quarterlife crisis
23 May 2013

thoughts on a blog: the ten year edition

 

This morning, I read Evan Roskos’s Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets, which, appropriately, had me thinking about Walt Whitman.

Look guys, my relationship with literature is a bit fraught. I have read parts of Leaves of Grass over the years, but they didn’t sink into my psyche or anything.

They’ve sunk into the fictional psyche of Roskos’s James, sunk in hard. Which reminded me of John Green’s Q in Paper Towns – another fictional YA character with a personal relationship with Mr. Whitman, Leaves of Grass in particular. And then there’s my favorite Walt – Walter White. I might not be a Leaves of Grass scholar, but come on – his name is Walter White.

There is something that Mr. Whitman captured over a hundred years ago that resonates.

Back to Dr. Bird. James is depressed. He’s anxious. He doesn’t have any money, doesn’t have a car, his parents aren’t supportive. He talks to an imaginary pigeon therapist he calls Dr. Bird. On a very bad night in James’s life, Dr. Bird says: “Don’t you wish you would wake up one day and celebrate yourself? Don’t you wish you would wake up and celebrate yourself. Don’t you wish you would wake up and celebrate yourself?”

What does it mean to celebrate yourself? I could spend an hour, a day, a year reading “Song of Myself” and maybe give you a hypothesis about what in the world Whitman would say. But reading Roskos’s words, it was very clear to me what it meant for poor fictional James. To wake up in the morning and feel like you are something. To wake up and feel like you have something valuable to share with others. To wake up and not be immediately smothered by self-loathing. To wake up and feel excited to be in your own body, your own life, to see through your own two eyes.

I wrote my first blog post on April 15th, 2003. I’ve been at this for ten years. I have been a blog reader for just as long. That is many, many, many, many hours devoted to writing about myself, the things happening to me and the things that interest me, and reading about the lives of other people.

Lately, though, my blog annoys me. Probably because, lately, *I* annoy me. As I settle into this non-student life, this 9-5 life, it is clear to me that I am just not that interesting. Really. There’s only so much I can say about this small expanse of the world in my purview. There’s only so much I want to think about it. I roll my eyes at my narcissism, my lack of interest in many important things (see: the poetry of Walt Whitman) but my endless, ENDLESS appetite for micromanaging my own life. It’s annoying.

Other blogs annoy me, too. I am annoyed by people who wrap up their lives neatly, in bows, but I am also annoyed by those who over-share. I am annoyed with the constant peppiness sprinkled with moments of self-apology. I am annoyed by self-promotional and cross-promotional bullshit. I am annoyed by those who use their blogs as little sounding blocks for their own emotional successes, doling out recommendations, and summing up life lessons…  even though I do the same all. the. damn. time.

But I don’t think it’s a lost cause, the personal blogging thing. I am only annoyed by 95% of the world’s blogs. The remaining 5% I love, I love, I love. I will read anything these ladies and gents write – even cross-promotional, peppy, bullshit life lessons – until the blogs go off the air and then I will mourn the loss.

The difference? Those 5% are the writers. I can tell. You can probably tell, too.

I don’t know what Evan Roskos would say about this, or fictional James Whitman, or Walt Whitman, or even Walter White, but maybe, 10 years later, writing this little blog is how I wake up and celebrate myself. Which is different than promoting oneself or flagellating oneself or stroking one’s own ego.

Even if I can’t decide what to write. Even if my book reviews really lack critical focus or general clarity. Even if only ever have a handful of readers. Even if I write about the same things over and over again. Even if I am happy or sad, 18 or 28. Even if I occasionally annoy myself beyond belief.

I will always do my best to do good work here, whatever that work ends up looking like.

2
book lists
18 May 2013

wild riches

Remember when I said I wanted to read something shiny and fun on my plane trip next week?

Well, that decision just got a little harder….

The following books have appeared on my hold-shelf in the past few days…

1) Her by Christa Parravani, which I already mentioned I might read on the plane…

2) The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick, which I have been waiting for FOREVER and I want to read before watching the movie

3) Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos, which I thought would be a nice way to segue back into reading decent YA

4) The Signal and the Noise by Nate Silver, which I have been in line for since 2012

5) How Children Succeed by Paul Tough, which I have ALSO been in line for since 2012

6) House Girl by Tara Conklin, which I have nothing else to say about other than I thought it looked good.

