day 1 of the 30 day book challenge

Day 01. Best book you read last year

Honestly, I can't remember what I read this year. There are several that stick out, but I know there are so many that I am missing. The book I remember most–because of the main character and because of the emotions I had surrounding my reading of it–is Main Street by Sinclair Lewis.

With his sixth novel, Lewis found real success. What I look for most in writing is a true understanding of the characters the author is creating. Do they truly feel for this person or does something seem amiss? In this novel, Lewis submerges himself in the characters; they become fully realized as we wade through their daily interactions and, like the protagonist, begin to feel like we're drowning in shallow waters. Powell's Books describes it in this way:

...Main Street shattered the sentimental American myth of happy small-town life with its satire of narrow-minded provincialism. Reflecting his own unhappy childhood in Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Lewis's sixth novel attacked the conformity and dullness he saw in midwestern village life. Young college graduate Carol Milford moves from the city to tiny Gopher Prairie after marrying the local doctor, and tries to bring culture to the small town. But her efforts to reform the prairie village are met by a wall of gossip, greed, conventionality, pitifully unambitious cultural endeavors, and worst of all the pettiness and bigotry of small-town minds.

The story is our story. It's what I feel every time I think about the changes I would like to see in our country, every time I try to keep faith in the future of the world. These feelings must have been even more acute in the 1920s, when the book was published and the States was pushing for women's liberation, sexual liberation and the right to drink alcohol again. They were making one of the country's biggest pushes toward modern life.


One of the strongest themes in the book attached to this struggle is Carol's feminist slant–still surprising at this time to be coming from a male author. She is on a quest to change the town, bring them into the modern world she once lived in and create an identity separate from her "well-known" husband. I know this book wound stay with me when I read this quote, still one of my absolute favorites:

It's work–but not my work. I could run an office or a library, or nurse and teach children. But solitary dish-washing isn't enough to satisfy me--or many other women. We're going to chuck it. We're going to wash 'em by machinery, and come out and play with you men in the offices and clubs and politics you've cleverly kept for yourselves! Oh, we're hopeless, we dissatisfied women! Then why do you want to have us about the place, to fret you? So it's for your sake that I'm going!

 And I'll leave you with that powerful statement, a thank you to all the women that said it so I wouldn't have to (as loudly) and a hope that you'll share your response to Day 1 in the comments.

manger

a list of things baby ate through (today):

my wallet
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
the shirt of my flannel pajamas, right below my boob
my green blanket
a Goodwill receipt
several balls of poop
my red slipper
a cardboard box


Addendum to goals for the year: Make people say, "You're there for me. You're a good listener," because they are mutually inclusive.

day 25 of the 30 day book challenge

Day 25. A character who you can relate to the most

I know, I know. I said I was trying not to double up on books, so that I could give you 30 different titles. 

Carol Kennicott of Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street"bites off more than she can chew. While we've moved in opposite directions (she from big city to small town & I the other way around, we want the same thing: to change the world, to improve lives, to save them.

Carol is seen as radical, snobby, superficial, too much, too loud, too opinionated. She doesn't want to parlor talk. She wants to show them culture–to shake them into fun.


While I have the luck of being born after women's lib, I'm still seen as radical, most likely as superficial, most certainly as too opinionated–with an environmental twist. Reading the novel, I imagined myself in those situations, pushing for parks & local produce in the supermarkets. I imagined how bizarre this would sound–because what community doesn't think they're already doing the best they can for themselves?


Carol struggles to find a niche for herself in the world of her husband & cries out against the constraints of her role in society. I do the same, in small ways–not against my husband, who would support me in anything that wasn't self-destructive, but against the employers, co-workers, politicians & citizens that still perpetuate gender roles & norms. I was proud of Carol when she announced that We were coming, we the women of the world–coming into the offices & industries men had worked to keep them from (see that quotation here).


She's a mess–confused about herself & her world, emotional, unsure of herself at times, stubborn, enthusiastic, scared, confident, human. I think we could all relate to her on at least two of those adjectives.

It's interesting to note that Carol was inspired by Lewis's first wife, Grace. Learn more about her in this TIME article.

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a day of decisions

I woke, decided to stay in my flannel pajamas until noon, decided to write a paper instead of working out, decided to mess around on the Internet after each page I've written (two in two hours), and decided how I would spend my summer reading time.

This summer, I am dedicating myself to improving my creative nonfiction writing. I'll hopefully be working for my hometown newspaper, improving my journalistic writing there. Then, I'll be reading the collections of nonfiction I've accumulated for class, from used bookstores and as gifts.

The Goal List:

1. The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 1, edited by Lee Gutkind
2. The Best Creative Nonfiction, Vol. 3, edited by Lee Gutkind
   
3. Talk Stories, by Jamaica Kincaid
4. The New Kings of Nonfiction, edited by Ira Glass (of This American Life)
5. Telling True Stories, edited by Mark Kramer and Wendy Call
6. In Fact, edited by Lee Gutkind

Goals for Semester, Personal Reading (even this is a bit too ambitious)

1. finish Main Street (Lewis)
   
2. finish Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Sijie)
   
3. finish Elizabeth Browning's collection of sonnets from Joe
4. finish Pale Fire (Nabokov)
5. stop starting books I can't finish

Up for three hours, not stressed yet and still feeling positive. So far, so good for the New Year.

fête de la musique

 I have a music hangover.

Yesterday was the national (now international) music festival, Fête de la Musique. When I was in Chambéry during the summer of 2008, we attended the fête in Lyon. (I posted about it on my Frenchie Summer blog.) We danced & drank all day. I was eager to share the holiday with Joe.

