1963, 1977 Knopf edition
H. L. Mencken, "with annotations & new material by Raven I. McDavid, Jr., with the assistance of David W. Maurer"
The American Language
Original and purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B
Mencken issued his first edition back in 1919, but he kept updating it, and then this one-volume abridgement came out Nov. 11, 1963. (Yes, right before JFK died.) So there's almost as long a span between those editions as there is between '63 and now. As such, it offers a layered picture of the state of American English. There are references to Mencken's pals Sinclair Lewis and Anita Loos, but there are also such contemporary figures as Castro and Elvis.
Mencken argues that the American version of English is not a bastardization of the British version but a clear, hearty language (or at least dialect) in its own right. He covers various aspects of American, from "foreign influences" to slang.
Perhaps because I'm almost 90 years younger than Mencken and grew up in Southern California rather than Baltimore (where he was born and died), I disagree with some of his conclusions, or at least see them as no longer applying. American seems a lot more mumbly, less distinct a language than in his time. The schwa sound is more prevalent. To take one example, I seldom hear the first L in "fulfillment" pronounced, while he claims that Americans are better about that than the British.
It's impossible to read the book without thinking of changes that the next decades, or even years, would bring. He sees ridiculous given names as a product primarily of Okie mothers, and I can just imagine his sarcasm about, for instance, Frank Zappa's progeny. His abridger's name is interesting in that McDavid is a Southern white man born in 1911, but "Raven" makes me think of Raven-Symoné.
The impact of English culture on the American language would be very different if McDavid had waited just a year, or even a few months, for "The British Invasion." I would argue that J. K. Rowling brought a new wave of Anglophilia among the young, and it is funny to see here that "muggles" used to mean "reefers."
(Also, it's good to read pro-American quotes from Alistair Cooke long before Masterpiece Theater.)
I think this is a good abridgement but there are some avoidable reduncancies. McDavid's updatings, sometimes quite wry, blend well with the original text.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Thursday, July 5, 2012
The Affairs of Gidget
1963, possibly first edition, from Bantam
Frederick Kohner
The Affairs of Gidget
Original price unknown, purchase price $1.35
Very worn paperback
C-
I'd already seen the movies, TV-movies, and TV series by the time I found this in a used bookstore. Who could resist such a racy title, particularly about the wholesome girl-midget? Well, it turns out that Gidget is actually obsessed with sex, since "Undersized girls have oversized drives." Jezebel has an interesting piece on the contrast between book-Gidget and screen-Gidget: http://jezebel.com/5541992/the-sexual-history-of-gidget . It seems that it's not just in this Gidget book (the only one I've read) that the plucky but not plucked protagonist almost-loses-her-virginity on a regular basis. And usually it's not Moondoggie who might do the plucking. And Kohner based Gidget on his surf-loving daughter, so that makes it even weirder.
While on the one hand, it's nice to have a 19-year-old heroine with an interest in sex, I am troubled by the "choices" over whom she might give her cherry to. Like a Lessing heroine, she drifts into affairs (basically makeout sessions, although maybe not more than necking) with a married professor, a stupid jock, and a divorced dentist with a daughter. Actually, with the last, they only kiss a couple times and mostly just sit around listening to his impressive hi-fi set. It even plays tapes! With the first two affairs, there's a lot of romance novel "my resistance was overpowered by his powerful smooches," made more disquieting by her emphasis on her petiteness being no match for the girth of the men, particularly the 250-pound jock. In the case of the professor, he allegedly has an open marriage (well, he says they have an understanding, yet it's unclear if he's lying), but Gidget is hesitant because the wife is (gasp!) Asian, (shudder!) nice, and (good God no!) seven-months pregnant. The dentist seems like an improvement, but Gidget realizes that he'll only ever truly love his daughter.
As for Gidget's own father, he's a European "libertine" who lived in sin with Gidget's mom a few years before they were married. So he's more understanding than most dads would be about his daughter's experimentation, but advises her to be more honest and careful. This would be cool, if the author-father hadn't produced such a leering book. (Gidget at one point describes herself as "round, peachy and fully-packed.")
