Source: ABC News

Nora Ephron, screenwriter of movie classics such as When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, and Sleepless in Seattle died yesterday of a rare blood cancer. {The Washington Post]

I should have known better when I said MAKE IT STOP, so let’s get all the latest news about The Book That Won’t Go Away outta the way:

• Chris Pine is willing to look at the script for The Book That Won’t Go Away. I’m willing to look at him nekkid. [Celebuzz]
• Emma Roberts hasn’t even read the book and she totally wants in. Methinks someone just wants to boost her acting career. Me-also-thinks she should actually
  read the book before she makes a firm commitment, particularly the infamous tampon scene [iafrica.com]
• Apparently The Book That Won’t Go Away has encouraged people to start reading again [thestar.com]
• 16 desserts inspired by The Book That Won’t Go Away [Buzzfeed]
• These “trailers” for The Book That Won’t Go Away arehilarious; particularly the second one where Christian Grey is at his desk crying shirtless over his blotter. NSFW to the max! {Part 1, c/o YouTube] [Part 2, c/o YouTube]
• Jimmy Fallon takes The Book That Won’t Go Away to karaoke [Huff Post Comedy Canada]
• I think E.L. James’ husband is a little jealous of her success. I on the other hand, totally am not. [Blogra]

If youre going to self-publish! mek SUre yu poofead. [DuoLit]

When Can I Call Myself a Writer? [Beyond The Margins]

What Makes Bad Writing? [The Wall Street Journal]

I need one of these, like yesterday. I’m sick of working at the kitchen table or on my bed. [Flavorwire]

50 redundant phrases to avoid in writing [ragan.com]

11 Authors Who Hated the Movie Versions of Their Books [Mental Floss]

If you’re into Young Adult fiction, get the latest news here [ONTD]

Advice on short story writing from a master [Open Culture]

Writing advice from another master [The Atlantic]

Another argument for independent publishing [Novel Publicity & Co.]

The Rules of Storytelling, Pixar Style [Writer's Digest]

Canadian author Peter Robinson wins crime novel award [CBC News]

Toronto’s World Biggest Bookstore could close in 2013 [thestar.com]

WHY WOULD ANYONE DO THIS? (Burn the books, I mean, not try to save ‘em) [CBC News]

I also need this, like, yesterday. [Galleycat]

New Graphic Novel App for iPad Launches [DBW]

The French Still Flock to Bookstores [The New York Times]

Dammit. I already waste enough time on Pinterest as it is! [Publishers Weekly]

Agreed. I’m much more creative at coffee shops than I am at the library. It’s just the whole “writing on my Macbook Pro at Starbucks” seems so cliché. [The Atlantic]

Yeesh. These people need to leave Obama ‘lone. [Huff Post Books Canada]

Making E-books Is Harder Than It Looks [Huff Post Books Canada]

Awesome Books to Replace Your Favourite Cancelled TV Shows [io9]

And finally, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 2 trailer:

Note: this will be my last post for a while, because I’m goin’ away for a few days. Yay! Next post will be some FICTION for a change, because, yeah, I still write that.

I mean, I love books, but not that much. [Writer's Relief]

More “Hunger Games” casting news [Entertainment Weekly]

Summer Reading Flow Chart for the High School Set [Book Patrol]

Is Fiction Changing, for Better or For Worse? [The New York Times]

Some self-publishing advice [Writer's Digest]

Some writing advice [figment]

“Literary introvert?” Isn’t that an oxymoron? [Psychology Today]

Another great short story from Canada Writes [CBC Books]

Hope you enjoy!

Update: Instead of liveblogging here, I’ve decided to open up a Tumblr account for this purpose. That means I probably won’t be setting up a page for reviews, since it seems kind of moot now that I’m doing this. But I will post the link to this Tumblr under the Season’s Readings page, if you’re interested. Thanks!

Updated June 23, 2012: Won’t be doing this anymore. See this post for details. 

Break out a human-sized rock, because you’re going to want to live under it to avoid hearing any more about The Book That Won’t Go Away [Celebuzz]

Failing that, why not try capitalizing by selling merchandise based on The Book That Won’t Go Away? [Huff Post Style Canada] [The Gloss]

If you shoot yourself after reading this, don’t blame me…blame The Book That Won’t Go Away [The Daily Mail Online]

I’m really certain you will shoot yourself after reading this. Obviously, I’m the last person who would advocate book burning, but for The Book That Won’t Go Away, I will make an exception [Huff Post Books Canada]

As if Twilight hasn’t ruined enough lives already, it’s where The Book That Won’t Go Away got its roots [The Wall Street Journal]

The guy who wrote American Psycho wrote about torture, now he’s out to torture himself, because he really really really wants to write the script for the movie based on The Book That Won’t Go Away [The Hollywood Reporter]

Currently reading: Messy - Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

You know the drill. If you don’t, click here. If you don’t know the drill, but you don’t care, don’t click there. If you know the drill but you don’t care, I don’t blame you, because I’ve stopped caring too. I mean, I obviously somewhat care because I’ve been doing this list for a full year now…okay, let’s just say I’m apathetic at best…which is the reason why I’ve yet to finish this list once and for all!

Okay. Let’s move on, shall we?

List of books under the cut.

Update: Instead of the usual reviews, I will be liveblogging my way through each book on Tumblr! 

Update #2: June 23, 2012. Won’t be doing a liveblog after all; it takes up a lot of time. If I had just a few books to read, I would, but I have over twenty books to go through, so reading them and blogging about them will take about twice the time. Instead, I will just do as usual and just do a review for each after I’ve read them. 

1. The White Tiger - Aarvind Adiga

What It’s About: An Indian villager goes from chauffeur, to rich landlord…to murderer.

2. Surfacing - Margaret Atwoood

What It’s About:  A young woman returns to northern Quebec – where she grew up – to investigate the disappearance of her father.

3. Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

What It’s About: Seriously? See what I wrote below about 1984, minus the reference to the TV show, of course.

4. Messy - Heather Cocks & Jessica Morgan

What It’s About: The Fug Girls return with their companion novel to their first, Spoiled.

5. Wild Stars Seeing Midnight Suns - J. California Cooper

What It’s About: A collection of short stories. From the book jacket: “J. California Cooper writes about the search fulfillment that propels people’s dreams and desires.”

6. My Soul To Keep - Tananarive Due

What It’s About: From the book jacket: “What would people be like if they never aged, never got sick, or never died?”

7. Joplin’s Ghost - Tananarive Due

What It’s About: After visiting a historical site, an up-and-coming R&B artist finds her life taking a strange turn after encountering the spirit of a music legend, whose sound is being channeled through a rap superstar. How have I not read this yet?!

8. Skinnydipping - Bethenny Frankel

What It’s About: Yeah, I’m reading a novel “written” by a Real Housewife. Don’t judge me! Okay, I won’t blame you if you do. As for the plot? For that, scroll down to see the plot description of Snooki’s novel. Yup, that Snooki. Now I really don’t blame you if ya judge me.

9. Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn

What It’s About:  Nick and Amy Dunne appear to be the perfect couple, but when Amy goes missing, Nick may or may not be responsible. I usually don’t read mystery novels, but after reading the description of this one, I couldn’t resist.

10. Into The Darkest Corner - Elizabeth Haynes

What It’s About: Four years after escaping a passionate but abusive relationship, a young woman lives in a paranoid state even though her abusive ex is in prison. Then she meets a new guy, things are going great, “until the phone rings”, as the book jacket ominously tells me. Either her dry cleaning is ready, or her ex must be baaaack.

11. Forgotten - Catherine McKenzie

What It’s About: Thanks to an illness and and earthquake, Emma’s one-month trip to Africa turns to six. When she returns home, everyone and everything has moved on without her, because everyone thought she was dead. Harsh.

12. Between You and Me - Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

What It’s About: Believe it or not, this is the sixth full-length novel courtesy of the ladies who brought you The Nanny Diaries. This one is about a young woman who becomes an assistant for her super famous cousin, which leads her on a discovery of her family secrets.

13. The Emperor’s Children - Claire Messud

What It’s About: From the book jacket: “The Emperor’s Children is a dazzling, masterful novel about the intersections in the lives of three friends, now on the cusp of their thirties, making their way – and not – in New York City.”

14. Twilight - Stephenie Meyer

What It’s About: Duh. Stupid insipid girl and creepy stalker vampire boyfriend. I know I often complain about bad writing on this site, but in a sick way I guess I enjoy reading things I can make fun of. That’s the only reason my sister and I watched Full House back in the day. Anyway, the real reason I’m reading this is because I read another so-bad-it’s-good novel, which I am now referring to as The Book That Won’t Go Away  – you know what I’m talkin’ ’bout – that this is based on, so I want to see the similarities. It’s not like I paid money for this, or anything; I’ve borrowed it from the library.

15. The Upper Room - Mary Monroe

What It’s About: Mama Ruby stole her best friend’s stillborn baby, brought her back to life, and raised her as her own. She also may or may not have killed her husband. But now Maureen – the stolen baby, wants to get away from her mother, whom the whole town fears. Once again: how have I not read this yet?

16. The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

What It’s About: This is a story of young love with - surprise surprise - a night circus serving as a backdrop.