To that I have to say…

Well, NOW what?

3
books
17 May 2013

this book sucks and other adventures in bad literature

Book reviews have been light around these parts because I have been reading a lot of bad books.

You don’t have to call them bad books if you don’t want to. You could call them “fun reading” or “trashy books.” You could call them “books that just weren’t for me.” If you are a librarian, you could call them “books for readers that aren’t me.”

I’m just going to call them bad books because they don’t meet my (arbitrary) standards for literature. Characters that are well-drawn and multifaceted. A plot that is no more than 25% completely predictable. Language that is deliberate, clear, and inventive. Some distinguishing feature – voice, perspective, setting, whatever, anything that sets a book apart from the rest of books-like-that-book.

I used to think my standards were pretty low, but maybe years and years of reading wide + deep develops your palate a little, subconsciously.  Read more about that in this post. It’s not necessarily a good thing for me, as a reader: I don’t fall for books as easily as I once did, I don’t get hyped up about new authors, I don’t take “reading risks” as often.

And it makes reading bad books feel worse. Question to the masses: is there such thing as “hate reading?” I brought this up on Twitter and apparently “hate watching” is a common TV phenomenon; you watch a television program not because you find it to be good entertainment, not because you find it fun in a campy, awful kind of way (see: Glee, Gray’s Anatomy, American Idol), but because you actually despise the show and everything it represents (see: Real Housewives of Anywhere, 16 & Pregnant, any other reality show that is somewhat exploitative of the lower class or exalts/exposes the upper class) (there is a good Marxist thesis idea somewhere in there) (I am getting distracted).

Anyway, I read bad books sometimes, but I don’t like it. I roll my eyes. I sigh. I read awful passages out loud to whoever is nearby. I think wistful thoughts about the books I wish I was reading instead. But I keep reading for a particular professional purpose, or to keep abreast with trends, or to see what some controversy is really about. I don’t like it. I am watching the upswing of self-published books in certain sub-genres, and while I think that the rise of eReaders has made the 99 cent downloadable romance an easy and cheap choice for readers, if you keep coming back, then it’s possible you like reading bad books in a way that I do not.

Do these readers deserve some shitty books to read? Librarian Jessica says, I suppose so.

But that doesn’t mean they are “good books.”

That doesn’t mean that I have to say something nice about them.

I guess I should restrain myself and not start a blog devoted entirely to compiling first-person descriptions of kissing that gross me out. Is there any way to describe a good kiss other than “He/she kissed me.” Maybe one optional adjective to follow. Maybe. If you follow it with a metaphor, I will roll my eyes and what kills the mood faster than an eye-roll (See: Girls season 2 episode 1). If you describe it in great detail, I will likely gag because the physical description of kissing is kind of gross. There should be no mention of passions burning bright as the sun, a choir of angels singing. I wish I was making this up for effect and not looking through my latest bad book, I really do.

This is a line I walk as a reader/reviewer/librarian – between exploring books and shutting them out, description and judgment, personal taste and literary merit. I don’t always land on the professional side of the fence, but I try. And I think it’s important to stand up for books that are excellent, books that make all the other books want to try harder, books that are so great and different that they mix up the paradigm. I read for me, yes, I read for fun and for a number of other reasons, but I also read so I can share what I find. That’s just the kind of reader I am.

If that’s the case, I should probably start reading some good books sometime soon, no? More on that tomorrow…

2
books
13 May 2013

jet-setting

So I had this string of truly awful airplane luck, beginning in January of 2011 with this wild ride back to Boston and ending in June of that same year, when I spent 8 hours in the BWI airport only to have my flight cancelled at 9pm and end up stranded for the night. It was traumatic. I’ve written about it multiple times on this here blog even though it is not even a good story, just one of those awful wincing things that makes you want the person telling to shut up so you can, instead, tell your own story of agony.