My main problem with the book though is that Gidget is the most unpleasant 19-year-old girl in my fiction collection since From 18 to 20. I said of that 1888 book, "To the extent that Beatrice has any personality, it's because she's unpleasant....She makes lots of snarky comments about women and girls, including how boring and hypocritical they are." Gidget does have more personality than Beatrice, including loads of slang, but I think she's a lot more sneering. It begins in the first chapter, with Gidget deliberately antagonizing her slightly unpleasant new roommate to the point of letting a bird shit in the roomie's bed. And later there are some cruel insults of the menopausal housemother. And I must say I'm baffled by the character assassination Kohner does on Mrs. Riley in less than 100 pages. She starts out as warm and friendly, but by the end she's a Mrs. Grundy, simply because the plot calls for it.
Similarly, the prof has a beard and is Existentialist, but he hates beatniks. Wha??? The book is certainly topical, from JFK to the Kingston Trio, so that adds some interest. But I wouldn't recommend it to any but the curious.
Frederick Kohner
The Affairs of Gidget
Original price unknown, purchase price $1.35
Very worn paperback
C-
I'd already seen the movies, TV-movies, and TV series by the time I found this in a used bookstore. Who could resist such a racy title, particularly about the wholesome girl-midget? Well, it turns out that Gidget is actually obsessed with sex, since "Undersized girls have oversized drives." Jezebel has an interesting piece on the contrast between book-Gidget and screen-Gidget: http://jezebel.com/5541992/the-sexual-history-of-gidget . It seems that it's not just in this Gidget book (the only one I've read) that the plucky but not plucked protagonist almost-loses-her-virginity on a regular basis. And usually it's not Moondoggie who might do the plucking. And Kohner based Gidget on his surf-loving daughter, so that makes it even weirder.
While on the one hand, it's nice to have a 19-year-old heroine with an interest in sex, I am troubled by the "choices" over whom she might give her cherry to. Like a Lessing heroine, she drifts into affairs (basically makeout sessions, although maybe not more than necking) with a married professor, a stupid jock, and a divorced dentist with a daughter. Actually, with the last, they only kiss a couple times and mostly just sit around listening to his impressive hi-fi set. It even plays tapes! With the first two affairs, there's a lot of romance novel "my resistance was overpowered by his powerful smooches," made more disquieting by her emphasis on her petiteness being no match for the girth of the men, particularly the 250-pound jock. In the case of the professor, he allegedly has an open marriage (well, he says they have an understanding, yet it's unclear if he's lying), but Gidget is hesitant because the wife is (gasp!) Asian, (shudder!) nice, and (good God no!) seven-months pregnant. The dentist seems like an improvement, but Gidget realizes that he'll only ever truly love his daughter.
As for Gidget's own father, he's a European "libertine" who lived in sin with Gidget's mom a few years before they were married. So he's more understanding than most dads would be about his daughter's experimentation, but advises her to be more honest and careful. This would be cool, if the author-father hadn't produced such a leering book. (Gidget at one point describes herself as "round, peachy and fully-packed.")
My main problem with the book though is that Gidget is the most unpleasant 19-year-old girl in my fiction collection since From 18 to 20. I said of that 1888 book, "To the extent that Beatrice has any personality, it's because she's unpleasant....She makes lots of snarky comments about women and girls, including how boring and hypocritical they are." Gidget does have more personality than Beatrice, including loads of slang, but I think she's a lot more sneering. It begins in the first chapter, with Gidget deliberately antagonizing her slightly unpleasant new roommate to the point of letting a bird shit in the roomie's bed. And later there are some cruel insults of the menopausal housemother. And I must say I'm baffled by the character assassination Kohner does on Mrs. Riley in less than 100 pages. She starts out as warm and friendly, but by the end she's a Mrs. Grundy, simply because the plot calls for it.
