Lilith Saintcrow

Ah. The Chihuahua of Real Life just crawled up my ankle again. The Princess has reached one of those Life Milestones, and we celebrated by taking her to Target so she could pick out lip gloss and a big-girl purse. There were a couple other things she needed, too. Right now she is wearing her new hat, listening to her new Cheetah Girls (God help us) CD with her new earphones, and her new clothes, from unmentionables to a cute sweater-coat, are being washed.

She is as happy as a pig in a wallow. And I feel really good that I can make her this happy. It’s worth every moment spent banging on a keyboard.

Now, since I’m ultra-late, here are some Mini-Reviews! I’ve been promising these for weeks, haven’t I.

* Sweetheart, Chelsea Cain. This is the second of Cain’s books dealing with detective Archie Sheridan and the serial killer he’s obsessed with, Gretchen Lowell. Cain certainly pulls no punches. I dislike Susan Ward, the gee-whillikers reporter with daddy issues who seems to be Cain’s author insertion. I’m not even that fond of Gretchen Lowell, who is just the castrating, child-eating Dark Feminine we’ve all seen before. BUT, Archie’s conflict, and the fact that he is in the position (almost always female, in our society) of having his body violated by violence and trying to deal with it, rings big chimes all over me. I keep reading these books for Archie, and I recommend them to anyone who wants a little somethin’ new and cool in a murder mystery.

* God-Shaped Hole, Tiffanie DeBartolo. Well, as an anti-paean to or even an invocation of LA this stands firmly behind Janet Fitch’s White Oleander and the entire Weetzie Bat series. The blurb on the cover hysterically promised this generation’s Love Story!, but I like it not because of the any love that might have been in it. DeBartolo has a solid grasp of characterization, even if her protag is a Mary Sue, the protag’s love interest is well-drawn in a sort of emo hipster way. I kept reading for the sex and the relationship dynamic between girl and lover, not to mention the totally effed-up father issues. All in all, an enjoyable day read.

* On The Pleasure Of Hating, William Hazlitt. Not as good as Liber Amoris, which is one of the classics of Victorian male entitlement and obsessive, stalkerish love, but still very good and worth the read. Especially since Penguin is doing the awesome reprints in beautiful more-than-mass-market editions.

* The Secret Life Of Bees, Sue Monk Kidd. This book started out awesome, and takes an unflinching view of race in the 1960s South. The first half is almost like Ellen Foster, which is one of my favorite books in the world. I get the feeling, however, that the author was hurried through the last quarter of the book. The basic story: Lily Owens is fourteen, and she’s pretty sure that she killed her mother and that her father, T. Ray, hates her. (He makes her kneel on grits for hours at a time as punishment, and though it’s never made explicit, there seems to be physical abuse as well.) When her (black) nursemaid insults three of the biggest racists in town, Lily springs her from the hospital and sets out to escape T. Ray, too. I really, really would have liked about thirty or forty more pages of this book, since it’s implicit but never really stated that T. Ray is the one who killed his wayward wife. (The way the situation is set up, you just can’t ask me to believe a four-year-old did it.) Anyway, a thumb and a half up. Leaving a reader wanting more is far from the worst thing an author can do.

* The Notebooks Of Malte Laurids Brigge, Ranier Maria Rilke. I like Duino Elegies, but a lot of Rilke’s poetry strikes me as lugubrious and heavy. (I suspect I haven’t found the right translation yet.) However, the first third of the Notebooks (which Rilke wanted to title, and should have titled, My Other Self) has some of the best descriptions of a type of sensitive, neurotic, insomniac insanity I’ve ever found. In the original German, he’s probably luminous, and must be a treat to read. However, knowing a couple of biographical details means that I don’t think much of him going off and pretend Arte was a greater mistress than his wife and kid. (It’s similar to how I feel about Christopher McCandless and his tragic death.) I won’t belabor the point, but I will say that I enjoyed Notebooks immensely, mostly for the descriptions of the poverty of Paris, very close to Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer. Which is, really, all the Miller I’ve ever enjoyed.

There you have it, mini-reviews. And now I’m exhausted, since last night was all tossing and turning and very little sweet slumber. I’m going to stare at the screen for a while until the Muse takes pity on me and drips out a few more words.

Related posts:

1. Mini-Reviews
2. Finally.
3. I Hate The Heat, And REVIEWS!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 2nd, 2008 at 3:24 pm and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.