Notice (on the sidebar) that Lena and I now have the same book on our separate bedside tables. That’s because my bookworm side trumped my mom side and I just couldn’t wait for her to finish Little Town on the Prairie before starting it myself. So we’re going back and forth (”it’s my turn now” “no, you had it all morning, it’s my turn now” “oh come on, can’t you read something else for a while?” “just let me finish this chapter” “mo-o-o-om!”). I can’t believe I didn’t like these books more when I was a kid. Sure, I read ‘em, but (as I recall) more from a feeling of duty and mild curiosity than any great love. One thing that really fascinates me is the way Laura acts as Mary’s eyes. She has to describe everything, and perhaps that’s the root of her becoming a writer? Even more fascinating, too, is the way Mary is always scolding her for not telling the truth when Laura gets poetic and metaphorical in her descriptions.
I’m also getting along swimmingly with The French Lieutenant’s Woman. I already told you about Charles, the “intelligent idler.” Now we are delving into Sarah, the FL’s woman. She’s almost too good to be true, with her “instinctual profundity of insight.” She has this “uncanny…ability to classify other people’s worth: to understand them, in the fullest sense of that word…. She could sense the pretensions of a hollow argument, a false scholarship, a biased logic when she came across them; but she also saw through people in subtler ways…. Without being able to say how…she saw them as they were and not as they tried to seem.” So, I’m reading along and pondering whether or not people in real life could have such an uncanny ability (for sure, I don’t), when I turn the page and come upon the beginning of Chapter 13, thus:
I do not know. This story I am telling is all imagination. These characters I create never existed outside my own mind. If I have pretended until now to know my characters’ minds and innermost thoughts, it is because I am writing in (just as I have assumed some of the vocabulary and “voice” of) a convention universally accepted at the time of my story: that the novelist stands next to God. He may not know all, yet he tries to pretend that he does. But I live in the age of Alain Robbe-Grillet and Roland Barthes; if this is a novel, it cannot be a novel in the modern sense of the word.
Ho!
And I am instantly reminded of another one of my favorite self-referential meta-novels, The Counterfeiters, wherein the author not only “appraises” his characters halfway through (and one of them is a novelist who is writing a book called The Counterfeiters) but is annoyed with them because they act foolishly and don’t always do what he wants them to do.
10 Comments
Now you’ve inspired me to re-read the “Little House” series. I adored these books as a kid, but I bet I’d get a whole new perspective on them reading as a grown-up and a parent.
I still love and re-read Little House!
I used to love the Little House books as a kid, too. I remember switching point of view every chapter and changing the pronouns and names to match who was telling that chapter. For instance, I’d make one chapter be told from Mary’s perspective and so wherever the name Mary popped up, I’d read it as “I.” Then the next chapter I’d read as though Laura were telling it, then the next one Pa, etc. I would never read a book like that now. :)
I’m impressed, Camille. Reminds me of a little girl I used to babysit. Her very overprotective parents didn’t want her to know about Mary’s blindness, and all references to it had to be omitted on the fly, while reading out loud. Ha ha, I guess that was my first editing job.
I didn’t like the Little House books at all as a child. Maybe I should read them again and see how I feel now? I’m reading a YA novel by Louise Erdrich now that’s supposed to be a Native counterpart to the Little House, though - “The Birchbark House”.
Someday, I’ll pick up a book you recommend. They all sound so good. I’m getting tired of textbooks.
I haven’t even seen the movie to FLW–the little meta part caught my interest. I loved Little House, probably because of the name, mostly–I think I thought I was L. And then my best friend’s name was Mery–spelled differently, but still. I have heard that reading them as an adult makes you focus more on and admire Ma. I’m waiting for my daughter to do this.
Still reading? :)
Awww, I love the picture of mom & daughter vying for the book.
Are you doing your assigned midwinter reading??? I am halfway through, perfectly enjoying it.