Similarly, the prof has a beard and is Existentialist, but he hates beatniks. Wha??? The book is certainly topical, from JFK to the Kingston Trio, so that adds some interest. But I wouldn't recommend it to any but the curious.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
The Unchosen
1963, 1971 Scholastic edition
Nan Gilbert
The Unchosen
Original price 60 cents, purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Ellen and her two friends try for popularity and boyfriends, although Kay seems much more interested in finding a mate for her dog. The girls get what they're looking for, after many unsuccessful schemes. The romances are handled in an offhand way (Ellen doesn't even get asked out by a nice guy till the last page), and the emphasis isn't on the friendship either, since the three girls are very different and don't get along that well. An odd sort of book, from its title onward, and Ellen admits that her story doesn't run on the usual happily-ever after lines. We're not yet at the "troubled teen" YA novels of the late '60s and beyond, but there is a sense here that the usual advice doesn't work. As with One Small Voice, the '50s facade is starting to crack.
Nan Gilbert
The Unchosen
Original price 60 cents, purchase price unknown
Worn paperback
B-
Ellen and her two friends try for popularity and boyfriends, although Kay seems much more interested in finding a mate for her dog. The girls get what they're looking for, after many unsuccessful schemes. The romances are handled in an offhand way (Ellen doesn't even get asked out by a nice guy till the last page), and the emphasis isn't on the friendship either, since the three girls are very different and don't get along that well. An odd sort of book, from its title onward, and Ellen admits that her story doesn't run on the usual happily-ever after lines. We're not yet at the "troubled teen" YA novels of the late '60s and beyond, but there is a sense here that the usual advice doesn't work. As with One Small Voice, the '50s facade is starting to crack.
Mrs. Grundy: Studies in English Prudery
1963, 1964 London House & Maxwell edition
Peter Fryer
Mrs. Grundy: Studies in English Prudery
Original price $6.75, purchase price $5.99
OK condition hardcover with worn dustjacket
B
Fryer traces the history of British killjoys, with some American examples, like the various euphemisms for cock (in the sense of rooster) and bull (in the sense of "gentleman cow"). There's lots to shake your head over here, with horrified reactions to, among other things, Sunday baking, Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddygore, the Waltz, and the Twist. And having read about maypoles and "man-midwives" from the feminist pagan perspective, it's interesting to get Fryer's take. He was a marxist (and didn't capitalise some concepts, "freudian" among them), and he does address the issue of class in that working-class pursuits of pleasure are usually more harshly punished than those of the rich. The book could be strengthened by a conclusion or similar to bring it all together, but mostly it's just a collection of attempts at repression. Also, it feels odd that there's so little about homosexuality. Contains photographs and reproductions of artwork, the most striking being censored drawings of the Cerne Giant.
Peter Fryer
Mrs. Grundy: Studies in English Prudery
Original price $6.75, purchase price $5.99
OK condition hardcover with worn dustjacket
B
Fryer traces the history of British killjoys, with some American examples, like the various euphemisms for cock (in the sense of rooster) and bull (in the sense of "gentleman cow"). There's lots to shake your head over here, with horrified reactions to, among other things, Sunday baking, Gilbert & Sullivan's Ruddygore, the Waltz, and the Twist. And having read about maypoles and "man-midwives" from the feminist pagan perspective, it's interesting to get Fryer's take. He was a marxist (and didn't capitalise some concepts, "freudian" among them), and he does address the issue of class in that working-class pursuits of pleasure are usually more harshly punished than those of the rich. The book could be strengthened by a conclusion or similar to bring it all together, but mostly it's just a collection of attempts at repression. Also, it feels odd that there's so little about homosexuality. Contains photographs and reproductions of artwork, the most striking being censored drawings of the Cerne Giant.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Suburbia's Coddled Kids
1962, possibly first edition, from Doubleday
Peter Wyden
Illustrated by Frank B. Modell
Suburbia's Coddled Kids
Original price $3.50, purchase price unknown
Worn hardcover
C+
As an early example of criticism of the Baby Boomers, and of course suburbia, this is of some historical interest, although it's not very good journalism. In fact, partly I think due to Modell's cartoons, it shows up as "humor" on the Google search. Wyden sometimes doesn't cite his sources, and the book is as full of vague anecdotes ("a mother of two preteens") as Paar's autobiography, although there are cases where he's more specific. Some of his conclusions are unsupported, and even he admits he's unsure of what will eventually happen to these "coddled kids." The book is very dated-- Sixth-graders having school dances??? Horrors!-- and sexist. "What about all the housewives who wear pants, perform rugged chores around the house, and call themselves Billy or Sydney? What notions about femininity will a little girl glean from a mother who acts much of the time in a bi-sexual capacity?"