17. The Collector of Hearts - Joyce Carol Oates

What It’s About: Another short story collection. From the book jacket: “In these twenty-seven tales of the forbidden, Joyce Carol Oates explores the waking nightmares of life with eyes wide open, facing what the bravest of us fear the most. With eerie brilliance, this master of the short story reminds us just how seductive – and terrifying – they can be…”

18. I’ll Take You There - Joyce Carol Oates

What It’s About: From the book jacket: ” ‘Anellia’…falls passionately in love with a brilliant yet elusive black philosophy student. But she is tested most severely by a figure out of her past she’d long believed dead.”

19. 1984 - George Orwell

What It’s About: If you don’t know by now, I can’t help you. And if you watch Big Brother and STILL don’t know, you should really get some help. Just not from me.

20. Sex Wars - Marge Piercy

What It’s About: Fredyeh is a young Jewish woman from Russia working in New York so she can send for the rest of her family. But when she finds out her younger sister is “adrift somewhere”, she sets out to find her in “a search that carries her through brothels and prison.” Included in the plot are accounts of real-life heroines such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B.  Anthony.

21. A Shore Thing - Nicole “Snooki” Polozzi

What It’s About: Who cares? I’ll finish this in a day and immediately forget what happened.

22. The Reverend’s Wife - Kimberla Lawson Roby

What It’s About: In this ninth instalment of the Reverend Curtis Black series, Charlotte finds herself fighting for her marriage after having not one, but two affairs. But it may be too late, as her husband plans on holding on only until their son graduates high school – and he may have already met someone!

23. Small Sacrifices - Ann Rule

What It’s About: The only non-fiction title on this list. Diane Downs brings her three gravely wounded children to the emergency room, claiming that somebody had shot them. Turns out it was she who shot them.

24. The Innocents – Francesca Segal

What It’s About: A husband-to-be is tempted by his fiancée’s cousin. Juicy!

25. Some Sing, Some Cry - Ntozake Shange with Ifa Bayeza

What It’s About: From the book jacket: “From Reconstruction to both world wars, from the Harlem Renaissance to Vietnam, from spirituals and arias to torch songs and the blue, Some Sing, Some Cry brings to life the monumental story of one American family’s journey from slavery into freedom, from country into city, from the past to the future, bright and blazing ahead.”

26. On a Day Like This - Peter Stamm

What It’s About: From the book jacket: “Andreas leaves everything behind  - sells his Paris apartment, cuts off all social ties, quits his teaching job, and waves good-bye to his days sent sitting idly in cafes – to look for a woman he loved half a lifetime ago.”

27. Queen Bees and Wannabes - Rosalind Wiseman

What’s It About: This is the book that inspired the movie Mean Girls. From the front cover: “Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and the New Realities of Girl World.”

28. Addicted - Zane

What It’s About: Yeah, yeah, I know I spent like five posts bitching about another one of Zane’s books, Nervous, but this one involves some of the characters in that novel. In fact, it was published prior to Nervous. As for its plot: it’s about sex addiction or something. It’s porn erotic fiction; it’s not that deep.

Expect this list to get bigger, because I currently have ten books on hold at the library. Yet I scratch my head over why I can’t seem to finish this list.

It seemed that every time I entered the mall, everyone else was exiting; that everyone but I was going in the same direction. All those who walked in the opposite direction as I did seemed purposeful, seemed as though they knew where they were going and how to get there. And I – who kept losing job after job and going on futile interview after futile interview, did not. Like a tidal wave, this rush of people kept pushing me back to where I was going, and I kept fighting against them, kept pushing back. Every single time this happened, every single time, it would remind me of a certain scene in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.

You can breathe a sigh of relief: this is not going to be a post about my life. And for the pre-teen girls who Googled a certain flash-in-the-pan boy band and came across this: ha-ha!

Note: This post went on a lot longer than I anticipated, and the scene related to my experience in the underground mall doesn’t come until the end. So that’s incentive to  either keep reading, or to go back to mindlessly surfing the social networking site of your choice.

So begins my third post about this novel, set in Michigan during the 1950s and 1960s, involving protagonist Macon “Milkman” Dead, III.  Except his last name really isn’t “Macon Dead”. His real name is actually unknown, thanks his grandfather’s inability to read, and an incompetent drunk Yankee, as his father, Macon Jr., tells him.

“Got his name messed up because he couldn’t read…When freedom came. [Blogger's Note: As in freed slaves] All the coloured people in the state had to register with the Freedman’s Bureau…in 1869….Papa was in his teens and went to sign up, but the man behind the desk was drunk. He asked Papa where he was born. Papa said Macon. Then he asked him who his father was. Papa said, ‘He’s dead.’…Well. the Yankee wrote it all down, but in the wrong spaces…in the space for his name, the fool wrote ‘Dead’ comma ‘Macon.’ But Papa couldn’t read so he never found out how he was registered until Mama told him. They met on a wagon going North. Started talking about one thing and another, told her about being a freedman and showed off his papers to her. When she looked at his paper, she read him out what it said…Mama liked it. Liked the name. Said it was new and would wipe out the past, wipe it out all out.”

