Stationer’s Review Reviews Stationer Correspondence Sunday, Aug 26 2007 

History RC 9:35 pm

…Or: My Love Affair w/ Nancy Mitford, Part II (III? IV? Hell, who’s counting?)

Another thing to love about Miss Mitford: apparently she was an actual stationer during World War II. This book is a collection of correspondence between her and Heywood Hill, super handsome owner of the bookstore/stationary purveyor where she used to work. It includes detailed correspondence regarding her evolving stationary needs (gold edged, usually, and at some point she replaced her address with an engraved mole — a good signature for someone who made her living writing catty, thinly-veiled novels about all her friends).

Many years, ago I determined that I didn’t want to be a writer, based on the following vision of my life: sitting around in my PJs alone all day, impoverished, reading gofugyourself.com all day and otherwise procrastinating because that is what I would do. But I love the idea of being a lady writer as depicted by Miss M. in this book: waking up in gorgeous apartment in Paris or as a guest in someone’s lavish European estate, answering witty written correspondence, then working on research or writing a hilarious, sure-to-be financially successful novel or biography, with occasional breaks for writing magazine articles or being interviewed for yet another profile of my family’s writing dynasty or my own glamorous social life. Also occasional breaks to take in a Lanvin fashion show, escorted by a young beatnik friend. When can I start?

I enjoyed the correspondence but now am OM’d (over-Mitforded). I went to the library yesterday and checked out a bunch of books, with nary a Mitford in sight: some Daniel Handler, some Bridget Jones (I know, I know), a book that appears to be critical theory about James Bond (“more fun than it has any right to be,” says the New Statesman), and whatever the One City, One Book is for San Francisco for July and August because I have always wanted to participate in that.

 

Mistress or bureaucrat? Madame de Pompadour Sunday, Aug 26 2007 

Biography RC 1:08 am

My love affair* with the Mitford ladies continues with Nancy’s biography of Madame du Pompadour, Louis XV’s favorite mistress.

This book is pretty good. It is like spending a long, boozy afternoon with your friend who has just finished an exhaustive research project and is just telling you the juiciest anecdotes from her research. She lets you know who all the fun people were, who was boring and/or priggish (the Queen, the Dauphin, some guy named Prince de Croy who sends hilariously detailed memoranda to everyone, including the Versailles gardener).

I suspect that Miss Mitford is one of those people whose summary of a party is way more fun than the party itself. That said, I trust her research methods. Even though it doesn’t have law review-style footnotes at the end of each sentence, the bibliography shows you which sources are quoted in each chapter. She also clearly visited every site and surviving artwork that the book discusses, and will tell you which of them have been spoiled and by whom (Germans or New Money, generally).

I was impressed, as my title indicates, by the bureaucratic nature of being a royal mistress in 1750s France. Apparently, everyone married at like 12 and they all had lots of mistresses (and misters, or whatever the term is). Madame du Pompadour was Louis XV’s fourth interesting mistress (the first three were a set of sisters! Scandalous!). She was sort of the mistress in chief, installed with a role in the court and official recognition and various sort of diplomatic duties — no running around in secret; it was like being a member of the cabinet or something. And then, esp. as she got older and because, as Miss Mitford observes, “[s]he was not strong enough for continual lovemaking and it exhausted her,” there were various lesser mistresses in mistress middle management, and then below them these young prostitutes the King would just sleep with once and send on their way. The French are funny. I recommend this book.

*Actually, this has a lot to do with my queue management issues at booksfree.com. I keep forgetting to cancel my membership and they keep forgetting to cancel it for me, even though they have an expired credit card. So books show up and I read them. But for some reason they only send me Mitford-related books. Perhaps it is some bug in their software. At least they do not send me books that are not on my list.

 

My insensitive review of the Kite Runner Saturday, Aug 18 2007 

Bay Area and Novels RC 9:48 pm

Everybody loves this book, and I agree that it is fairly well written, provides a fascinating insight into history of Afghanistan, and it is great to see Fremont and Bernal Heights featured in new Oprah’s Club lit, etc. etc.

However. Perhaps because I have been tainted by the extremely brave heroes of children’s literature (hello, Harry Potter!) — I never really got over my semi-disgust for the protagonist of this book. Early in the book, he stands by and watches something really bad happen to his best friend out of a combination of fear and misplaced elitism.

Now, this is probably realistic and everything, and I am not claiming to be braver than the narrator. But at the same time, it is morally reprehensible. And I personally had a hard time getting over this and mustering up any sympathy for him for the rest of the book. Is that unfair?

 

Harry Potter: this is not a spoiler Thursday, Aug 16 2007 

Novels RC 5:50 am

As I have mentioned repeatedly, I have a very long commute and I love long books because then I am not all worried that I will finish before I get where I’m going — or God forbid, that there will be a fatality on the tracks and I will wind up sitting in Palo Alto, reading the same articles from the Economist, even the horribly boring bits about actual economics, over and over for three hours.

Accordingly, I don’t really mind that this book was about 300 pages longer than it needed to be.  The rest of you, however, might seriously consider reading one out of every 10 pages during the middle of the book, like a very wise friend advised me to do with Henry James my sophomore year in college.

When I was reading the book, I kept wondering whether JK Rowling was influenced by the actors in the Harry Potter movies. Like, she mentions that Ron has gotten really tall and I have noticed that the actor has gotten really, unexpectedly tall (and also that he looks sort of 1960s Rolling Stone-ish these days). She says something similar about Neville Longbottom, who got so unexpectedly skinny as he went through puberty in the movies, so unlike how I had pictured him but I guess you never really know how these things will go with the kids.

In any event, I liked this book. As the New York Times review pointed out, it has Closure. I will not say anything else about the end except that it faintly reminded me of the last episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and, felicitously, that my very worst fears of a cliched, hackneyed ending were not realized. Yay, Harry Potter!

 

Charles Bukowski is so gritty and real Thursday, Aug 16 2007 

Novels RC 5:31 am

Another book I got from the library is Bukowski’s “Ham on Rye..” Man, how I would have enjoyed this book in high school. I can see myself now, sitting at cafe pergolesi in embarrassing clothes, half chewing and half smoking my cigarette, anxious to get started with the gritty realness of my tortured life, possibly in college.

Oh, the inappropriate yet exciting boys who would be lured by the book in my hand.

Anyway, in that vein, I think I read the entire book in one long boring afternoon while the chief recorded the same song over and over in the living room, which I guess is where that sort of behavior gets you, eventually. I kept thinking about how much I would have enjoyed this book in high school or college, what with all its meaningful prose about overdrinking and having a bad attitude in college and loving the language and all. It was fine, but somehow less satisfying, to read as an adult. I love the title of the book, though.