Magical Thinking

[Before I begin this post, I'd like to query whether audiobooks are allowed to count as part of the 50 book total. I have the sneaking suspicion, reinforced by Peter, that they do not. But, since it's the only thing I finished yesterday, I'll mention Blink read by the author, Malcolm Gladwell.]

Both of my books so far have been very "late to the party" kind of reads, and unfortunately that will probably describe most of what I'm reading this year. Having two kids means that I don't get to the "hot" books quickly enough to weigh in when everyone else is, so I'll try to content myself with the pleasure of a measured second opinion.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was a book I would have absolutely adored in high school, and this is by no means meant to damn with faint praise. I adored many books in high school that I still think are extremely good books. It's just that it's especially strong with a longing for escape and adventure that dominated my (small-town, nerdy drama club member) existence back then. Susannah Clarke's creation of a fairy world so malevolent and sinister is extremely well done, I think, and the permeability of the world of humans and the world of fairies works perfectly. Also her comedy of manners felt very satisfying to me. I wouldn't agree that she's on the level of Austen, but the meta-literary play was very effective and not at all twee (ahem, The Eyre Affair, I'm glancing in your direction now.) My criticisms? The elemental workings of English magic were talked about a lot, I think, but nowhere did I feel the sense of dark poetry as in Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series or even Diana Wynne Jones's unjustly overlooked Fire and Hemlock. Clark seemed more clever than these, and yet less substantial. And, I'd like to think about this more, but the character of Stephen Black, the nameless child of an enslaved African mother, came across as anachronistic. I wasn't convinced that his racial consciousness wasn't an entirely modern piece of identity construction.

On to The Curious Incident. I read this one rather quickly, and am now thinking that I missed something. The thing that's curious about the dog in "The Hound of the Baskervilles," (the stated inspiration for this narrative) is that it doesn't bark when one would think it should, if I remember correctly. I wasn't sure how to read that in light of this story. Isn't the main character's act of writing kind of the opposite of this--public expectation is that he will not/cannot participate in social life, and yet he is writing an at least semi-public narrative? And yet, (to return to the question of how books read differently at different points in the reader's life), this book spoke to me deeply as a (relatively) new parent. I thought the way that it captured both the immense joys and painful frustrations of parenting any child, but especially one unsuited for conventional ways of being, was really well-done. The book conveys the paradoxical sense of responsiblity and longing for escape that characterize every parent's life, while always keeping clear the ironclad, lifetime, unbreakable chain connecting a parent and their child, and at the same time still manages to celebrate that fixity. And that's not something I would have ever noticed in high school.

Last night's read aloud: Traction Man, Curious George, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies