Lemon Tree Very Smelly

Sorry about the silence. But preparing to get your leg cut off at the knee turns out to be time consuming. (Don't worry...they'll reattach it. With a sparkly new titanium knee. Ooooo....shiny.) The big day is March 23. The surgery is at 7:30 in Bangor, and I'll have to get up at 3 to do all the stuff they want you to do beforehand and then drive for an hour. Yish.

My doctor says the two weeks after surgery will be "uncomfortable" -- that's doctorspeak for painful and depressing. Ooooo...damn well better be shiny.

Plus, I've come up against a major logical inconsistency in The Filioli (thanks to my friend Shelly) and a matching one in the sequel, which for the moment is called The Gloucester Ghost. Solutions have come to me in the middle of the night (duly written down and, miraculously, understandable the next day), but not enough of them.

For example, there's a character in GG who has drunk an elixir that enables her to see through enchantments. So there she sits, right next to an enchantment, and does she see through it? No indeed, so far she does not. Why is that? You tell me. Someone tell me. Please?

And then there was the Brooklin Cat Pee Disaster of 2009. Not quite as monumental as the Boston Molasses Disaster of 1919.

We have a potted lemon tree in the front hall, sometimes lovely, sometimes sad, depending on how many caterpillars landed on it when it spent the summer outside under the maple. This year it's marginal. Anyway, I'd been noticing dirt sprayed on the floor and, like an idiot, thought nothing of it. "Oh, how cute, the cat's been playing in the plant," I thought.

I've had cats all my life. But denial dies hard.

Ignorance reigned until I watered the tree. Lots of water, which spilled out into the saucer under the pot. And within minutes the entire front hall smelled like an untended litter box.

"How could you do this?" I asked the cat, who was contentedly tormenting the dog with the "is this a paw or a claw?" game, which ends only when the dog, shaken, cedes her spot in front of the woodstove.

"Do what?" the cat asked.

"You don't smell it?"

"I don't smell. I create." (I don't think that's true but that's what she said.)

I solved most of the problem by hauling the saucer under the pot outside and dumping it out. Rob suggests that I don't water the tree again until summer, when we can put it outside and flush it out. At which point it will, conveniently, be dead. Since Rob hates the tree even when it doesn't stink, I'm beginning to wonder exactly who peed in it.

If it was the cat, I've foiled her for the moment by sticking a miniature stonehenge of chopsticks into the soil around the tree. If it's Rob, I hope it gets on his shoes.

The latest news: The Unnameables was a runner-up for the Maine Literary Award for kidlit. The winner was Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress by Maria Padian of Brunswick, which I haven't read but it sounds wonderful. There have been some more nice reviews, too, but I'll have to write about them later. This time I spent too much time writing about cat pee. There are priorities in this life.

March Book Review!

Well, doesn't time fly. It's been a month since our last book reviews, and more than a week *blush* since my pitiful last post. I have things to write about, too...the great cat pee disaster, snow, that sort of thing. But first, the Book Review Club! (Head over to Barrie Summy's blog for a list of this month's other reviews.)

Conrad’s Fate
By Diana Wynne Jones
HarperCollins (paperback), 2006
ISBN 978-0-06-074745


For years, books by Diana Wynne Jones have been one of my guilty pleasures. Even now, when reading kidlit fantasy could be considered part of my job, I get a nice rush of guilt settling down with yet another magical, funny, adventuresome DWJ.

Oddly, I’d gotten the idea somewhere that I wouldn’t like the Chrestomanci books. I am drawn to fantasies that have one foot in the real world, and most of the adventures of Christopher Chant and friends take place in alternate universes. Nope, I thought. I’ll stick to Archer’s Goon, in which a seemingly normal British family finds out that demigods are running municipal services, or The Ogre Downstairs, in which a magic chemistry set helps a blended family overcome its differences.

But one day I had nothing to read when eating out alone, so I picked up The Pinhoe Egg, the most recent Chrestomanci, set in a world that is just like ours except that magic and enchanters are commonplace. Normal and magical run up against each other…just my cup of mandragora tea. (Which probably would kill you but never mind.)

By now I’ve read all but a couple of the books and am hankering after the short stories. I probably should have read Conrad’s Fate before Pinhoe, but who knew I’d become an addict? And the way these books go zooming back and forth in time, it hardly matters.

The Chrestomanci books more or less follow Christopher Chant’s career from the discovery of his powers as an enchanter through his elevation to the role of Chrestomanci, the controller of magic in the thousands of alternate worlds that co-exist with ours. Some of the books are actually about him; in others, he simply sweeps in to help sort things out.

Here’s the thing about Diana Wynne Jones: Her plots are marvelous, intricate knots, delightful to unravel when you’ve got one of her books in front of you and, for me anyway, totally unmemorable a week or so later. This is a great boon to those of us who like to re-read favorite books, but it’s an odd attribute for such wonderful work.

