Fox in the Henhouse

It's clear from the comments on a recent post--"Getting to Know Me"--that saying you love Alan Rickman is a non-controversial thing to say on a book blog.

I mean, really--what's not to love? He was the best thing in Kevin Costner's Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, stalking around looking like he'd as soon push you into the cooking fire as eat breakfast and sneering "cancel Christmas!" He could sing the low notes as the evil, masochistic Judge Turpin. He had a German accent as the villain in Die Hard. And, of course, he captured the collective heart of the world with his sensationally sneering Snape in the Harry Potter movies. But he also made hearts flutter as Colonel Brandon in Sense and Sensibility, and he could make you feel the tiniest bit of sympathy for the befuddled husband in Love, Actually. He even played an action hero in Galaxy Quest. Those are just some of the highlights of his career, for me. Feel free to talk about what you, personally, love about Alan Rickman in the comments here.

What are some other non-controversial things to say on a book blog? Um, how about "the book is better than the movie." "An e-reader would be nice for travel because books are heavy." "Sometimes it's good to read a 'chunkster' book, because blogging can make you value speed of reading too much." "Twitter can help you strengthen your relationships with other book bloggers"* "Rereading a book can give you valuable insight into it"--oh no, wait, scratch that last one--it's actually (sadly) a controversial thing to say on a book blog!

Why do we go on saying non-controversial things to each other? Things that make us end up sounding like the "cream crackers" in Roddy Doyle's children's book The Giggler Treatment, who say boring and obvious things like: "toilet paper is usually white but not always. Isn't that interesting?" and "If you put your feet in water, they get wet. Isn't that interesting?"

Perhaps we say non-controversial things to each other because women are behind 99% of the book blogs out there (sorry Matt, Bart, and Clark--I think it's true), and women like the feeling of community that agreeing on something gives us.

Sometimes I get a really bad feeling about our tendency towards consensus. I think of what David Sedaris says in his essay "Chicken in the Henhouse" (included in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim) about folks who call in to agree with each other on talk radio:
"It was, for talk radio, one of those easy topics, like tax hikes or mass murder. 'What do you think of full-grown men practicing sodomy on children?'
'Well, I'm against it!' This was always said as if it was somehow startling, a minority position no one had yet dared lay claim to.
I'd been traveling around the country for the past ten days, and everywhere I went I heard the same thing. The host would congratulate the caller on his or her moral fortitude, and wanting to feel that approval again, the person would rephrase the original statement, freshening it up with an adverb or qualifier. 'Call me old-fashioned, but I just hugely think it's wrong.'"

One of the jokes of "Chicken in the Henhouse," of course, is that the saying is "Fox in the Henhouse" and the caller gets it wrong. More and more often I wonder if we, as book bloggers, are getting it wrong, all chickens. Sometimes I want to leave comments on other peoples' posts detailing what I hate about the books they're reviewing. And occasionally I give into that urge, when I think it could be important. Mostly, though, I try not to ruffle anyone's feathers.

I think we need a fox in the henhouse--Fantastic Mr. Fox, who lost his tail to save his family in the story by Roald Dahl. Because one of the pleasures of talking about books should be disagreeing and learning to see books from another's perspective. Without the freedom to significantly disagree about someone else's point of view (e.g. not just writing in to say that you don't love Alan Rickman), then we're just all sitting around shaking hands with ourselves and looking silly, like the protagonist of Harry Harrison's Bill, the Galactic Hero.

To tell you the truth, what I'm really thinking is that we need more than one fox in this henhouse. Care to join me? Together we can be more critical and seem more polite, and we won't have to go on feeling like so many of us evidently have, that "this blogging thing reminds me of high school." Let's graduate. As Colleen at Chasing Ray says, let's try to get to the point where "you grow up and your work speaks for itself." Let's pull together to do something good by occasionally having the courage to say something bad--to show, as My Friend Amy, the queen of book blogger community-building puts it, "the power of a community in extremely difficult times." These are difficult times to do anything but gush about what we love, and the value of declaring our love for a book is being undermined by our unwillingness to disagree about what makes a book worthy--or unworthy--of love.

*(update) at the time I wrote this, most commenters were agreeing that no, twitter did not make you a better blogger but could help strengthen relationships. Since then, there's less agreement, as is usual on that particular blog (Farm Lane Books), which I love partly because of the consistently high level of intellectual engagement.