Anywaaaaaay, I ignored any opportunities to fly anywhere for the next year and a half and stuck to ground transportation. Fortunately/unfortunately, we got rid of our ground transportation about six months ago. While I don’t necessarily notice our lack of vehicle on a day to day basis (unless, of course, our laundry cart breaks an axle a quarter mile from our apartment, but you really don’t want to hear that story, it’s too depressing), it does seem strange to miss out on so many cross-country, Boston to Michigan drives. We used to trek it two or three times a year, and this year – a year during which we actually must be in Michigan from time to time to, oh, plan a wedding – we have no such options.

Instead, I have become a jet-setter. Back on the air-travel wagon. That is a confusing metaphor.

I hate it a lot more than I used to because I know how awful it can get, how quickly your plans can disintegrate, how awful your concourse food choices are at 9:00 p.m. when you haven’t eaten all day because you’ve been taxiing around the runway for hours without AC. And how much a bowl of Pinkberry costs. It’s sickening. I stress out the night before, sleep fitfully, wake up feeling ill, and clutch my armrests during take-off. It’s awful. But such is my over-privileged, first-world life.

But there are three things that always please me about air travel:

 

1) The sleeping on your early morning flight, followed by an airport Starbucks on your layover.

2) Taking pictures of oneself in airplanes and airport terminals

3) Plane books. Plane books. Plane books!!

In December, I flew from Boston to Columbus and I read Eric Greiten’s The Warrior’s Heart. I thought about Navy SEALs for the entire trip; at dinner one night, I asked my sister if she could ever be a Navy SEAL and she said no, because one time a Navy SEAL did a motivational presentation at her place of employment and she read his memoir and it was really intense. And yeah, that Navy SEAL that came to visit was Eric Greiten. I find this kind of reading kismet endlessly amusing.

I flew back from Columbus to Boston and read Cheryl Strayed’s Wild, which I liked a lot more than I thought I would, and which led me to read Tiny Beautiful Things, which I liked a lot more than most other books I’ve read in my life.

In February, I flew from Boston to Detroit to do some wedding planning. I read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which in case you missed it, I loved, loved, loved, loved, loved x 1000 loved. There may have been plane-crying, which I think is one of the more dignified types of public-transit-weeping. Crying in a taxi is probably the best. Crying on the 66 bus is probably the worst.

On the leg home, I read Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly, which was a hard one to stick to, but sometimes that’s the point of a plane-read: you are trapped, you must finish the task, you must keep reading until you are done reading. Yes, it was dense, but yes, it was rewarding, and I still think about it often.

Next week, I am doing another Boston -> Detroit jaunt, for wedding planning, a wedding shower, and my smallest sister’s GRADUATION FROM HIGH SCHOOL. SERIOUSLY. HOW IS THIS HAPPENING. I’m thinking Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising for the purposes of potentially attending a book club once I return (assuming all flight plans go as… um… planned and also that I am not dead to the world), and finishing up Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins (assuming I haven’t devoured it in its entirety before then; I’d give it a fifty-fifty chance). I just picked up Her: A Memoir – that might be hard to avoid.

At the end of June, I am headed to Chicago and back again.

Shortly thereafter, back to Michigan in July for this thing called Getting Married.

Once that small life detail is taken care of, back to Boston, then on a plane to… oh… Italy.

How many books can one read on the way to Italy and back? How many books can I justify bringing with me in my luggage? Maybe it would be a good time to tackle Infinite Jest on my Kindle? Who gets slightly excited about reading a 1000 page book on her honeymoon?

These are all very unimportant questions with unimportant answers, but the moral of this story – as is the moral of most of my stories – is this: books and coffee. Coffee and books.

assorted media
09 May 2013

only death will part

This week in impossible/stressful/ridiculous wedding tasks, we plan our ceremony.

Which will happen in…. oh…. two months.

Two. Months.

Scene: The Boy and Me looking over possible wedding ceremonies provided by our lifesaving officiant

The Boy:                Do you want to do our wedding vows like a duet?

Me:                        What in the world are you talking about?

The Boy:                Like this

[He shows me a supposedly contemporary exchange of vows in which the imaginary paper couple appear to read a very long, very drippy poem, alternating stanzas between bride and groom]

Me:                      I would prefer the phrases “you crept toward me” and “dandelion fluff” to not be included in my wedding.

The Boy:               Alright then.