This introduces the main theme of the novel: how the elimination of the past can cause one to stagnate in the present. Just as with any other Bildungsroman, Milkman’s story is one of an individual’s journey from youth to adulthood, a journey which he spends trying to understand his place in the world, the purpose of his existence, his raison d’être. To get a better definition of a bildungsroman – and, in turn, the purpose of this piece – check out the quote below, courtesy of The Victorian Web:

A Bildungsroman is, most generally, the story of a single individual’s growth and development within the context of a defined social order. The growth process, at its roots a quest story, has been described as both “an apprenticeship to life” and a “search for meaningful existence within society.”

Obviously, this meaningful existence is what Milkman is lacking. Yet he can’t even find it in the macrocosm of society as represented by his own family, never mind society in general. Because he looks up to his father – a property owner – so keenly, he is happy to start working for him at the age of thirteen, collecting rent from tenants. Milkman is proud to be the son of such a powerful man, despite certain public distaste for him. Then, at age fourteen, he discovers that he has a slight disability.

…he had noticed that one of his legs was shorter than the other. When he stood barefoot ad straight as a pole, his left foot was about half and inch off the floor. So he never stood straight; he slouched and leaned or stood with a hip thrown out…It bothered him and he acquired movements and habits to disguise what to him was a burning defect…the deformity was mostly in his mind…He favoured it, believed it was polio, and felt secretly connected to the late President Roosevelt for that reason…Milkman secretly preferred FDR and felt very very close to him. Closer, in fact, to him than his own father, for Macon had no imperfection and age to seemed to strengthen him.

With this disability, Milkman knows he’ll never measure up to the father whom he “…fear[s]..” and “…respect[s]” so he gives up on trying to be like him, and instead, tries behaving as the exact opposite.

Macon was clean-shaven; Milkman was desperate for a mustache. Macon wore bow ties; Milkman wore four-in-hands. Macon didn’t part his hair; Milkman had a part shaved into his. Macon hated tobacco; Milkman tried to put a cigarette in his mouth every fifteen minutes. Macon hoarded his money; Milkman gave his away.

Despite these blatant differences, Milkman “still did try, as his father’s employee, to do the work the way Macon wanted it done.”

Macon isn’t the only one under Milkman’s analytical gaze. At twenty-two, having had sexual relations for six years now makes him view his mother, Ruth, differently from “the person who worried him about galoshes and colds and food…”

who stood in the way of most of the little pleasures he could take at home because they all involved some form of dirt, noise or disarray. Now he saw her as a frail woman content to do tiny things; to grow and cultivate small life that would not hurt her if it died…

Seeing his mother as a woman – and a “frail” one at that – is important, because it causes him to feel it necessary to defend her when his father physically assaults her during dinner one evening. It all starts when Milkman’s mother, whose now-deceased father was a prestigious doctor, starts talking about a wedding she’d gone to recently. It was for the granddaughter of one of her father’s former patients, Anna Djvorak. Basically, Ruth was invited because Mrs. Djvorak “was convinced that the doctor had miraculously saved her son’s life by not sending him to the tuberculosis sanatorium back in 1903…It was natural that she would want the miracle doctor’s daughter at the wedding of this son’s youngest daughter.” But when the congregation in the Catholic-based church was to receive the host, Ruth, a Methodist, fails to follow correct protocol and has to be directed accordingly by the priest. This same priest confronts her later at the reception, and after asking her about her religious denomination, he informs her that only Catholics can receive the host. During this conversation, Mrs. Djvorak interjects, introducing Ruth as “…one of my dearest friends…Dr. Foster’s daughter. Her father saved Ricky’s life.” After that, the priest is friendlier to her, “…he was very pleased and honoured to make my acquaintance. So it turned out all right.” But Milkman’s father has problems with this anecdote. First, he can’t believe  she doesn’t know that only Catholics take communion in a Catholic church. Second, he doubts that she’s as tight with Mrs. Djvorak as she claims.

“Anna Djvorak don’t even know your name. She called you Dr. Foster’s daughter! I bet you a hundred dollars she still don’t know your name! You by yourself ain’t nobody. You your daddy’s daughter!”

Then Ruth utters the response that sets him off: “‘I certainly am my daddy’s daughter’.” This is when he punches her in the face. Milkman reacts by “yank[ing] him by the back of his coat collar, up out of his chair, and knock[ing] him into the radiator.” He threatens to kill his own father if the older man ever touches his mother again. In that moment, Milkman has a conflict of emotion: on one hand, he feels “the pain and shame of seeing his father crumple before any man – even himself.” On the other hand, “he also felt glee. A snorting, horse-galloping glee as old as desire.” Yet within that glee, Milkman demonstrates how unsure of himself he is, because he doesn’t know what to do with his new sense of power.