For Purposes of Corruption

We recently got out the copy of Uncle Shelby's ABZ book that our friends John and Val gave us as a new baby present, with the inscription "for purposes of corruption." For fifteen years, this book has been on the top shelf of one of our tallest bookcases. We don't ever have to hide books from our kids; we just shelve them and see if they're discovered. The possibility of discovery has increased in the last few years; 15-year-old Eleanor is now about 5'10" and 12-year-old Walker is already 5'3". But there are a lot of bookshelves in our house....

The kids were greatly amused to find out that something their dad has always said, that he's going off to work so he can buy them "toys and oatmeal," is from the ABZ book. They were even more amused by the wickedness of the suggestion that daddy can't afford a haircut ("poor, poor, poor daddy") and he's taking a nap, and look, there are the scissors....

I'm not a big fan of picture books, generally. I don't have a lot of nostalgia for the days before my kids could read. But we did have a lot of fun with the ABZ book, almost as much fun as we had with Hilaire Belloc's Cautionary Tales for Children, or Roald Dahl's Vicar of Nibbleswicke, Revolting Rhymes, and George's Marvellous Medicine. I found a review of George's Marvellous Medicine on Amazon that sums up the attraction of these kinds of books quite nicely:

You won't want enquiring minds to know about this, February 24, 2005

By	Amanda Richards "Modest to the extreme" (Georgetown, Guyana)

This review is from: George's Marvellous Medicine (Puffin Fiction) (Paperback)

While all Roald Dahl's books push the envelope somewhat, I thought this one went far too far. As an adult, I did find it amusing, but as I read, the thought of my child copying this stuff kept popping to the front of my mind.
Yes, it is an extremely preposterous concept, and no-one in their right mind would take it as anything else than gross humor, but this is definitely not a book I would place lovingly in the hands of a young child, especially one in my care.
It's full of horrible people saying and doing terrible things, and Dahl isn't one whit apologetic about it. Even Jerry Springer does a little serious bit at the end of his show to try to soothe the bruises and soften the impact.
This book revolves around a little boy who uses non-consumable and extremely dangerous household items to make a batch of "medicine" for his miserable crone of a grandmother, without censure from his parents, one of whom actually encourages him to make another batch.
Nope, I like it, but I can't seriously recommend it for the children of people I like.
Amanda Richards, February 24, 2005

Ooh, obviously another one to put on the top shelf of your highest bookcase! Here's one more sample from the ABZ book--it's the first two pages:

A is for apple. See the nice green apple. M-M-M-M-Good. How many nice green apples can you eat? Make a circle around the number of nice green little apples you ate today.
1 2 3 4 7 12 26 38 57 83 91 116

B is for baby. See the baby. The baby is fat. The baby is pink. The baby can cry. The baby can laugh. See the baby play. Play, baby, play. Pretty, pretty, baby. Mommy loves the baby more than she loves you.

I hope my friends are pleased with our time frame for corrupting our children. We could have pushed it along a bit more, I know, but some things just can't be rushed if they're to be done correctly.

Beginnings

Scott Westerfeld (scottwesterfeld.com) has a recent post about beginnings, and SFP at Pages Turned has a recent post about endings. And they've gotten me thinking about how I choose books. Most often, of course, it's because I read the first paragraph and get hooked. When I started thinking about the beginnings that hooked me most quickly, I decided to share some of my favorites, the ones that stick in my memory:

C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.

William Goldman, The Princess Bride
This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.

John Scalzi, Old Man's War
I did two things on my seventy-fifth birthday. I visited my wife's grave. Then I joined the army.

Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression "As pretty as an airport."

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
I used to have a cat, an old fighting tom, who would jump through the open window by my bed in the middle of the night and land on my chest. I'd half-awaken. He'd stick his skull under my nose and purr, stinking of urine and blood. Some nights he kneaded my bare chest with his front paws, powerfully, arching his back, as if sharpening his claws, or pummeling a mother for milk. And some mornings I'd wake in daylight to find my body covered with paw prints in blood; I looked as though I'd been painted with roses.

Roald Dahl, Matilda
It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers. Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
Some parents go further. They become so blinded by adoration they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this. It's the way of the world. It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring that we start shouting, "Bring us a basin! We're going to be sick!"

