed to introduce the bottle at around 4-6 weeks, or they won’t take it at all ever, and since I’ll want to pump occasionally so we can go out now and then, I’ll probably get you to be the one who does it… With me he’d just be looking for the boobas, but with you he might be like “Hey, you come with food, too??”

PH: “No, no. That sounds fine. This is stuff for bonding with a newborn. They aren’t specifying “after a month or more, once breast feeding has been well established.” THAT would make sense.  It just says “If she’s breastfed, ask your partner to express some milk so you can give her an occasional bottle”. Like, ‘hey, what does it matter if you give your baby nipple confusion and mess up the mother’s attempt to breastfeed? At least you feel involved in the process!'”

They say that a woman’s breastfeeding success is largely influenced by partner support.

I think I’m okay on that front.

This Message Brought to You By Captain Obvious

Tags

facebook, Inanity abounds, Shhh, I'm Reading

Because I like to torture myself, apparently

Tags

babies, depression, Shhh, I'm Reading, work

I’m at the point where the slightest thing (like bumping my finger while hauling a massive crate out of a cramped shed all the way down to the driveway only to be told by the puppy sitter “never mind” and then hauling it back UP to the shed, fitting it back in, and then going to wash the blood off of my hands) makes me feel like I can’t possibly be expected to finish the rest of my work day. The thought is too unbearable.

Counsellor stood you up? How can anyone work after that? Swollen knuckle? CALL WORKER’S COMP. Of course, I do continue through my day, because I realize how pathetic these excuses would sound out loud… but I don’t think I can until I have to do it anyway. Thankfully, now I am home, and I can curl up with my baby books.

I’ve long owned a copy of What To Expect When You’re Expecting, which lives in our bathroom and occasionally prompts my husband to emerge saying things like “PREGNANCY IS WEIRD!” and “how is your body supposed to DO that?!” Now I’ve picked up a copy of What To Expect The First Year. Both of these books cost me two fifty each, because I pick them up from Value Village, and I basically use them to live vicariously.

I also just read It Sucked And Then I Cried from cover to cover. I recklessly spent thirty bucks on it because I love Dooce.com, and I’m glad I bought it. It was the first thing to make me really laugh in… I don’t even know how long. Months? Anyway, the laughing felt great. However, when she talked about how many doctors she had to see until she finally found a shrink who knew what he was doing, and how quickly she felt better once on the right combo, I went from giggling hysterically to nearly crying with empathy and… yes…. jealousy. I want that combo.

I don’t know why reading about how to deal with diaper rash and how the overwhelmed Heather Armstrong was driven insane by parenthood actually makes me feel  a little better. No matter how terrifying the parenthood story, nothing really scares me away from having kids. I know it’ll be overwhelming. I know I’ll be a sleep deprived, unshowered mess with excruciatingly swollen and leaking boobs who screams whenever she pees because it burns, it burns.

I remember how, when I finally got the puppy that I had been obsessing over for months and months, I was sleep deprived and almost ready to throw him out a window because “the book says to take him outside to pee every two hours but he just won’t pee outside and what am I supposed to DO? WHY DOESN’T THE BOOK COVER THIS?? WHY HAS MY PUPPY GONE SIX HOURS WITHOUT SLEEPING OR PEEING WHEN THE BOOK SAYS HE SHOULD BE DOING BOTH AROUND THE CLOCK???”

…So I just multiply that by fifty billion times and figure it’s a distant glimpse of the reality of parenthood.

I can’t say why I still want to have children even when I’ve just read the most frightening of tales. I can’t say why I enjoy reading the baby horror stories. I imagine it’s because, by being closer to the horrible raw truth, I am somehow closer to actually having kids. Closer, anyway, than the idiots who moon over Pampers commercials thinking that parenthood is just this fluffy and sweet. I like to read the What To Expect books, and bask in the warm assurances that it offers to the most bizarre or unnerving of Frequently Asked Questions. (Typical passage reads:

Question: My baby is screaming so loudly and unceasingly that my ears are beginning to bleed and I am having copious hemorrhagic diarrhoea from the constant stress and utter misery that is my life since this evil milk-sucking larva was born. Is this normal?

Answer: Your experience is not unlike those of many new parents! Don’t worry, your sweet baby is not actually a minion of the Antichrist, but simply suffering from a little colic! You may want to check and make sure that your baby’s latch is correct so that he isn’t swallowing air (his lips should cover the entire areola, not just the nipple), and you may want to examine what you have been eating. Sometimes certain things in your diet, like dairy products, can come through your breast milk and upset your little one’s tummy! In the mean time, try to soothe him by burping him, providing some calming white noise, or distracting him with some gentle rocking or bouncing. Just remember, no matter how much you want to shake the brains out of the little shit, this will not actually stop the crying and may do permanent damage to your baby. Resist the urge drop your infant in the nearest dumpster (especially during extreme temperatures!). If you find that you need a time-out, hand the baby to someone you trust, and step outside and take a couple of deep breaths!)

And I can imagine that I am the harried parent fuming at this useless book. Somehow, it makes the ache in my chest a little less severe when I imagine that I will, someday, actually need this advice.

Or… I can just have fun trying to assure myself that I will hopefully be a better parent than these people are.

THESE FOOLISH MEN

Tags

Children's literature, Harry Potter, Inanity abounds, movies, Shhh, I'm Reading

They just don’t get it, do they?

They think that they’re exploiting a fad. They’ve taken a fun adventure story about magic and wizardry, and make millions by translating it to the big screen. They think these books hit a zeitgeist, and that the creative and often funny world of Hogwarts is simply a matter of CGI effects and epic punch lines.

These foolish, foolish men. They understand nothing.

Harry Potter was a classic from the moment it was published. My mother, who is a raving Anglophile, gave me a copy of Philosopher’s Stone for Christmas when I was 17, saying “they’re very popular in England.” I love children’s fiction, so I wasn’t as offended as some 17 year olds might have been at being given a book that was clearly marketed for the under 12 set. I gobbled that book in a day, and then bored my friends at school by raving about it. They didn’t get it. So the kid’s a wizard. That’s nice.

…then Pottermania hit Canada, and suddenly all my friends were on a first-name basis with characters that I had known and loved for several years. It was amazing and delightful.

Why do my friends, who have no interest in Dahl or Lewis or Cleary or Pullman or any of the other children’s books that I breathe like air, love this particular set of books?

The answer is because they are amazing. These movie producers think it’s because of Quidditch and Every Flavour Beans, and maybe it is, a little. But Harry Potter was an instant classic because it is filled with those timeless themes of human existence – love, sacrifice, mistaken first impressions, the contrariness of human personality, and finally… triumph over those who would hurt us.

Watching Half Blood Prince last night, I got the distinct feeling that the people who wrote the screenplay and directed the film had asked some English majors “What are the themes of Harry Potter? What is the heart and soul of the story? Of all the story lines in this book, which are the most vital to the meaning of the book?” and when they had their answer, they said “Okay. That’s what we’ll cut out.”

If they had done it by design, they could not have been more successful at cutting out the heart of the story, and leaving a hollow, empty shell.

The themes of Harry Potter are simple (Spoilers coming):