All that said, Wyden does have a point that that generation, or at least the more privileged parts of it (in cities as well as the 'burbs), was growing up differently than past generations. He was wrong that they would always be so over-scheduled that there would be no time for "navel-gazing." Within five years, some of them would revolt against "the junior rat race" and suburban conformity.
As for Wyden's two sons? Well, one of them grew up to be a liberal senator.
With only 50 years to go, I've finished another bookshelf, but things will be slowing down shortly, as I've got roughly four bookcases after this one.
Peter Wyden
Illustrated by Frank B. Modell
Suburbia's Coddled Kids
Original price $3.50, purchase price unknown
Worn hardcover
C+
As an early example of criticism of the Baby Boomers, and of course suburbia, this is of some historical interest, although it's not very good journalism. In fact, partly I think due to Modell's cartoons, it shows up as "humor" on the Google search. Wyden sometimes doesn't cite his sources, and the book is as full of vague anecdotes ("a mother of two preteens") as Paar's autobiography, although there are cases where he's more specific. Some of his conclusions are unsupported, and even he admits he's unsure of what will eventually happen to these "coddled kids." The book is very dated-- Sixth-graders having school dances??? Horrors!-- and sexist. "What about all the housewives who wear pants, perform rugged chores around the house, and call themselves Billy or Sydney? What notions about femininity will a little girl glean from a mother who acts much of the time in a bi-sexual capacity?"
All that said, Wyden does have a point that that generation, or at least the more privileged parts of it (in cities as well as the 'burbs), was growing up differently than past generations. He was wrong that they would always be so over-scheduled that there would be no time for "navel-gazing." Within five years, some of them would revolt against "the junior rat race" and suburban conformity.
As for Wyden's two sons? Well, one of them grew up to be a liberal senator.
With only 50 years to go, I've finished another bookshelf, but things will be slowing down shortly, as I've got roughly four bookcases after this one.
The Golden Notebook
1962, 1973 Bantam edition
Doris Lessing
The Golden Notebook
Original price $1.95, purchase price $1.30
Very worn paperback
D+
Despite the condition of the book, I don't think I've read it more than once or twice in the last quarter century. When I first read it in my early 20s, I'd only neck+ed with one person, so I assumed that love/sex/romance generally were the way Lessing described them, or at least had been in the 1940s and '50s, the timeframe of the book. Reading it now, I think that it's no more insightful into women's sexuality and emotions than, say, Catch-22. Women's nipples "burn" when they feel desire, and they feel desire when they're repulsed by a man. They only date married men who've had several affairs, and then wonder why none of the men can commit. Or at least these are the conclusions to be drawn if we assume that the heroine is Everywoman. But having split personalities does not make you an Everywoman. It doesn't even make you an Anywoman.
The protagonist Anna is a writer with writer's block. Now, I've never seriously had writer's block (quite the opposite, as I'll talk about when we get up to 2005's The Midnight Disease), but my impression is that it makes it difficult to write anything resembling what Lesley Conger would call "The Book I'm Supposed to Be Writing." Shopping lists, letters to friends, rants about pet peeves, no problem. But Anna can write fiction, at least in pieces, without much trouble. Her main protagonist is Ella, who has a writer's block and sleeps with married men. I think Ella has a heroine she's writing about, too, but I lost track.
For over 600 pages, Lessing/Anna/Ella tells the same stories in different forms but, again like Catch-22, not gaining anything through repetition. At many points she/they contradict her/themselves, and not just because things change as they become fictionalised. There is no good reason for Tommy, the son of Anna's friend Molly, to be 17 in 1950 and 20 in '57. Is he married to a "Tory Socialist," or is he single, living with his mother, and having an affair/ intense platonic friendship with his stepmother?
There's a streak of homophobia in the book, with Anna worrying that having gay roommates will have a bad effect on her preteen daughter, as opposed to the straight mind-fuckers that Anna brings home. Anna also worries that she and Molly will become lesbians, not because they're physically attracted to each other (which they don't seem to be), or because they're the only people that understand each other (even though Anna doesn't confide in Molly all that much and Molly can disappear for months without contact), but because they like to bitch about men. If that were the case, wouldn't most women be lesbians?