Jasper Fforde, The Eyre Affair
My father had a face that could stop a clock. I don't mean that he was ugly or anything; it was a phrase the ChronoGuard used to describe someone who had the power to reduce time to an ultraslow trickle. Dad had been a colonel in the ChronoGuard and kept his work very quiet. So quiet, in fact, that we didn't know he had gone rogue at all until his timekeeping buddies raided our house one morning clutching a Seize & Eradication order open-dated at both ends and demanding to know where and when he was.

Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees
I have been afraid of putting air in a tire ever since I saw a tractor tire blow up and throw Newt Hardbine's father over the top of the Standard Oil sign. I'm not lying. He got stuck up there. About nineteen people congregated during the time it took for Norman Strick to walk up to the Courthouse and blow the whistle for the volunteer fire department. They eventually did come with the ladder and haul him down, and he wasn't dead but lost his hearing and in many other ways was never the same afterward. They said he overfilled the tire.

Walker Percy, Love In the Ruins
Now in these dread latter days of the old violent beloved U.S.A. and of the Christ-forgetting Christ-haunted death-dealing Western world I came to myself in a grove of young pines and the question came to me: has it happened at last?
Two more hours should tell the story. One way or the other. Either I am right and a catastrophe will occur, or it won't and I'm crazy. In either case the outlook is not so good.

Reynolds Price, Kate Vaiden
The best thing about my life up to here is, nobody believes it. I stopped trying to make people hear it long ago, and I'm nothing but a real middle-sized white woman that has kept on going with strong eyes and teeth for fifty-seven years. You can touch me; I answer. But it got to where I felt like the first woman landed from Pluto--people asking how I lasted through all I claimed and could still count to three, me telling the truth with an effort to smile and then watching them doubt it. So I've kept quiet for years.

These are some of my favorites, from memory (although I did look them up to get the words right). Tell me some of your favorite beginnings.

Child Heroes

Walker spent much of the weekend at tryouts for Peter Pan and then callbacks. They had him sing for John at first on the callback day, but the musical director kept calling him up to sing with the Peters, too. At worst, he'll get to be a lost boy. I think they're a bit reluctant to cast a 12-year-old as the lead of the annual community theater musical, especially one requiring deep enough pockets to rent "flying" equipment.

It was kind of a shame, I thought, that there were only three boys singing for Peter in the callbacks, and the other two were too old; their voices were deeper already. Obviously, someone was trying to hear males for the role, but I think it's probably going to be a Mary Martin-type show, given the number of girls who sang better and were older than twelve (one was 20, but a very small person). I did have a small revelation, sitting in the back row of the theater listening to Walker sing. We're always on him at home not to sing at the table, and not to sing right in our faces. That's because he has an increasingly powerful voice!

At any rate, it got me thinking about child heroes, and how often in YA fantasy literature, the adults are reluctant to entrust the fate of the world to one so young. (The first examples that come to my mind are: Lyra in The Golden Compass, the four children in Narnia, Artemis Fowl, Gregor the Overlander, Percy Jackson in The Lightning Thief, Lina and Doon in The City of Ember, Molly Moon, Roald Dahl's Matilda, Ethan in Summerland).

Deeba in China Mieville's Un Lun Dun is a child hero in a book that turns a lot of conventions on their heads in a thoroughly delightful manner. For the first 134 pages, it seems to be a traditional child hero tale--the "chosen one" is recognized by animals in our world and is subsequently transported to another world she has been chosen to save. But she is frightened and ultimately beaten, and goes back to her world, where she stays. Okay, maybe you guessed it from the title--the other world is a parallel universe--an Un-London--and the child who can actually save it is the Un-chosen one, Deeba, who no one has made much of a fuss over.

That's just the first delightful twist to this story. There are a lot of good word jokes that eventually degenerate into puns and actual characters (called "utterlings"). The chosen one from the first part of the book is referred to in Un Lun Dun as the "shwazzy" which we eventually learn is a version of the term "vous avez choisi." London's Royal Meteorological Society, abbreviated as RMETS, is referred to in Un Lun Dun as Armets, a magical society of "weatherwitches." And the mysterious thing that solved London's smog problem in 1952 is Un Lun Dun's magical talisman against the magically malignant smog that threatens their entire existence, the Klinneract.

There are wonderful and original details in this story, like a character who is a ghost (called a wraith), some very scary giraffes, and an army of animate umbrellas, plus a flying bus and a suspension bridge that moves around to evade people looking for it.

This is a book for book-lovers, but not too inaccessible for kids (like Summerland, you'll enjoy it more, the more other books you've read).