He had won something and lost something in the same instant. Infinite possibilities and enormous responsibilities stretched out before him, but he was not prepared to take advantage of the former, or accept the burden of the latter.

Because Milkman is unaware of his past, he doesn’t know himself. And because he doesn’t know himself, he doesn’t know how to relate to anyone in his family; and that’s because he doesn’t really know anyone in his family for whom they truly are, such as his much older sisters, whose reactions to his heroics surprise him.

Milkman looked at his sisters. He had never been able to really distinguish them (or their roles) from his mother. They were in their early teens when he was born; they were thirty-five and thirty-six now. But since Ruth was only sixteen years older than Lena, all three had always looked the same age to him. Now when he met his sisters’ eyes over the table, they returned him a hatred so fresh, so new, it startled him. Their pale eyes no longer appeared to blur into their even paler skin. It seemed to him as though charcoal lines had been drawn around their eyes; that two drag lines had been smudged down their cheeks, and their rosy lips were swollen in hatred so full it was about to burst through. Milkman had to blink twice before their faces returned to the vaguely alarmed blandness he was accustomed to.

The fact that Milkman isn’t even aware of his sisters’ personality to the point that he finds them indiscernible from his mother, much less the fact that they hate him, demonstrates the irony of him having such a lack of self-awareness, yet being so self-absorbed that he doesn’t even see them as more than human bookends for their mother. And once he realizes that he’s not going to get any congratulatory pats on the back for his actions against his father, he retreats to his room, realizing that he is truly powerless and ineffectual.

His action was alone. It would change nothing between his parents. It would change nothing inside them. He had knocked his father down and perhaps there were some new positions on the chessboard, but the game would go on.

Just as Milkman has no defined role in society, he has no defined role in his family. Therefore, whatever actions he takes within that family are moot, because he’s barely even a part of it. He’s not yet his own person. When he’d tried being like his father, his physical imperfection, in his mind, ruled out that possibility. And after becoming sexually active leads to an awareness of his mother’s frailty, he tries to be the person he thinks she needs him to be, and that backfires as well. Then, in his sisters’ eyes, he sees the person that they perceive him to be: powerless and distasteful, a nobody.

Once in his room, Milkman takes gazes upon “…a pair of silver-backed brushed his mother had given him when he was sixteen, engraved with his initials, the abbreviated degree designation of a doctor.” It’s obvious that his mother wanted him to be a doctor like her father was, but at the time he rejected that idea because of his last name: “If you were sick, would you can’t to go see a man called Dr. Dead?” and considered using his middle name “Foster”, his mother’s maiden name, as his last name. But the brushes are also “a constant reminder of what her wishes for him were – that he not stop his education of high school, but go on to college and medical school.” However, his father feels differently: “To Milkman’s father, college was spent in idleness, far away from the business life which was learning to own things.” The fact that he’s given two very different options, yet still doesn’t know which one suits him, is more evidence that he knows very little about the person he is and the person he wants to be. Even when he looks in the mirror he sees himself as an unfinished puzzle.

Milkman stood before his mirror and glanced, in low light of the wall lamp, at his reflection. He was, as usual, unimpressed with what he saw. He had a fine enough face. Eyes women complimented him on, a firm jaw line, splendid feet. Taken apart, it looked all right. Even better than all right. But it lacked coherence, a coming together of the features into a total self.

Then he is confronted by his father, a scene that reiterates one of the main points of the novel: how lack of knowledge of one’s past can be a determent to their present and future.  This statement is reflected in what Milkman’s father says to preface his “defence” as to why he hit Ruth: “…if you want to be a whole man, you have to deal with the whole truth.”  Macon, Jr. tells his son that he’d married Ruth when she was sixteen and moved into the house where she lived alone with her father. Dr. Foster didn’t like Macon, and the feeling was mutual, particularly when Dr. Foster insisted on delivering both of their daughters. Macon tried getting a midwife to do the job, but living in the home of a wealthy, powerful doctor left him without a leg to stand on. From then on he had an inkling that the relationship between his wife and his father-in-law was inappropriate, and it was confirmed from him when, upon hearing of Dr. Foster’s death, he came home to witness this sight:

“In the bed. That’s where she was when I opened the door. Laying next to him. Naked as a yard dog, kissing him. Him dead and white and puffy and skinny, and she had his fingers in his mouth.”

After that discovery, Macon questioned the paternity of his daughters, but dismissed the thought when he realized “…it was clear that bastard couldn’t fuck nothing.” Despite that he still questioned something else: how far Ruth and her father had gone: “…the fact is that she was in that bed sucking his fingers, and if she do that when he was dead, what’d she do when he was alive?” This is an anger that Macon has seemed to have built up throughout his marriage to Ruth, one that reached its breaking point “…when she said, ‘Yes, I am my daddy’s daughter,’ and gave that little smirk…” Obviously, Macon had seen it as her version of a power play, the first punch thrown. The impact of his father’s revelation, of everything that had happened at dinner reduces Milkman to the point of immobility, makes him see Macon as “a stranger that he’d sat down next to on a park bench…turned to him and became to relate some intimacy.” Part of what upsets him, it seems, is that he knows his father way less than he thought. Earlier he had experienced disappointment seeing that his father had been so easily taken down by him, but that was a minuscule event compared to the one he’s just experienced.