I found Molly the more interesting and likable of the two "free women," but that may be because we spend much less time with her. The summary of the shortest and last section is "Molly gets married and Anna has an affair." No, actually, Molly just talks about her engagement to a man that Anna and the reader have never met, and Anna has a one-week fling with Max/Saul, the American we just read about in the most horrific part of her notebooks. (Characters change names for no reason sometimes.)
Oh yeah, the notebooks. Anna keeps four notebooks as diaries, each reflecting a different side of herself, e.g. for red for Communism and other politics. The fact that they overlap in content confuses the issue, for her and the reader. In the end, she buys a golden notebook, to reflect her now supposedly more integrated self. Then she gives it away to Max/Saul so he can write a novel in it. They give each other starting lines, and it's awful to realize that his line for her is the first line of The Golden Notebook. (His novel sounds equally dreadful, and I assume it's meant to be ironic that it's successful.)
So why aren't I giving this a lower grade? Well, there are moments when Lessing has a genuine insight, like about Hollywood or colonialism. I like the times when Molly and Anna are sitting around talking, and not just about men. I did at first think I was going to give the book a C+, but it just got more and more painful as it went on. On the other hand, it does mention Lloyd Bentsen, so that's of historical interest.
Wikipedia says, "In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present." Suffice to say, it would not make my list.
Doris Lessing
The Golden Notebook
Original price $1.95, purchase price $1.30
Very worn paperback
D+
Despite the condition of the book, I don't think I've read it more than once or twice in the last quarter century. When I first read it in my early 20s, I'd only neck+ed with one person, so I assumed that love/sex/romance generally were the way Lessing described them, or at least had been in the 1940s and '50s, the timeframe of the book. Reading it now, I think that it's no more insightful into women's sexuality and emotions than, say, Catch-22. Women's nipples "burn" when they feel desire, and they feel desire when they're repulsed by a man. They only date married men who've had several affairs, and then wonder why none of the men can commit. Or at least these are the conclusions to be drawn if we assume that the heroine is Everywoman. But having split personalities does not make you an Everywoman. It doesn't even make you an Anywoman.
The protagonist Anna is a writer with writer's block. Now, I've never seriously had writer's block (quite the opposite, as I'll talk about when we get up to 2005's The Midnight Disease), but my impression is that it makes it difficult to write anything resembling what Lesley Conger would call "The Book I'm Supposed to Be Writing." Shopping lists, letters to friends, rants about pet peeves, no problem. But Anna can write fiction, at least in pieces, without much trouble. Her main protagonist is Ella, who has a writer's block and sleeps with married men. I think Ella has a heroine she's writing about, too, but I lost track.
For over 600 pages, Lessing/Anna/Ella tells the same stories in different forms but, again like Catch-22, not gaining anything through repetition. At many points she/they contradict her/themselves, and not just because things change as they become fictionalised. There is no good reason for Tommy, the son of Anna's friend Molly, to be 17 in 1950 and 20 in '57. Is he married to a "Tory Socialist," or is he single, living with his mother, and having an affair/ intense platonic friendship with his stepmother?
There's a streak of homophobia in the book, with Anna worrying that having gay roommates will have a bad effect on her preteen daughter, as opposed to the straight mind-fuckers that Anna brings home. Anna also worries that she and Molly will become lesbians, not because they're physically attracted to each other (which they don't seem to be), or because they're the only people that understand each other (even though Anna doesn't confide in Molly all that much and Molly can disappear for months without contact), but because they like to bitch about men. If that were the case, wouldn't most women be lesbians?
I found Molly the more interesting and likable of the two "free women," but that may be because we spend much less time with her. The summary of the shortest and last section is "Molly gets married and Anna has an affair." No, actually, Molly just talks about her engagement to a man that Anna and the reader have never met, and Anna has a one-week fling with Max/Saul, the American we just read about in the most horrific part of her notebooks. (Characters change names for no reason sometimes.)