Me:                      In fact, the only way I will exchange vows with you in a duet form is if we sing them. Like West Side Story.

The Boy:               What in the world are you talking about?

 

And that is when I realized that everything I know about romance, I probably learned from musical theater.

2
quarterlife crisis
07 May 2013

where i’ve been / where i’m going

This week, a year ago, I was finishing up my last grad school classes. I was also working 700 jobs and applying for 1,400 more and staring down a summer that could end in triumph, disaster, cross-country move, or complete mental collapse. But this is all a way to say that although I am still only a few bus stops away from where I was last May, my life is in a different zip code. A different stratosphere.

I don’t want to wax too poetic about shifting identities and growing up, but that’s what’s going on. It’s what’s always going on. My days in grad school were probably overstuffed, but every day had a measuring stick – pages to read, articles to decode, papers to write. At the end of so many days was the measuring stick of a semester. If you measured up in December or in May, then anything you did with your days, your hours, felt like time well spent.

Now, I have more days and hours to work with, but those hours take on more weight. They stand on their own. They are 100% mine. Whatever I decide to do with them, that’s me. That’s pressure, but that’s life. Just a different life.

It changes the way I spend those hours, it does. It changes the way I read, and which books I choose when I do. I like to feel good about my hours – productive, like a good session of schoolwork, a nice workout – but I’m also trying to use my time to remember some old things. Life before grad school, when I used to have time to burn. Life when I was a kid, when I had a myriad of authentic (albeit fairly offbeat) passions. Life when I was in school, and every idea about children’s lit was going to be a future article, thesis, novel.

Not easy, balancing the long-term and the short-term, the hours and the weeks, the weeks and the months. Blogging is getting the short end of the stick, getting pushed out right now by other activities, but also because I’m not reading the kind of books I like to blog about. I’m not going anywhere, though. I like to know this space is here, and I hope that my infinitesimal number of readers will wait around for me. Don’t worry – as long as I’m still writing and reading, no matter how I divide up the hours, I’ll be around.

books
01 May 2013

The Great Gatsby, 11 years later

I wonder how many people in the world are reading The Great Gatsby this week. I finished my re-read last week. It was the first time I’ve read it since I pretended to read it in eleventh grade English. I mean, I tried. I’m sure I tried. I liked books in high school, liked them in college, but there was just something about the Required Reading book that turned me off. Now that I am a semi-professional reader and a grown-up adult, I can read in ways high school Jessica wasn’t interested in reading. I can read slowly, I can read for language and subtext rather than just plot, I can read stories that don’t fit my personal tastes without skimming, giving up, or pretending. I can read and enjoy books that at earlier points in my reading history, I didn’t enjoy. Like The Great Gatsby.

The book stays the same, but the reader changes. Eleven years since eleventh grade. I am no longer in school (FINALLY) and I get a lot of sleep: I can free up a little time to read that dense first chapter slowly and with care, properly orient myself to the book. I know more about the 1920s and have developed a bit of a soft spot for 20th century period fiction, so it’s not so foreign.

And most importantly, I realized that this book is 75% drunk people talking, partying, and cheating on one another. When I was in 11th grade, I had never been a drunk person nor encountered any in large groups. I have since attended a four-year state university. I am not sure that one can really grasp this novel without having encountered social groups bound by regular inebriation.

Eleven years later, I still don’t think I was picking up everything Fitzgerald was laying down. I’m sure it’s all symbols and metaphors and timeless commentary on high society, but high society is not exactly something I’m familiar with. Tonight, I made soup for dinner using a sauce pan without a handle. Not high class.

But will I watch a Baz Luhrmann movie about high society parties full of drunk people who love and hate and kill each other? Oh yes, yes I will.

adventures
29 Apr 2013

spring things

1. April in Boston, man. It’s a dream. The sun shows up in the morning, birds chirping, etc. The sun is still up when I get out of work. Things are getting green again, flowers are everywhere. Lovely cool breezes and sunglasses.

On Friday, we ran the Southwest Corridor park and discovered there is a secret enclave between Mass Ave and Back Bay, a brick-paved throughway lined by flowering trees where rich people play tennis and walk their dogs. A secret city garden.