He was entirely sympathetic to the stranger’s problems – understood perfectly, his view of what had happened to him – but part of his sympathy came from the fact that he himself was not involved or in any way threatened by the stranger’s story. It was quite the opposite from the feeling he’d had an hour or less ago. The alien walked out of his room was also the man he felt passionately enough to strike with all the fervor he could summon up. Even now he could feel the tingle in his shoulder that had singled the uncontrollable urge to smash his father’s face.

Obviously, Milkman has lost the great respect he’d had for his father in a single night. He can no longer relate to him, no longer has anyone to whom he can look up, to give him guidance towards where he’s supposed to go. Now he sees Macon as a stranger, much as he does with the rest of his family. His view of his mother doesn’t fare much better, ether. His detachment from her is obvious in when his motive for defending her is revealed.

On his way upstairs to his room he had felt isolated, but righteous. He was a man who saw another man hit a helpless person. And he had interfered. Wasn’t this the history of the world? Isn’t that what men did? Protected the frail and confronted the King of the Mountain? And the fact that the frail was his mother and the King of the Mountain his father made it more poignant, but it did not change the essential facts. No. He would not pretend that it was love for his mother. She was too insubstantial, too shadowy for love. But it was her vaporishness that made her more needful of defence…Ruth was a plea but complicated woman given to deviousness and ultra-fine manners. She seemed to know a lot and understand very little…Never had he thought of his mother as a person, a separate individual, with a life apart from allowing or interfering with his own.

Not only does Milkman see Ruth as insignificant in general, but insignificant to him. She has absolutely no impact upon his life. Even as he defended her, he did so to make himself feel like a man, since he doesn’t know how to otherwise. He sees himself as he had seen his face in the mirror: parts of a whole, incomplete, and though he doesn’t recognize it yet – just as insignificant as he sees his mother and older sisters. Or maybe he does recognize it and that’s part of what has upset him so much: that he’s more like them than he thought. Like them, he has no distinct identity, and now, having seen his parents in a new light, he has no clue where to find it. This feeling of detachment from the members of his family – particularly, his parents – continues as he takes a walk in the night to clear his head.

…Milkman tried to figure out what was true and what part of what was true had anything to do with him. What was he supposed to do with this new information his father had dumped on him? …How was he supposed to feel about the two of them now?

Milkman wonders if the story that his father had told him about Ruth and her father was true, and, if so, “‘What the fuck did he tell me all that shit for?’” Most significant is his next thought: “He didn’t want to know any of it. There was nothing he could do about it. The doctor was dead. You can’t do the past over.” Here, Milkman shows more evidence that he’s as detached from the past as he is from his family, that he also deems it to insignificant to care about, – again, like his family – and that it has no impact on his present. And that once things are dead – much like the family name – there’s no need to bring them back to life.

Milkman’s confusion was rapidly turning to anger. “Strange motherfuckers,” he whispered. “Strange.” If he wanted me to lay off, he thought, why didn’t he just say that? Just come to me like a man and say, Cool it. You cool it and I’ll cool it. We’ll both cool it. And I’d say, Okay, you go it. But no. He comes to me with some way-out tale about how come and why.

Again, this demonstrates how unimportant the past is to Milkman, which is ironic, because his lack of interest in it is what’s holding him back, even though his father tried advising him that in order to be a “whole man”, he needed to deal with “the whole truth.” But Milkman inwardly scoffs at the idea when remembering his father’s words of wisdom: “Couldn’t I be a whole man without knowing all that?” As he’s still trying to come to terms with the story his father had told him about his mother, he suddenly has a memory that “stopped [him] dead in his tracks…People jostled him trying to get past the solitary man standing in their way.” This memory is of the incident that earned him his nickname after one of Macon’s tenants, Freddie, caught Ruth breast-feeding her then six-year-old son. Upon this sight, Freddie declares Macon Dead, III, “A milkman…A natural milkman if I ever seen one.” Bits of pieces of that day come back to Milkman in the present, particularly, when his mother got caught. At first, he also deems this memory insignificant.

There was this green room, a very small green room, and his mother was sitting in the green room and her breasts were uncovered and somebody was sucking them and the somebody was himself. So? So what? My mother nursed me Mothers nurse babies. Why the sweat?

