Review: The Fallback Plan, by Leigh Stein

Thanks to an awesome friend I've gotten a gig reviewing books for the ALA's Book List magazine. They send me four or five books every month, I read them and write a short review that will be published in the print ad online version of their magazine. It doesn't bring in much money, but it's a dream project for me—checking out new books and getting to talk about them? Sign me up. I'm allowed to share my reviews here after they've been published in the magazine, so I'll be posting them here with a few changes.
The Fallback Plan was interesting. I found it hard to get into, but warmed up to it after a time. The book is about, Esther who graduates from Northwestern University and finds herself jobless, directionless, and moving back in with her parents. When her mother finds her a job caring for the four year old daughter of a neighboring family she grudgingly agrees. But the family lost an infant child earlier in the year, and Esther, struggling with her own depression, finds herself caring for both the girl and the grieving mother. As she also navigates through romantic relationships with the girl’s father and a friend her own age we witness her inner conflict and personal growth. Although too referential to be as timeless, this well developed coming of age story is in line with Judy Blume’s Are you There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and Forever. Esther’s struggle with clinical depression might alienate some readers, but like Blume’s characters she is authentic and likable. Written with witty humor and an informal, contemporary language, Stein’s debut novel will resonate with a new generation of students for whom college is no longer the final step on the road to adulthood.

Book 41 on my way to 52

Review: The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

I wasn't going to read this book. Something about its fast rise to popularity along with its quick step into the movie theater made me rather wary of it. It was only after numerous recommendations that I requested it from the library, and then I had to wait several weeks before it became available. All of that waiting, and I read it in two days. It's not a short book, and not overly easy read, I just couldn't put it down. My sleep suffered.

Told from three different view points, The Help is a fictional story set in Jackson, Mississippi during the civil rights era. Skeeter is a young white girl, just home from college and living with her family on their cotten farm. She is troubled by what she sees around her, but initially reluctant to become involved. Looking for a way to break into the publishing world, she sets her sights on annonymously writing a book from the point of view of the black domestic workers in Jackson. To do so she enlists the help of Aibileen and Minny, both black domestic maids working for white members of the country club set. It's their voices, rich in dialect, and their stories, full of the culture and history of the era, that make this book deserving of non-stop reading. Well devloped characters and strong writing filled with the hate, shame, pride and hope of an era, will make it an enduring hit.

Book 34 on my way to 52 in 2011

Review: The Secret Zoo, by Bryan Chick

Late one night Megan notices something strange about the animals in the next door zoo. Shortly after that she disappears. Her brother, Noah, is convinced that the zoo had something to do with her disappearance, and when he starts receiving strange visitations and communications from the animals there, he enlists the help of close friends Ella and Richie in getting her back. The kids are used to having adventures together, but they aren't at all prepared for the bizarre experience that awaits them at the zoo in their quest to rescue Megan. Told with humor and warmth, The Secret Zoo is a unique story of friendship and conservation, and in this capacity it was enjoyable read. But being a mystery, the element of suspense is strong, and a war at the end of the book brings fighting and death into the conversation, so this may not be the best read aloud for young children. Additionally I found the sarcastic tone of humor to be off-putting, especially in an example of young friendships.

Review: I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, by Jaonne Greenberg

For most of her life Deborah has been slipping further and further into a world different from our own, a world richly created by her schizophrenia and existing only in her mind. As her illness becomes more apparent in adolescence, her parents finally recognize the need for treatment, and send her to a rest home to work with a renowned doctor. Over the next three years we witness Deborah's struggle to accept reality and close the door on the world of her illness. Told mostly from Deborah's view point, this is a semi-autobiographical novel, and Greenberg's telling is unsurprisingly expert. She has drawn the world from inside the mind of young Deborah with careful detail and well expressed emotion. Though dark at times, this is a beautiful book that escapes being too dense with an occasional lightness and humor found in its thread of hope and friendship.
Book 33 on my way to 52 in 2011

Swann In Love, pp.355-378: The beginning of Swann's fall

Swann falls out of favor with the Verdurins. He is usurped by the Comte de Forcheville, who is willing to lie in order to remain in their good graces. And so, Swann's integrity fails him. Mme. Verdurin is already trying to set Odette up with Forcheville, and edge Swann out (p.373). In fact, in comparing the two M. Verdurin declares that he dislikes Swann's continual reluctance to share an opinion, while he greatly appreciates Forcheville's willingness to "tell you straight out what he thinks" (p.376), ironic since Forcheville is merely performing lip service. But the Verdurins, no doubt, prefer the lie.

Also ironic...their claiming Swann to be "a failure, one of those small-minded individuals who are envious of anything that's at all big" (p.377). So obvious it's almost not worth noting.

But Swann's fall from grace is not due only to the appearance of Forcheville. The Verdurins are known to be jealous of their "faithful" having relationships, so Swann's pointed interest in Odette alone could put him out of favor (remember, he has wooed her away from the group on occassion), but he also fails to follow some of the hosts' rules regarding absolute worship of the faithful, especially Cottard and Brichot. Forcheville, on the other hand, shows proper adulation towards all the faithful present, and in fact says little that isn't simply honoring one of the other guests.

We meet Brichot. He is a professor of something at the Sorbonne. His speech is peppered not with English like Odette's, but with Latin and other traditional references. He is intelligent but would not be welcome in the salons of the upper class because he is incredibly boring, giving speeches without social awareness. This accentuates the satire drawn in the Verdurin's drawing room with reference to the upper class and noble salons. Then Swann has the audacity to critique him to Mme. Verdurin (p.375)

And M. Verdurin has now perfected his version of the fake laugh. No need for real merriment in this house. (p.372)

Cool stuff
Use of the article "de" in French names. Often, but not always, connected to nobility. Notably, though, in later years some people added it in order to appear noble born.

Vocabulary
Termagant (p.357) a violent, argumentative woman

demirep (p.375) a woman of ill repute

Swann in Love, pp.341-355: Vulgar Odette, and social commentary

Beginning with "Except when he asked her for Vinteuil's little phrase..."

A closer look at Odette. She does not understand Swann—he is so far superior to her intellectually that she can't see the forest for the trees and instead believes him "inferior, intellectually, to what she had supposed." At the same time "she was more impressed by his indifference to money, by his kindness to everyone, by his courtesy and tact," (p.342) which makes sense, if she is basically a courtesan.

Odette apparently also has her own sense of fashion which deviates from the classic definition of the word as given by Swann, saying that

"it emanates from a comparatively small number of individuals, who project it to a considerable distance—more and more faintly the further one is from their intimate centre—within the circle of their friends and the friends of their friends, whose names form a sort of tabulated index." (p.343)

Odette longs to be in fashion, but her fashion plight may be similar to her social plight, when she refuses Swann's invitations to take her into society, and that of the Verdurins, who declaim all the most popular salons to be boring, perhaps as a means of protecting themselves from the disappointment of social shunning.

She doesn't find Swann to be as in fashion as she would like. She is displeased with his choice of abode, as she believes the Quai d'Orleans to be "unworthy of him." Interestingly, the Quai d'Orleans was (and is) an established part of town, apparently called home by many artists and writers during the late 19th century. Odette's real beef with the place seems to be its age. She has more respect for the "sham-antique" and would not have him living "among a lot of broken-down chairs and threadbare carpets." She does greatly respect those who enjoyed "picking up antiques, who liked poetry, despised sordid calculations of profit and loss, and nourished ideals of honour and love," but believes "there was no need actually to have those tastes, as long as one proclaimed them." (p.247) So again we see Odette as duplicitous vulgar: not only does she fail to see established value, but again her speech is peppered with English phrases, like "rummaging," "bric-a-brac," and especially "smart," which implies she has traded French tradition for the vulgarity of contemporary English or even American.

Swann is in love with being in love, and he will do anything to keep that feeling alive, and to keep Odette in love with him, right down to lowering himself.

"But, now that he was in love with Odette, all this was changed; to share in her sympathies, to strive to be one with her in spirit, was a task so attractive that he tried to find enjoyment in the things that she liked, and did find a pleasure, not only in imitating her habits but in adopting her opinions, which was all the deeper because, as those habits and opinions had no roots in his own intelligence, they reminded him only of his love," (p.349)

He is seriously love sick, and Proust writes his plight very naturally and deeply. The mental journey makes me think of a D. H. Lawrence character or two.