Yesterday, I wore a pair of shorts. And flip-flops.

Sure, I was a bit freezing when the sun went down, but oh, I can’t resist you, Boston in April.

2. April in other parts of New England – also excellent. Two of my favorite Boston friends invited us out to Newburyport for the day to attend the Newburyport Literary Festival. Junot Diaz being his genius self in the morning, some guy who lulled us to sleep in a darkened theater talking about the history of music and pianos, and Matthew Quick (Silver Linings Playbook) and Evan Roskos (Dr. Bird’s Advice for Sad Poets) riffing on mental illness and art in the afternoon. Good food, better company. When we got home, The Boy asked why we don’t hang out with these particular friends more often – “They are funny, we always have a good time, they make me feel good.” Agreed. That is my favorite part about living here – my universally talented, hilarious, and amazing friends that I am so lucky to have met.

3. Let’s talk about cleaning. Last week I had a lot of time on my hands, so I cleaned. I cleaned every day. I cleaned until my place was about 95% spotless. I’m still experimenting with time-monitoring apps, so I can actually tell you how much time maintaining a high-level clean cost me: 30 to 90 minutes. Every day.

And now that my routine is resuming, my house, of course, looks like a pile of garbage. Does it really take 30 to 90 minutes a day, EVERY DAY, to keep my home looking like civilized adults live in it? That is a daunting prospect. That’s a lot of manual labor (especially after a long work day), and would I choose cleaning over reading? Running? Writing? Going to bed early? Hanging out with those friends I keep going on about? Going outside and enjoying April in Boston? I don’t know, I don’t know. Perhaps I am doomed to live out the rest of my days in relative filth.

Or I need to find an apartment with a dishwasher.

4. Can we also talk about iced coffee? It’s my favorite thing, and it’s almost time to start cold-brewing again. I’ve been using Pioneer Woman’s method for a few years now, but holy crap that cheesecloth drives me nuts. Anyone sitting on an iced coffee secret? I suppose I could just buy a bigger iced coffee receptacle and cut the time spent wrestling with cloth to once a month?

5. I am still doing Required Reading, but that should be over by the end of the week. I’m looking forward to dipping into something new, something shiny. I want to read a beach book. I want to read the new Sarah Dessen. I want to read Animal Vegetable Miracle again. Maybe next weekend will include a book, a picnic blanket, and an iced coffee.

goals
23 Apr 2013

things you do when you can’t do the things you do

It is hard to make any statements or judgements regarding the last seven days because, well, I am not sure that this seven days can be compared to anything else in the history of The Weeks of My Life. Or maybe the weeks of anyone’s lives, I don’t know. A holiday weekend followed shortly by a large-scale national tragedy, followed by unscheduled downtime in which I basically joined The Boy in his spring break, and a day-long, Stay-In-Your-Houses-This-Kid-Is-Armed stand-off. For good measure.

Oh, and this was also the week I didn’t read any books… or watch any TV or movies, listen to podcasts or audiobooks, or read anything substantial on the Internet beyond my emails.

Weirdest. Week. Ever.

I will confess that I did not achieve 100% abstinence. You try not watching the news or reading anything on Twitter the next time your city seems to be on the brink of descending into violent chaos. I also read about 50 pages of Janie Face to Face, which has been a trip because I was totally into Face on the Milk Carton…. when I was about TEN. And I just realized that I didn’t even read book #4.

Other than that, though, I did pretty good. And by did pretty good, I mean…

I ran a lot

The weather was gorgeous all week, and after five weeks of coercion, of “pretty please,” of running solo, The Boy is finally more into it than I am. Ran Saturday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Saturday again. Only one run under 2 miles. Completed Couch to 5k in just under 7 weeks. Said this phrase: “Hmm… we’ve already run 3 days out of the last 4… I know – let’s just do a nice short run into town and then buy a bottle of wine and take the bus home!”

I Instagrammed my cat a lot

What can I say? The weather’s warming up. I don’t want to say she’s cuter when it’s warm. It’s more like a different season of cute. Winter cute, snuggled up with blankets and cuddling on my chest, is ending; Summer cute, sprawling out of the floor and sleeping in spots of sun, is here.