Milkman walks on, “hardly noticing the people pushing past him, the annoyed, tight faces.” Even though he’s not yet moved in any particular way by the memory, he keeps trying to see it; then he remembers laughter, loud laughter, and his mother looking ashamed. He delves deeper into the memory, trying to figure out what was so off about it until he realized that he had been old enough to stand on his own.

“My mother nursed me when I was old enough to talk, to stand up, and wear knickers, and somebody saw it and laughed and – and that is why they call me Milkman and that is why my father never does and that is why my mother never does but everybody else does. And how did I forget that? And why? And if she did that to me when there was n reason for it, when I also drank milk and Ovaltine and everything else from a glass, then maybe she did other things with her father?”

Finally, Milkman gets his first glimpse into the importance of one’s past, how it can reveal the truth, and how it can make him see things clearly. Actually this is his second taste; the first occurred, of course, when his father told him about his mother’s history. Argh. Wait. It’s his third – because the first time was when Macon told Milkman about his grandfather and the drunk Yankee. Well, the current revelation is probably the most significant, at any rate, because it’s had the biggest effect on him. Anyway, it’s probably safe to say that this opens a Pandora’s box for Milkman, because his knowledge of his mother’s relationship with his grandfather delivers to him the memory of how he came to be nicknamed “Milkman”, and in turn, opens his eyes to what may be the truth. He asks, “And how did I forget that?” Well, the answer is easy: he doesn’t think much of what he believes to be unimportant.

AND FINALLY we’ve come to the scene that relates the little personal story I gave you at the beginning of this piece. (Though, why bother pointing this out? I highly doubt anyone in their right mind has read this far. This is long, yo. Much longer than I intended it to be.) Milkman experiences his mental clarity symbolically when he realizes that the street he’s walking on is “crowded with people, all going in the direction he was coming from. All walking hurriedly and bumping against him.”

After a while he realized that nobody was walking on the other side of the street. There were no cars and the street lights were on, now that darkness had come, but the sidewalk on the other side of the street was completely empty. He turned around to see where everybody was going, but there was nothing to see except their backs and hats pressing forward into the night…

Milkman walked on, still headed towards Southside, never once wondering why he himself did not cross over to the other side of the street, where no one was walking at all.

Generally, this scene demonstrates that Milkman is going in the wrong direction in regards to his life. But it also demonstrates that, thanks to having been acquainted with bits of his past, he’s already losing his self-absorption (though this scene occurs early in the novel, so he still has a long way to go), and is starting to develop an awareness of the world around him, realizing how much he takes what is right in front of him for granted. While everyone else is going on with their lives, he is getting left behind because he’s stuck in the same place. Or, these people could also represent his past trying to move him forward while he keeps pushing back, doomed to be stuck in the present for good. Alternately, that empty street could also represent the fact that he needs to take his own path – not necessarily one that everyone else is taking – yet it can’t be done by standing in the way of or walking all over people. Another theory: because he’s not yet a man but still a child, he needs learn to walk again on his own before he’s man enough to join the rest of the world, as represented by the people pushing past him. One more theory, which is a small variation on the last one: the sidewalk is his past, one he needs to revisit before joining the rest of the real world.

Many theories can be made of the significance of this scene, but the one that’s for certain is that Milkman is heading the wrong way because he doesn’t know where he is going – the way I felt every time I walked in that underground mall. Of course, figuring out where he is supposed to go is what’s explored for the rest of the novel, on which I will be writing a summary, so this will be my last post about Song of Solomon otherwise.

When I will have that summary up? God only knows. I can only tell you that it’ll come between now until the time that I die.

I was going to write a mini-biography on her, but this one from New York Magazine is so effing incredible I’ll just post the link to it here. Instead, I’ll post a “book-ography” of her work, from 1970′s  The Bluest Eye to the recently published Home.

But first, I’ve gotta say this: Fifty Shades of Grey is NOT a literary phenomenon. It’s all hype and sensationalism. I’ve said it here before and I’ll say it again: just because something is popular, doesn’t mean it’s good. Now, Toni Morrison? She is a literary phenomenon. Her work reflects her preternatural intelligence, her willingness to represent the world as it is in all its ugliness, yet, through the genius and magnificence of her prose, make it sound beautiful. And above all, her mastery of language and storytelling is nearly unparalleled. Her work has resonated for over forty years and will continue to do so, because her understanding of human nature and all its flaws – much like Shakespeare – is something we can all relate to.

1. The Bluest Eye – 1970

Like every little girl, Pecola Breedlove just wants love – but that word seems to be a foreign one in her household. So she prays for blue eyes, believing that they will make her beautiful, and in turn, give her the attention she so craves.

2. Sula – 1973

This is a story about a friendship that goes from girl-to-womanhood between Sula Peace and Nel Wright. They maintain a tight bond despite their differing personalities – until one of them commits the ultimate betrayal.

3. Song of Solomon – 1977

To say that this book is about “a man’s journey to find himself” makes it sound like I’m generalizing,  but it’s so much more than that; it’s indescribably, knock-your-socks-off amazing. You’ll just have to read it. Or, at least, my upcoming summary about it. But, really: you should still read it.

4. Tar Baby – 1981

A love story – and all its complications, thanks to race, class, and other such issues – set against the backdrop of the Caribbean.

5. Beloved – 1987

While Sethe has escaped slavery, she can’t escape the ghost of the child she killed, a child called Beloved. The way she came to give her dead daughter this name is so, so awesome.

The welcoming cool of unchiseled headstones; the one she selected to lean against on tiptoe, her knees wide open as any grave. Pink as a fingernail it was, and sprinkled with glittering chips. Ten minutes, he said. You got ten minutes I’ll do it for free.

Ten minutes for seven letters. With another ten she could have gotten “Dearly” too? She had not thought to as him and it bothered her that it might have been possible – that, for twenty minutes, a half hour, say, she could have had the whole thing, every word she heard the preacher say at the funeral (and all there was to say, surely) engraved on her baby’s headstone: Dearly Beloved. But what she got, settled for, was the one word that mattered.

IS THAT NOT ABSOLUTE FUCKING BRILLIANCE?! Of course it is – that’s why she received both the Nobel and Pulitzer for this effort.

6. Jazz – 1992

A love triangle set in 1920′s Harlem – the Jazz Age.

7. Paradise – 1998

“They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” So begins Morrison’s seventh novel, set in 1976 Oklahoma, which explores the relationship between two communities – Ruby and the Convent – after the some of the male residents of the former commit an assault on nine women of the latter.

8. Love – 2003

Bill Cosey, owner of his own hotel, is a ladies man. In fact, he’s such a ladies man these enamoured women all continue to be obsessed with him after his death. While his circle of admirers are plentiful, the standout is a woman named Celestial, who just might have been the one. 

9.  A Mercy – 2009

This novel is set in the 1680s, during the early days of slavery. At its focus is Florens, taken in by Anglo-Dutch trader Jacob Vaark, not because he particularly likes to trade for flesh, but as a result of a debt owed to him. As she grows up – thanks to feeling rejected by her mother –  Florens desperately looks for love anywhere she can find it.

10. Home – 2012

I admit, I have yet to read this, so enjoy this summary partially taken from Amazon.com:

Frank Money is an angry, self-loathing veteran of the Korean War who, after traumatic experiences on the front lines, finds himself back in racist America with more than just physical scars. His home may seem alien to him, but he is shocked out of his crippling apathy by the need to rescue his medically abused younger sister and take her back to the small Georgia town they come from and that he’s hated all his life. As Frank revisits his memories from childhood and the war that have left him questioning his sense of self, he discovers a profound courage he had thought he could never possess again.

Honorable mention: The children’s books she wrote with her son, who, unfortunately, died three days before Christmas in 2010.

I’m dedicating this edition of Curse of the Avid Reader Card to a young, talented writer named Erica Kennedy who was found dead yesterday in her Miami Beach apartment. Her death is a shock to me, but it usually is when it happens to someone who is so young and seemed to have had so much more to offer the world. Perhaps the tragedy lies in them being no longer able to do so.

Her second novel, Feminista, was actually one of the books on my Winter Reading List; it had actually been one of my favourites, one that I laughed my way through. I had also read her first novel, Bling, and was eagerly awaiting her next work. Unfortunately, that will never come. But her loss to the literary world is minuscule compared to the loss her friends and family are suffering, to whom I send my condolences.

Read more about her life and death here, here, and, a blog post written by a personal friend of hers here.

R.I.P Ms. Kennedy.

ETA: More tributes here…

PR Newser

Jezebel

Madame Noire

Huffington Post

Also, here’s her Twitter account, Amazon page, and about.me page.

ETA: June 19, 2012 – even more tributes

New York Times

Huffington Post (this article is more in-depth than the last)

Boston Globe

Tips on how to steal like a writer [Austin Kleon]

Another Fifty Shades of Grey parody [Amazon]

I’m sure I’ve done all five [Writer's Relief]

Twelve new novels care of Random House [Random House's Tumblr]

NO. Leave it alone, for chrissakes! [Huff Post Books Canada]

This could be really, really useful: Questionnaires for Writing Character Profiles [StumbleUpon]

33 Ways To Stay Creative [StumbleUpon]

Who is the newest U.S. Poet Laureate? [Huff Post Books Canada]

Remembering Ray Bradbury with 11 Timeless Quotes [brain pickings]

An Orson Welles interview from 1960 [brain pickings]

How to Launch a Book Without Losing Your Mind [Mystery Writing Is Murder]

Oh, Jesus [The Daily Caller]

Let’s finish off with a short story [Canada Writes c/o CBC]