One of my good friends/ex-students invited us to her roommate's show, & we spent the rest of the evening out–as did at least 9,000 other Nancy residents. The. streets. were. packed. Musicians were everywhere. Cheap beer was for sale everywhere: bars opened their large front windows & set up booths for beer; boutiques were taking advantage of the crowds & selling goods from coolers; plastic cups were everywhere.

The lights, kegs & general conviviality reminded me so much of home–summer days spent walking around the fair & community festivals. Families were out, all ages mixing & dancing to African music, Salsa, electro-mixed rave sounds... or nothing. There was a silent corner on one street, filled with mimes–white-gloved hands moving through synchronized hand motions.

With each day, I become more attached to my friends remaining in Nancy. Having eight hours to run through the streets, sweating & shaking our hair & arms & torsos to bass so loud it shook our muscle fibers, was a night that seemed to seal the untouchable bond I have with these girls. (Here's a quick photo from early in the night–the sun's even still up. Not pictured: Aurora, a lovely Texan girl who has spent several years making Nancy her home.)

The night brought out so many emotions I've been bouncing between. I've lost the sense of any concrete "home" & know that I'll forever feel torn between the United States & France. Lately, I've been worrying that the relationship was one-sided. Last night, I felt so much affection coming my way.

While walking through the main square to get to the next concert, I saw students' waving hands; I had several students that have become friends pop up to say hi; I saw friends I've been missing for weeks. We even ran into the married couple who had shared our sleeper cabin on the train to Montpellier. We were at home, part of a community, moving through a town that we'd fully become a part of.

The night was perfect in a way no night has been perfect. Dancing in the street, we were flanked by lightening. Occasional thunder roared about the clusters of club music. We stopped for kebab on the way home, & I sat on the patio watching tiny raindrops fall. We walked into the apartment. The storm let loose, & I collapsed on the bed–as if we were equally exhausted from holding it all in.

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come on get happy

I am in a great mood. I haven't even been in a good mood lately, but today–today is different. It may be the fumes that are floating around our apartment, killing mold spores. It may be the first ever French-inspired recipe that I just made up on my own, designed to use up miscellaneous going-bad things in our tiny fridge. It may be that I have a great husband, and we spent a great day together.

I mentioned what my goals were for the year in a post not long ago: keeping myself from retail therapy, being more conscious about what I bring home and how it affect the environment–tied to both of these things is the goal of trying to like myself more (something none of us are really that great at).

I realize that it's only January 15, but I'm already feeling like a success at this. The nation-wide Soldes (huge sales EVERYWHERE) are happening, and I haven't let myself (read: Joe has been good at restraining me) go. Not even once. Not even if I said I was "just looking." There's still the part of me that says, "But you'll buy clothes later anyway–and you'd be SAVING MONEY!" That part of me is crying a lot lately.

The winning part of me says, "Hey spoiled, you have loads of clothes and thrift stores that will all feel new when you get back to the States in just a few months. It'll be like Christmas in July." I'm really proud of that part. What I don't buy, I won't pack. What I don't buy means we can focus on our main goal this semester: site-seeing in Nancy and traveling.

I'm trying to remind myself of this in the grocery, where I tend to really let myself go. Today, with Joe next to me, I walked out carrying only what we had decided was absolutely needed for the weekend. To keep myself in line, I'm tracking our grocery spending (to also track the recipes we use) over on my listography. If you are truly bored out of your mind, pop over there to see how our future is shaping up.

I mentioned the fumes in our apartment. We got tossed out for a few hours today so that Stephen, our very pleasant landlord, could fix our shower and go to town on the mold issue. The cleaner they used and left with us (since they cleaned the bathroom and we're to conquer the main room's diseased section) has a horrific smell–even worse than the Camembert in our fridge. I have candles lit. I was afraid the fumes would cause an explosion, but we're slowing moving from toxic chemical scent to gingerbread.

Since we were out, Joe and I took full advantage of the day. We took our Nancy Culture Cards, which get you into about everything for free, to the Musée des Beaux Arts, a fine arts museum that focuses on art and artists somehow connected to the Lorraine region. It was incredible to feel how much history we'd already started absorbing about our town–from knowing that battle scenes were depicting the epic Battle of 1477 to recognizing names of artists from our trip to the Musée de L'École.

We walked along the quiet aisles and rooms for about two hours and left with a much stronger appreciation of "Nancien" artists–particularly from the art nouveau era–and for the town's cultural offerings. We decided to keep the fun rolling and head out to a restaurant if we could find a good deal.

And how! There is a street in Nancy that is all restaurants–old houses crowded with eclectic staffs, tiny tables and bottles of wine. One offered a nine euro three-course meal. We couldn't pass that up, so we sat down and enjoyed our meal for another near two hours, talking about the coming year and how pieces are starting to come together.

Walking into the restaurant, I felt guilty. Here I was trying to be frugal, and instead we went to a sit-down restaurant. Then I remembered: we're cutting down on our materialistic side so that we can have the time and resources to enjoy the one-in-a-lifetime experiences. Not to far from now, we had commented during the meal, we'll be back to a land of steakhouses and more chains than "Mom and Pop" spirit.

Now we're home. Tomorrow's to-do list is written. The pizza dough is rising (and almost ready to be topped with ratatouille and Camembert–outstanding). Joe is napping. We're ready for a night of reading, "This American Life" and reveling in what this year has to hold.

How are your 2011 dreams shaping up? What has you feeling most revived while the landscape is still looking so, well, dead?


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