What you do remember is her characters…proof that, while all novelists recycle and embellish the same basic plots, it’s a book’s characters that make it unique. And Christopher Chant just keeps getting better and better. Jones introduced him thirty years ago as a grown-up Chrestomanci, then slid back in time a decade later so we could follow his upbringing as an enchanter. He’s powerful and brilliant but deeply flawed, prone to arrogance, pouting, and, in his youth, thoughtless action. Jones manages to make him a figure of both romance and comedy, always a neat trick.

Conrad’s Fate is one of the back-sliding books, introducing us to Chant as a rebellious teenage student on the lam from the current Chrestomanci and searching alternate worlds for a fellow renegade, Millie. Add to the mix the unfortunate Conrad, a boy who is in the process of being as deeply misled and betrayed by his family as Chant was when we first met him. The two form a strong bond with each other—and with us—as they sort out who’s been misusing magic in Series Seven, Conrad’s native universe.

The two find jobs as manservants in Stallery Castle, a nest of aristocratic hypocrisy which Jones mines for expert comedy. They run afoul of the magical misdoings there, and do their bumbling bit toward unmasking the misdoers.

This isn’t the tightest of Jones’ plots—it’s a bit sloppy, actually, with a deus ex machina at nearly every turn. The discovery of Conrad’s secret talent is unnecessarily contrived. Conrad himself, though, is a heart-rending character who’s got you on his side from page one. Adding Christopher Chant is almost more than the heart can stand.

Spending time with Conrad, Christopher, and Millie is such a pleasure that I almost don’t feel guilty about it. Almost.

Blog of Blog

In the dregs of February, we need this blog. (Thank you, Fuse #8.) (I think. It was a while ago. I bookmarked it and forgot about it until today.There will be 7-10 inches of fresh snow tomorrow and Monday, and I can't ski on it. So I definitely needed the pick-me-up.)

Make sure you scroll down to the High Five Escalator.

Excuses, Excuses

There's a very good reason why I haven't blogged for a solid week. Really. An excellent, undeniable, unarguable excuse.

I have nothing to say.

Unless, of course, you'd like to hear about Cape Verdean animism. After weeks and weeks of fighting this stupid sequel, I have finally, finally reached that point when your innards hum with new ideas and anything that makes you think about something else seems like an imposition. Taxes, for instance. The Brooklin Youth Corps budget. Blogging.

This does not mean that the writing is zooming along, mind you. It just means I feel that writing this book is what I'm supposed to be doing, as opposed to trudging out to find paying work. The fact that there is no paying work is a huge help.

The writers that starve in the spring, tra-la...

My funny bone reawakened last week with the news that Bill and Joyce at Literate Lives have decided to sponsor a Grand Discussion about The Unnameables. Scroll down to check out the self-portrait for their flyer...

Lovey Dovey

I'm getting all intense about drafting a possible sequel to The Filioli. (I say "possible" because the sequel to The Unnameables ended up being rent limb from limb and the still-warm parts grafted onto the first book.)

Today I did a "save as" on Chapter Five so I can see what happens if it takes a different direction. (This is why it's much wiser to become a writer rather than a painter, if you have the choice. There's no "save as" on a canvas.) Then I went to the library for another round of Stump the Librarian, and the excellent Stephanie Atwater is looking on interlibrary loan for books on animism, the Cape Verde Islands, or both. How does any of that relate to a fairy and/or a pub? Heh heh heh (nervous laughter)...good question.

Speaking of the library, they're having a fundraising auction in which all sorts of goodies are available for a song, including books by 2k8ers and others. The bidding closes at the end of this week, so have at it!

Speaking of having at it (not really, but I couldn't think of a segue), I'm participating in Kids(heart)authors Day, during which kidlit authors and illustrators in New England and New York spend Valentine's Day loving up some independent bookstores and signing books for people to give as valentines. Rebekah Raye and I will be at Sherman's Bookstore in Bar Harbor Saturday, February 14, from 10 a.m. to noon. If you're not in Maine, take a look at the regional web site and find a bookstore near you. Be there or be (heart)less.

Friday Five

Figured I might try this. Numbered listy things tend to organize the mind.

1. Considering the amount of trouble I have keeping up with this blog, it seems odd that I'm getting involved with another. We're just getting organized--about twenty kidlit fantasy writers, about half of us published or soon to be so. We're calling ourselves The Enchanted Inkpot. Stay tuned.

2. Like lots of other long-time readers, I have John Updike on the brain. I grew up in Beverly Farms, MA, where he was when he died. When I was growing up he lived in nearby Ipswich, and I would catch glimpses of him now and then. One time, I recall, we both heard Nina Simone at Castle Hill, a seaside mansion in Ipswich that at that time was a music venue. In the sixties, I read everything he wrote--Couples was supposed to have been based on some shenanigans in Beverly Farms, and the back-fence speculation went on for weeks. Don't know why I stopped reading him--somewhere I got the idea that he was too much for me, although I enjoyed The Witches of Eastwick. Like everyone else who's made this confession, I will now try again.