I socialized

I know that I am a person who puts off making phone calls, doesn’t return Facebook messages, who begs off weeknight socializing nine times out of ten. This week, though, I answered my phone, I chatted with friends, I went out more than once, without thinking of a single excuse. Highly unusual. Maybe I am not as anti-social as I assumed, but really just someone adept at keeping herself busy, even when that busy-ness gets in the way of other things that are good to do (like interacting with other humans)

I did puzzles

I love puzzles. I pulled out a copy of Games Magazine and decided that in the absence of books and Internet surfing, my default “I don’t know what to do and I don’t really feel like being productive” activity would be puzzles. This was pleasantly nostalgic because I think I got my hands on my first Games Magazine in about third grade. Also, puzzles make your brain smarter. I’m not sure the same is true about Twitter.

And, I cleaned the CRAP out of my apartment.

Everything was put away, everything vacuumed, everything folded and everything scrubbed. I actively cleaned up after myself. I did the dishes every day. This was surprisingly time consuming, but that’s exactly why I was doing it.

And that’s the real take-away, I think. Usually, my days feel rigid. There are things that must be done at certain times – commuting, working, laundry, shopping, bed, etc. I can fill in the cracks with things of my choosing, but most of the time I am not really choosing them. Most of the time, I am just doing habitual things because they are habitual. Eliminating habitual things forced me to actually think about that extra time. To make conscious decisions. I didn’t feel like I was pouring sand into the cracks of an already full life. My free hours opened themselves up before me.

I could paint a picture. I could clean the kitchen. I could sit with The Boy at the kitchen table for thirty minutes after dinner, chatting. I could walk into town for some groceries, call my sister on the phone, or work on the family budget or send an overdue email. I couldn’t pick up a book or turn on the TV or do most things on the Internet, but the simple limitations opened up other options.

Not a lifestyle change, but definitely an exercise worth repeating a few times a year.

(Says the girl who broke her fast with three episodes of Switched at Birth…..)

 

book reviews
22 Apr 2013

The Tragedy Paper by Elizabeth Laban

I am concerned that I am becoming a reading cynic.

But not that concerned. I think if you like every book you read, then you are probably just really good at picking books to match your tastes. I think it’s okay to acknowledge that although I love books, and YA and children’s books especially, and although I will champion reading whatever you want, whyever you want, whenever you want, whoever you are… there are still books out there that just are not contributing to the field. And it’s okay to talk about why not.

I am off to a bad start, because I am not saying that The Tragedy Paper is one of those books at all! Oh, I start book reviews like this all the time. It’s misleading and awful. I apologize. Stay with me…

It took me three years of grad classes to feel confident enough in my tastes and perceptions to talk about why I didn’t like books, and more importantly, what part of the literature stemmed these negative feelings. It took me about two classes of grad school to see that some people seem to enjoy stampeding into a book with the force of all their pet peeves and then get a look of joyous self-satisfaction when they point out every last nitpicky detail that caused them to hate this book.

Those are the people I don’t want to be.

There is a difference between stating personal preference and forming a critical argument. It’s sometimes not easy to spot in a review, and definitely not easy to prevent when you are reading on your own and writing reviews and otherwise expressing your thoughts about a personal reading experience in a way that will be valuable to other readers.

So. The Tragedy Paper. This is a fairly traditional boarding school story. Think A Separate Peace as your classic touchstone, Looking for Alaska as your contemporary update, and then the rest of the boarding-school-lit field: I’ve read Marianna Baer’s Frost and Jenny Hubbard’s Paper Covers Rock in the past few years, but heck, you could think about Harry Potter, too. All of these books follow a rough pattern: student leaves home, enters a school with a distinct culture – academics, socializing, and other activities are built into the school experience and are often given the heavy weight of ritual or tradition – student is challenged to manage his or her own life without parental control, and then a tragedy occurs, putting it all to the test.