Oh yeah, the notebooks. Anna keeps four notebooks as diaries, each reflecting a different side of herself, e.g. for red for Communism and other politics. The fact that they overlap in content confuses the issue, for her and the reader. In the end, she buys a golden notebook, to reflect her now supposedly more integrated self. Then she gives it away to Max/Saul so he can write a novel in it. They give each other starting lines, and it's awful to realize that his line for her is the first line of The Golden Notebook. (His novel sounds equally dreadful, and I assume it's meant to be ironic that it's successful.)
So why aren't I giving this a lower grade? Well, there are moments when Lessing has a genuine insight, like about Hollywood or colonialism. I like the times when Molly and Anna are sitting around talking, and not just about men. I did at first think I was going to give the book a C+, but it just got more and more painful as it went on. On the other hand, it does mention Lloyd Bentsen, so that's of historical interest.
Wikipedia says, "In 2005, the novel was chosen by TIME magazine as one of the one hundred best English-language novels from 1923 to present." Suffice to say, it would not make my list.
Sunday, July 1, 2012
A Wrinkle in Time
1962, 1973 Dell Yearling edition
Madeleine L'Engle
A Wrinkle in Time
Original price $3.50, purchase price $1.75
Worn paperback
B-
This won the Newbery and its heroine loves math. It has a theme of love and nonconformity. It shows a variety of aliens, from cuddly Aunt Beast to horrifying IT (as in "it," not "Information Technology"). And the book irritates the heck out of me.
I think as a child I respected the story as a "modern classic" and liked aspects of it, but I always preferred the third book in the series, A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I read the books mostly for Meg, the bespectacled misfit I somewhat identified with. (Although I was a much better student than she was, and my rebellion took a quieter form.) And since I wasn't yet aware of what a cliche "You're beautiful when you take your glasses off" was, I was touched by Calvin's interest in her. Now that, and his immediate love of her family, feels rushed and unmerited, at least at this point in the series.
The book is very frustrating, because of its mixture of good and bad. Perhaps I should've been warned by the opening sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night." You think that L'Engle is parodying cliches, and then you realize that she's embracing them. Calvin seems like a believable teenager, and then he says, "Jeepers."
Also, the Christianity is heavy-handed, as in Charles Wallace's "Oh, duh, Jesus of course" moment. In Little Women, the girls' religion is integral to their lives, like them being New Englanders. Here it feels forced. Also, the message of light vs. dark is bungled when the sightless beasts wonder if the humans are from a "dark planet," even though later Aunt Beast can't understand the concepts of light and dark. L'Engle should've chosen another symbol, at least for that planet.
All that said, the book keeps almost working. It just doesn't hold up as well as Island of the Blue Dolphins, a less ambitious story.
Madeleine L'Engle
A Wrinkle in Time
Original price $3.50, purchase price $1.75
Worn paperback
B-
This won the Newbery and its heroine loves math. It has a theme of love and nonconformity. It shows a variety of aliens, from cuddly Aunt Beast to horrifying IT (as in "it," not "Information Technology"). And the book irritates the heck out of me.
I think as a child I respected the story as a "modern classic" and liked aspects of it, but I always preferred the third book in the series, A Swiftly Tilting Planet. I read the books mostly for Meg, the bespectacled misfit I somewhat identified with. (Although I was a much better student than she was, and my rebellion took a quieter form.) And since I wasn't yet aware of what a cliche "You're beautiful when you take your glasses off" was, I was touched by Calvin's interest in her. Now that, and his immediate love of her family, feels rushed and unmerited, at least at this point in the series.
The book is very frustrating, because of its mixture of good and bad. Perhaps I should've been warned by the opening sentence, "It was a dark and stormy night." You think that L'Engle is parodying cliches, and then you realize that she's embracing them. Calvin seems like a believable teenager, and then he says, "Jeepers."
Also, the Christianity is heavy-handed, as in Charles Wallace's "Oh, duh, Jesus of course" moment. In Little Women, the girls' religion is integral to their lives, like them being New Englanders. Here it feels forced. Also, the message of light vs. dark is bungled when the sightless beasts wonder if the humans are from a "dark planet," even though later Aunt Beast can't understand the concepts of light and dark. L'Engle should've chosen another symbol, at least for that planet.
All that said, the book keeps almost working. It just doesn't hold up as well as Island of the Blue Dolphins, a less ambitious story.
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