But oh the social commentary. Odette is not really a likeable person. She is a twit at best, short of intelligence and identifiable values would seem a satire of the lower classes doing their best to move their way up—the proverbial social climber—but then Swann assigns no more value than Odette to the social establishment, and he is far more likeable and no less of a social climber, having once been more middle class along with M's family and now moving in the upper most social circles.

"the objects we admire have no absolute value in themselves, that the whole thing is a matter of period and class, is no more than a series of fashions, the most vulgar of which are worth just as much as those which are regarded as the most refined." (of Swann's opinion, p.350)

The late 19th century was a time of social mobility, and these are Proust's sketches of the times, but I'd like to read more about his position on the situation.

There are a lot of cool references in this section that I didn't research this time. Some of that information has been informative, and all of it has been fun, but I do want to finish this book during my lifetime.

Review: Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, by Naomi Aldort

Respect, authenticity, and logic. Those are the three key ingredients to raising a healthy, happy, and productive child as I heard them in reading this book. Aldort presents a lot of good points and great suggestions here, but it wouldn't be a parenting book if it didn't come across as a little self-indulgent and didn't have some kind of agenda. For Aldort, who actually either falsified her credentials or is the biggest dope on the planet (source), the agenda begins with attachment parenting and moves smoothly into gentle parenting. That sounds good, but many of her expectations felt downright unrealistic to me, and the supposedly real dialogue is incredibly stilted. I did take a lot away from this book, but I was looking to it for general guidance and rough ideas, not as a parenting bible.

Swann in Love, pp.320-341: Odette, Swann, and blinding art

Beginning with "Thus the simple and regular manifestations of this social organism, the 'little clan,' automatically provided Swann with a daily rendezvous with Odette..."

Proust and character writing, delving right into Swann's psyche. The onset or growth of Swann's feelings for Odette, which are ultimately his downfall, is like an internal battle to which we have a first seat row. In fact we seem to have a better handle on what's happening to him than he does, and so do his friends and acquaintances, who felt that "indeed Swann was no longer the same man" (p.333). Even the Verdurins have decided "the man must be a prize idiot" (p.322)

Swann is too busy making love out of nothing at all. He recognizes that his recent behavior is "foreign to his nature" (p.323) but he imagines himself in love. He goes so far as to "cease to be able to even think of her, so busy would he be in the search for pretexts which would enable him not to leave her immediately" (p.324). He turns her into what he considers a classic beauty by continuing to imagine her as Botticelli's Zipporah, and when it comes to the final moment of consummation, he begs her not to speak but to give only signs, perhaps because her voice will give her away for what she is...not much different from the shadowy figures of women who approached him in the dark on the same street where later he finds her, Odette. Even the act itself is disguised as something else when they persist in referring to it (sex) as doing a cattleya (p.331). By giving it a different name he is convincing himself that this is a "pleasure which had never before existed" but it's also a pleasure which has to "create" (p.332).

Swann fights with himself. He knows in his mind that Odette is nothing special, that her "qualities were not such as to justify his setting so high a value on the hours he spent in her company" (p.335) but we see him losing the battle, and the first hints of jealousy when he thinks of her existing outside of the time they have together. He already recognizes, and we are warned, that this love is sinking like the moon (p.338), the only problem, which we find soon enough, is that he goes down with it.

Art and life: In a way Swann ruins his life because he isn't actually living it. Instead he is living in a reproduction of the art he loves so much. He has ceased to see the world at all for what it really is. This may be the exact opposite of art being a means of saving history, or moments in time, and of providing a more pure form of experiencing existence, now art is getting in the way of experiencing life as it really is.

Cool stuff

I love that, different from Combray, Paris being a real place Proust has peppered the text with references to real locations.
The Café Anglais, and the Maison Dorée and Tortoni's on the Boulevard des Italiens (p.327) where Swann searches for Odette


"and the life of Odette at all other times...appeared to him, with its neutral and colourless background, like those sheets of sketches by Wateau" (p.340)

Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

An honest journalist is under fire for libel and must leave his post as editor of the magazine he founded. In the aftermath he is hired by a Swedish business magnate to ghost write his autobiography and to research the thirty-plus year old murder of his grand-niece. He is helped along the way by the hero and title-character.