The Tragedy Paper fits neatly into this pattern. Enrolling at Irving School as a second-semester senior, Tim Macbeth flies across the country alone to begin school while his parents are out of the country. A snowstorm grounds him in a Chicago airport and he has a chance encounter with Vanessa, a pretty, popular senior who seems to like him despite the fact that Tim has albinism. When they both arrive at Irving, Tim must adapt to the academic and social culture, manage the health issues that surround his condition without adult oversight, and contend with Vanessa’s boyfriend who is sometimes suspicious and sometimes nice and sometimes just a cog in the bro-y old boy’s club kind of tradition that permeates Irving like any good patriarchal boarding school. (Sorry, blame Frankie)

A tragedy occurs. Of course. It’s called The Tragedy Paper. Laban does ramp up the tension as she moves closer toward the event, and despite the clear fact that something bad is going to happen, I was still completely in the dark of what it would be. From the eyes of Tim, boarding school is a good experience: the traditions give him a sense of belonging, Vanessa makes him feel attractive and confident, and he’s making friends. But Laban injects this sense of maliciousness just beneath the surface. Tim is an albino. An outsider. He is making a play for a popular girl. He will be punished for upsetting the social order. This growing terror feels a little reminiscent of The Chocolate War, and the ending was both shocking and satisfyingly complex.

But is The Tragedy Paper contributing to the field of contemporary YA lit? Is it a good example of a boarding school story? Does it do the genre right?

That I am not sure about, for a reason that is a mix of  my own personal preference, my experience reading contemporary YA realism, and what I think are legitimate literary concerns. I am not sure I can separate them, hence the diatribe above.

My major issue is that I think this book seemed too self-aware. That is best way I can put it, even though books are not conscious entities. What I mean by this is that reading The Tragedy Paper it seems that the author knows she is writing A Boarding School Story that will end in tragedy. It’s called The Tragedy Paper for goodness sake. Everything feels a little too neat. In every other chapter, we are reminded of the wonderful, local, organic food served in the cafeteria, in case we forgot that Irving is a Special Place where kids get to eat Special Food.

The book’s marketing doesn’t help the situation. Laban’s author bio gets a giant picture and a brief bio stating that she wrote her own Tragedy Paper in high school. I am assuming this is supposed to lend credibility and interest to the story – the author knows, so we can trust her depictions – but I interpret that move as a way to bolster the book’s faults. If the plot seems unbelievable at times, the narrators too precocious, the whole book too “self-aware” that’s because Laban knows better than we do and we should just roll with it. The author interview immediately following the book cemented my feelings – I don’t even remember the contents of said interview, but the fact that it is assumed that I give a rip about a debut author’s privileged high school years at a prestigious boarding school feels a little off. Like the story just can’t stand on its own.

And speaking of stories standing on their own, this brings me to my major concern with Laban’s craft: the entire story is written through the eyes of another character – Duncan – who is a senior the year after Tim has graduated. Duncan lives in Tim’s old room, and in the auspice of Irving tradition, Tim leaves Duncan a gift: a stack of CDs, an audio recording of Tim telling his story, his tragedy. It’s a framing device, but it’s a clunky one. Duncan has little personality, he doesn’t do much except race back to his dorm room to listen to more of Tim’s story and hook up with a nice girl named Daisy. This is not Duncan’s story – it’s Tim’s. Again, I feel like a strong story, a stronger writer, could let Tim’s story stand on it’s own.

There could be an argument that Laban expands the literary field by exploring the life experience of teens with albinism. I did find her treatment of Tim’s condition to be nuanced, interesting, and definitely not a story that I’ve heard before in fiction, much less boarding school YA lit. However, Tim’s condition seems to fit so nicely into the pattern of a boarding school story – and is so essential to the tragedy’s ending – that it seems an almost exploitative choice, a physical representation of Tim’s internal other-ness that makes me a little uncomfortable. There were some comments in the author’s interview that reinforced my feelings, which didn’t help.

So what’s the verdict? I would say a good read that satisfies the conditions of the boarding school story and presents some interesting characters and dilemmas, but lacking in significant literary merit, perhaps masked in hyped-up publicity. Or, it’s just a good book and I am a cynic who is overly sensitive to reading about delicious grass-fed burgers and plot-development based on people vomiting (I didn’t mention that because I just can’t, but it happens more than once). But it was definitely thought-provoking, both the actual content of the book and thinking about how it fits into the field afterwards to write this post. I’m interested to see what Laban will try next, either way.

 

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