A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?
—George Orwell
in “Politics and the English Language“
[T]oo many people, and to my dismay, too many young people, see feminism as more a label than a praxis. When I’m teaching Race, Racism and the Law and I talk about the intersection of race, gender and sexual orientation, when we talk about what would be mainstream feminist thought, many students would agree with those ideas , ideals and ideology more broadly. But if you call them feminists, many of them get upset, because they see it as this static label, and they’re not even sure what it means, but a lot of them think it’s bad, even people who would otherwise embrace feminist principles. So that’s probably the biggest challenge: Getting people to understand that there is such a thing as everyday feminism, and that’s what thoughtful people practice. Many of us do feminism all the time, and we should be comfortable acknowledging that. If I asked a class of people “are you a feminist?” half the people would say “no.” But if I said, “do you believe the following things or do the following things?” then I’d see very different results. I mean, if you love and respect and value women, you’re a feminist.
In the kitchen, there are cooks and there are bakers. Occasionally, you’ll find someone who fits both profiles…
Ah, yes, even with my hobbies I’m an interdisciplinarian 😉
It’s so satisfying to make a great meal out of leftovers. Not only is it way more challenging to come up with a way of using what you’ve got in the fridge and pantry but it’s also a more creative way of cooking.
The Nanny Diaries by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
After finishing Dogs and Goddesses (shudder), I wanted to read something in a similar genre, rather than immediately fleeing to something I knew I’d like. The Nanny Diaries, also picked up at the VPL book sale, seemed to fit the bill: it’s not just chick lit; it’s also co-authored!
[Aside: I had this moment of cognitive dissonance when I first saw the authors’ names. Nicola Kraus? Didn’t I read another—very different—book by an author with that name? Well, close. That was Nicole Krauss.]
I picked this up mainly because I’d just seen the movie on TV and wondered how it compared. It turned out there wasn’t a whole lot of similarity between the two, and the only time Scarlett Johansson appeared in my head was when Nanny called Grayer “Grover” or “Grove” (for some reason, I heard Nanny say this—and only this—in Scarlett’s voice).
As a light read, this one works. There’s a single protagonist to focus on, an antagonist who is more than one-dimensional, and a story that takes adequate time to build and reach a conclusion. And, unlike the film, there’s no cliched happy ending. The book’s ending is much more ambiguous.
It’s supposed to be a satire (hence the X/Nanny thing), so the narrative focuses primarily on Nanny’s interactions with the X family, and leaves out the rest of her life when she is not with them. Nanny is mainly a filter (she doesn’t even get a real name) to showcase how awful the Xes (i.e. The Rich) are. I think we’re supposed to laugh at how ridiculous rich people are and thus feel better about our own, not rich, lives.
And it’s certainly readable on this level—but it’s also sort of throw away, you know? I think it would have been a better—more complete/complex—story if we had got more into Nanny’s head, spent more time with her, and understood her motivations better.
Nanny’s grandmother and parents live in NYC, and she is on speaking terms with them. So presumably, if she had to, she could have moved back home or moved in with grandma. We get the idea that she wants to support herself, live on her own (she shares a tiny apartment with a roommate), etc. but seems clear that—unlike most of the other nannies she comes into contact with—she has options. Not only the family safety net, but also other job options. She doesn’t have to be a nanny. So why is she doing it? The only clue that we get is that she’s studying early childhood education and she likes kids—oh, and she likes the pay.
She seems to come from (at least) an upper-middle-class background herself (went to a private school, is attending NYU, her grandmother seems to have connections, etc.). An explanation of NYC class relationships for those who aren’t familiar might have helped readers better understand why the Xes and their ilk would think this private-schooled, private university-attending young woman was so beneath them. Are they just insecure about their own status?
And then there’s school. She’s supposed to be a full-time student in her final year of undergrad—but this is totally glossed over! The only time it’s mentioned is when Mrs. X is preventing her from getting to class and/or paper-writing. She writes her thesis—her thesis—in 48 hours. I know it’s an undergrad thesis, but come on.
It would have been nice to see the Xes’ actions / Nanny’s commitment to the X family wreaking havoc on her education. That would be the logical consequence for someone in her situation, right? We see how other nannies are affected in terrible ways by the actions of their employers, but her year with the Xes seems to cost Nanny little more than lost sleep and a twinge of conscience over leaving Grayer; she breezes through school and even picks up a Harvard boyfriend along the way. This makes her a lot less sympathetic than she otherwise might have been.
A few weeks ago, I was poking around on Google Street View, checking out the (many) places I used to live. I started thinking about posting about them, but I wasn’t sure about all the places (some look very different) and some haven’t been mapped yet, so I thought I’d wait. Then Sallie started posting about the places she used to live! Weird! Coincidence? Or twinny mind-meld? So then I decided I had to do it. Given the aforementioned difficulties, I’ve decided to do it as a series.
So, this is Lillooet, where I lived for grade 1 and part of grade 2. Here’s me, learning to ride my purple banana seat bike, with the house in the background.
And, via the magic of Google, this is now. It’s pretty different: there’s some kind of funky addition on the right side, a chain link fence instead of the wooden one we had, a driveway, and that tree is not the same one (ours was a Macintosh apple tree), but this was the easiest house to recognize because it has the Hydro right-of-way beside it and the Fraser River behind it.
[A]lmost seven years after I landed in Shanghai, my novel has just been published. I know I’m supposed to celebrate, but the truth is that in letting go of it, I feel lost, even more lost than I felt in those first days in Shanghai. My primary consolation is that I’ve started writing a new novel. I’m still learning my way around, still learning the people who live there, but I’m all in. That, I’ve come to see, is the only way to write. Each story is where we live, unconditionally, as if for good—even knowing that, eventually, we’ll pack up and start again.
Writers are often motivated by something/someone that angers, irritates, or appalls them. Some people write to get even with a person who has hurt them, or to expose some sort of destructive force in their community. … If your story is going to be any good, you are going to have to get past this.
…
One thing I like to do is to write journal entries in the voices of other people, or even characters in my books. I sometimes do it for people who have hurt me deeply, so I can kind of get a grip on their behavior. The challenge is that you have to discover something new about the person or character. If your exercise reveals only what you came to the page with in the first place, then you have not tapped into the empathy you are going to need to write the story you want to write. The thing is that you are really going to have to want to understand that person, which means you may have to let go of that anger.
The message: You have to write the same way as others in your field. You must use multisyllabic words, complex phrasing, and sentences that go on for days, because that’s how you show you’re smart. If you’re too clear, if your sentences are too simple, your peers won’t take you seriously.
Many people—publishers of scholarly work, editors at higher-education publications, agents looking for academic authors capable of writing trade books—who think about the general quality of scholarly prose would admit that we’re in a sorry state, and most would say there isn’t much to do about it.
…
By writing prose that is nearly unintelligible not just to the general public, but also to graduate students and fellow academics in your discipline, you are not doing the work of advancing knowledge. And, honestly, you don’t really sound smart. I understand that there are ideas that are so difficult that their expression must be complex and dense. But I can tell you, after years of rejecting manuscripts submitted to university presses, most people’s ideas aren’t that brilliant.
To encourage writers to write about big issues is all well and good, but writers in an open society are going to do that regardless. The best writers write because they have to, but the best editors edit because they want to. It’s the editors, not the writers, who need encouraging.
True enough. Still… if anyone wants to leave their estate to Toasted Cheese (a la Poetry), please do get in touch.
(P.S. Why is the Poetry Foundation still soliciting donations? They have two. hundred. million. dollars. If you are able to donate to an arts organization, please choose one that’s less well off!)
The Remainder Table 