3. My writers group at the school is exceptionally eager and smart this year, and I'm also working with an eighth grader at The Bay School as well as the third-grader I've mentioned before whose villain is bent on destroying the world. The Bay Schooler is writing a fantasy novel which she hopes will be 200 pages long. Right now she's at page 64. I think she's more than capable of hitting her mark, and I'm very envious of anyone who would even attempt a novel in the eighth grade. What a wonder she'll be!

4. Went to a nice party last night, a farewell for our neighbors, Marilyn and Bill, who are moving back to Michigan to be near family. And, possibly, to stop feeling like they're at the end of the earth. Something about the ocean does that to people sometimes.

5. The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books January issue says of The Unnameables:

Island, a creepy and restrictive world masquerading as a utopia, is as memorable as the intricately developed inhabitants. The pace is languorous and measured, mirroring the easy tranquility of life on Island before the satyr and the ways in which changes ripple slowly into permanence with folks as set in their ways as these. Two maps offer additional insight into the layout of Island, though the descriptions of the setting are so evocative that the maps are decorative enhancements rather than necessary guides.

The Book Review Club!

I'm now a member of an elite fighting force committed to blogging a book review the first Wednesday of every month. The graphic above will be permanently affixed over there on the right when I next have the time and courage to rejigger the sidebar. (Soon. Ish.)

To find the other reviews, visit Barrie Summy, who thought up and organized the whole enterprise.

Mrs. Woolf and the Servants
By Alison Light
Bloomsbury Press, 2008
ISBN 978-1596915602

Before the twentieth century, published historians were men. Women wrote letters and diaries—intending to explain themselves, maybe, but rarely with any hope of shaping history. That’s why there are so many complaints that history’s shape has been dictated for us by dead white men.

This goes double for female servants—what we know of them is what we’re told by their employers. What would your employers tell the ages about you? Would it be a rounded portrait? Would it even be accurate?

In her highly engaging Mrs. Woolf and the Servants, British historian Alison Light runs up against this problem and acknowledges it. The granddaughter of a domestic servant, she set out to give voice to women known to us chiefly through their famous employers’ letters, diaries, and memoirs. As far as anyone can tell, she’s done it.

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) has never had a secure footing in history or literary criticism. She’s celebrated as a re-inventor of the novel, but lambasted for the cold elegance of her prose and a pathologist's approach to character. Personally, I love Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, but never made much progress in Jacob’s Room and haven’t even gotten up the courage to try her last novels.

In the popular imagination, she’s known as much for her bohemian friends, madness, and suicide as for her work. She’s admired for her championing of women’s causes—but then one asks oneself how she treated the women who worked for her.

For many Virginia Woolf fans (myself included), it’s her letters and diaries that draw us in. It doesn’t take much reading to figure out that Woolf’s relationship with her servants was an important but disturbing one for her, riddled with explosives. No one, it seems, could make Virginia Woolf madder than Nellie Boxall, her cook for eighteen years.

Nellie and several other women servants made the rounds of the Bloomsbury Group, the writers, artists, and thinkers who were friends, family, lovers, and support system for Virginia Woolf and her husband, Leonard. Raised as upper middle class Victorians, the Bloomsberries shook off their parents’ mores but held on to the trust funds and the assumption that they would never empty their own chamber pots. They were fun, interesting, idiosyncratic employers, but wildly hypocritical.

Leonard Woolf was a socialist, for heaven’s sake. And yet his autobiography doesn’t even give his gardener a last name, and heaven help the cook who served him underdone meat. His wife knew she was a hypocrite, and fretted about it. Then she’d insult someone for having “a housemaid’s soul.”

Light isn’t quite able to let us into the minds of Nellie and the others. She does her best, tracking down their biographies, extensively researching “the servant problem” and relations between the classes, quoting interviews with others who served in middle class homes between the wars. Nellie Boxall herself was interviewed for the BBC long after Virginia’s death, but she was resolutely uncontroversial.

Mostly, letters from servants were thrown away. And who had time for a diary?

The author is on firmer ground examining the employers, who provided reams of material in their published and private writing. She makes fascinating connections between Woolf’s novels and essays and her domestic relationships, all of which were profoundly influenced by her revulsion for her own and other people’s bodies. She wanted the life of the mind, difficult to achieve when the housemaid comes in to say that the water closet is overflowing again.

It’s hard for me to tell, steeped as I am in Bloomsbury lore, but this book may assume basic knowledge of the characters. It seemed to me, for instance, that the uninitiated might puzzle for several pages before figuring out that Light was telling us when and how Virginia Woolf committed suicide.

A minor confusion—a copy-editing mistake as much as anything—is Light’s tendency to call her main character “Virginia” in one sentence and “Woolf” in the next. At first it seemed she used the given name when she was talking home life and the last name when offering literary criticism, an understandable if unnecessary distinction. Later in the book there’s no rhyme or reason to it, and sometimes you have to stop and think whether she means Virginia or Leonard.

Overall, though, this is an enlightening and entertaining book, perfect for a long winter evening by the fire. Even if you had to build the fire yourself.