The good mystery and a healthy dose of suspense kept me riveted, but the book's greatest strength is in its characters. I love an author who can draw characters without breaking out of the story and Larsson does this well. Even better the personas are believable and their decisions form fitting even while they stretch the definitions of morality, responsibility, and consequence. This is what I would call an enjoyable light read, but Larsson demands a little more of the reader as he lightly takes on corporate corruption, and more heavily tackles violence and abuse. What makes us who we are, and what responsibilities do we have are some of the questions we are left with in the end.

That, and a light romantic cliff hanger, will drag some of the curious, and the hooked, right into his next book.

Book 31 on my way to 52 in 2011

Swann in Love, pp.303-320: the sonata, Odette, and art

Beginning with "Greatly to Mme Verdurin's surprise, he never failed them."

Swann is already starting to lose his footing with the Verdurin's group because he is too well connected (dining with the president of the Third Republic and the prince of Wales).

The Sonata in F has become the symbol of the relationship between Swann and Odette, and as that changes, so does Swann's perception of the Sonata.

"but Swann thought that he could now discern in it some disenchantment. It seemed to be aware of how vain, how hollow was the happiness to which it showed the way." (p.308)

Swann would like to hear the other movements of the piece, but Odette urges him to be happy with what he has already heard. Having already read Swann in Love before I see this as foreshadowing of the difficulties he will ultimately face: Swann wanting more from her, Odette being unwilling to give him all of herself.

Swann visits Odette at home, where she lives on a street of cookie cutter row houses, an area with connections to prostitution at least in the past. She sets the stage with perfectly placed lamps and flowers and ornaments from the far east. Everything about her is fake or duplicitous. She likes the flowers only "because they had the supreme merit of not looking like flowers," (p.312) and by continually using English and decorating her home in the fashion of the Far East she is denying her French heritage. Even her handwriting is British, which hides its hint at "an untidiness of mind and will-power" (p.314).

Swann is being untruthful with himself, too, as he tries to convince himself that Odette is more attractive than he finds her. He compares her to figures in art, which he apparently does with many people he knows. About this M says:

"perhaps, also, he had so far succumbed to the prevailing frivolity of the world of fashion that he felt the need to find in an old masterpiece some such anticipatory and rejuvenating allusion to personalities of today." (p.315)

which makes me think of earlier references to art being the stabilizer and means of preservation in architecture and the like, and here we see it possibly as the stabilizer of moral character, especially as regards Odette.

In fact, while Odette seems to drown herself in the current fashionable, Swann is doing his best to align her with the classical art of the fresco of Zipporah, even to the point of denying the artist's, Alessandro de Mariano's, popularized and fashionable name—Botticelli—which he, or our narrator, does vehemently.

Cool stuff

"and what a nuisance it had been not having one on the day of Gambetta's funeral." (Mme Verdurin, p.304)
Léon Gambetta was a statesman of the French Third Republic from 1881 until his accidental death in 1882 (at 44 years old). He was a moderate Republican and a great orator whose funeral became a well attended event. Proust treats it here as just another show.

"You shall have it int ime for the 'Danicheff' revival. I happen to be lunching with the Prefectof Police tomorrow at the Elysée...at M. Grévy's" (Swann, p.304)
I will guess that Les Danicheff refers to the play by Alexandre Dumas, first performed in 1876.

The Elysée (Palace) is the current home of the French president. It came under government usage during Napoleon's reign in 1808, then passed through many stages of political use, becoming the official residence of the French president during the third republic.


Jules Grévy was president of the French Third Republic from 1879-1887.

Swann, regarding the Sonata: "as in those interiors by Pieter de Hooch which are deepened by the narrow frame of a half-opened door" (p.308)
Pieter de Hooch was another Dutch painter from the 17th century who focused on middle class life, like Vermeer.


"Swann remarked Odette's resemblance to the Zipporah of that Alessandro de Mariano, to whom people more willingly give his popular surname, Botticelli" (p.314)
Zipporah is depicted in two frescoes in the Sistine Chapel: one by Perugino, and this one by Botticelli: