10fluential books, L word

[oiran]

My week: I've been making a Carmen Miranda costume for Kicky. Red sequin fishtail skirt with ruffles. Little bitty top. Giant headdress. It's going to be fucking fantastic. Unfortunately, thanks to Jesus, I couldn't go to the fabric store today. He's sure as hell not my savior.

I owe everyone everything, but it's not happening tonight, I don't suppose. Instead, memeage:

Well, I thought about how to approach this, and I really couldn't decide. There are way more than 10 books that have been influential in some way. Not all of them are "good" books, by any means. I think I've done one of these before, and I was more scattershot about it; these are the more or less chronological early ones that I can think of that truly made a difference in me, what I thought, how I felt, how I thought the world worked. For better or worse.

1. The Animal Family - Randall Jarrell
   and


2. The Light Princess - George McDonald
   They are two separate books, but they always go together in my head. I checked them out of the library for the first time at the same time. They are both illustrated by Maurice Sendak, which is neither here nor there, but it's a nice coincidence. I find them as charming today as I did when I was approximately five. I learned to read when I was three out of necessity; my mother would read to me, but I wanted more. These were among the first books of any complexity that I chose and read for myself. And I've just reread The Animal Family in its entirety while trying to find a favorite part to quote. It's all my favorite part.
   
   As for The Light Princess, it's an odd amalgamation of Sleeping Beauty and The Princess Bride. She floats, see, and she's very selfish, and she learns kindness and love in an interesting way. It's humorous in a way that is probably more entertaining to me now than it was then. I checked this out of the library a zillion times. My mother and I had loud whisper-fights in the stacks about whether or not I should get this one again, or get something new.
   
   I actually never owned either of these until just a couple of years ago, and I almost thought I'd made them up. I ran across The Animal Family while looking for something for my niece. They only had one copy left. My niece is going to have to get her own.



3. A book called something like A Child's Garden of Verse. This book had a library binding, a cutesy cover illustration, and a big load of scary death poems between its sturdy covers. The two I remember most vividly in terms of my reaction were Poe's Annabel Lee (which gave me the creeping fantods then and still does--this is considered a romantic poem????) and excerpts from Shelley's Queen Mab, which when I reread it now is no less repugnant, but completely unfamiliar except for mention of her coursers and a general air of dankness and rot. I credit this small volume with my lifelong poetry aversion. Verse seems ever-likely to provide ghastly nightmare material. And even though I am now very fond of Donne's "holy sonnets" and T.S. Eliot and a few others, I am always wary approaching verse, even poetry I already know I like, as if it might have undergone some sort of nasty shift while I wasn't actively watching it for signs of mutation. Seriously, don't give a 4-year-old child Annabel Lee. That's fucked up, yo.



4. Miss Happiness and Miss Flower - Rumer Godden.
   A child sent to live with relatives receives a gift of two Japanese dolls. She studies up on their culture and gets her older cousin to help her build an authentic Japanese-style house for the dolls. As a result, her life is less miserable and she connects with people. There are plans in the back of the book to build the house, even. I still want the house. I think my lifelong obsession with all things Japanese and all things dollish can be squarely placed on this book. I believe it may have recently come back in print in a paperback edition, but it has been a very rare book for a very long time. A first edition can run several hundreds of dollars. I managed to get a second ed. (because I'm not a book collector, I don't really care about which edition) for $10 on eBay, and when it arrived, I got an amazing surprise: it has color illustrations. Apparently, every copy I'd ever checked out of a library had had the illustrations cut out of it/stolen. The illustrations are, of course, darling.



5. Alice in Wonderland/Alice's Adventures Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
   Since the copy I own currently is a combined edition, I think this can count as one. Alice is a contrary thing, careless and adventurous, full of vanities and stubbornness and prone to odd bouts of quailing. I've always loved her. I can't tell you how many hours I spent examining my environment through mirrors instead of direct view. I never made it through, though. If you've ever read my own little curiosity, Wonderville, my fondness for Alice can be in no doubt.



6. The Little House books - Laura Ingalls Wilder. The entire series, including even the boring one after Laura gets married. I still have my entire set, in a yellow cardboard case with my name written in felt-tip pen on the top. I read everything regarding Laura that I could find, including biographies of Mrs. Wilder. I was a child obsessed. I was fascinated by the harshness of the pioneer life, and the huge range of skills a decent pioneer would have to master in order to not die. I used to wonder if I'd be a good pioneer; now, I am certain that I would not. I would be a terrible pioneer. I'd be bones on the road.
   
   When the TV series started up, I was very much a purist. The book called Little House on the Prairie is not the setting for the TV series. That would be On the Banks of Plum Creek, which is where we meet Nellie Olsen, who has always felt like a personal enemy of mine.
   
   I've always found it interesting that the books seem to be written more or less to the level of a reader the age that she is in the story.



7. Watership Down - Richard Adams. Fiver! Hazel! The rabbit language! The rabbit legends! It's pretty much the fantasy book for me--what the rest of you seem to feel about LotR, I feel about Watership Down. But a few years back, when Richard Adams wrote a sequel, I could only read a few pages before putting it down in disgust. My beloved bunnies were on a soapbox, talking about endangered species. The fuck? They're rabbits. They don't know what's going on a half-mile away, much less worldwide. I re-read this at least once a year, and I always cry at the end. And I always get caught up in the fight with the Nazi-ish General at the end even though I know how everything turns out. Love it. Absolutely love it.



8. The Princess Bride - William Goldman
   I was a very literal-minded child. I was verbally adept at a young age, but still with the interests and emotions of a child. My parents never seemed to understand this, so they inadvertently got me believing lots of bullshit by being sarcastic. So when I read this very meta book, I was completely boggled by the storytelling structure, the story-within-a-story, and the frequent asides from the author (including the trousseau description that you could supposedly send away for, and a few other things that Mr. Goldman described as available for an SASE--my mother would never send for them, and I still wonder if I would have received anything). I wanted to know which part of it was "the truth" and it was amusing to my mother, I think, that I thought any of it might be true.
   
   I never much cared for Wesley and Buttercup; I was Inigo Montoya's girl.
   
   I was impressed with the movie when I finally agreed to watch it. I did think it would likely suck based on how book-based the story seemed to me. But you can get rid of all the text-specific joking and still have a great fairy tale.



9. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues - Tom Robbins
   My mother was fond of trashy books. This was the mid-70s, and all kinds of wannabe Erica Jongs were writing smutty "liberated" fiction. She never seemed able to disallow me to read anything I wanted to read, so I knew all about the mechanics of sex from about the age of 8 on. I thought it was freakish and fascinating behavior, though it all seemed a bit dubious to me. In any case, when my range of reading material became common knowledge among my peers (thanks, Michelle), I had a momentary popularity based on me relaying the "dirty parts."
   
   I was 10 when I read Cowgirls. I loved the story, the wild characters, the cowgirls. I had never read a sex scene between same-sex people before, and I was rather thrilled at the novelty (and also that Sissy, the protagonist, was getting it on with Jellybean, my favorite cowgirl). When I relayed this "dirty part," however, my audience was disgusted. Apparently, I was the last to know that sex with someone with the same parts was wrong, evil and disgusting. I don't know…I remain unconvinced. That was a pretty hot scene.



10. Sister of the Bride - Beverly Cleary. She didn't just write Henry Higgins and all the Beezus and Ramona stories--she also wrote books for teen girls. Which I still love just insanely. They're so...like TV. Wholesome, funny, and full of early 60s hairdos, heels and demure dresses. And they're funny. Really, it could be this one, or Fifteen. They were totally outdated when I read them (i.e., in tandem with Tom Robbins), but I think their sort of retronormalcy was a comfort.


So, no Little Women here (that book has always seemed so gay to me, fwiw), no Judy Blume books, no Paul Zindel, no Zorah Keatley Snyder. But they could have been on the list if I wrote it up a different day. The teen books would include Orwell's 1984, the lurid Christiane F., and Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged--and no, I've never been an Objectivist for even a moment. Rather, I did enjoy how all the "good" characters smoked and need to be faux-raped/pseudo-tamed by an "equal," and the notion that architectural critique could inflame the passions of the nation and serve as a means to social and moral change. Heh.

The L Word: I like the Kit character when she's with Ivan. I hope they bring Kelley Lynch back for S2. I totally think Tanya killed Mr. Piddles, though I'm thinking neglect rather than out-and-out murder. Bette is EVIL and her carpenter isn't much better, though JB looks hotter all the time. Everyone got more interesting in this episode except for Alice and Shane, who were already interesting but got no growth this go-round. I don't think Alice kissing Dana counts as growth. Yet. I'll have to see what I think in S2.

Comments

*kisses you*

[astrea9562.livejournal.com]

I still have my original hardcovers from my childhood of Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. Did you know that there is a sequel called: Little Plum?

I've made and furnished dollhouses all my life. I made a Japanese dollhouse and actually used some of the instructions in the back of the book when I was about nine years old. Of course, what I could create then and what I can now are two different things, but I was always like this. *g*

You are coming to NYC soon, right? ;)

[porntestpilot.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, thanks to Jesus, I couldn't go to the fabric store today. He's sure as hell not my savior.

Have I mentioned recently how much I love you?

That scene between LH and JB was wow. I like Kit with Ivan as well. It's cute.

[siobhan-w.livejournal.com]

When the TV series started up, I was very much a purist. The book called Little House on the Prairie is not the setting for the TV series. That would be On the Banks of Plum Creek

Hee! You're not alone in your purism. I remember telling anyone who would listen that the show was set in the wrong town, but did anyone care? No! *g*

I totally think Tanya killed Mr. Piddles, though I'm thinking neglect rather than out-and-out murder

I'm firmly in the Tanya-killed-the-cat camp. She's just evil with her copy-cat/stalker ways. I'm looking forward to seeing how that all turns out. Alice is going to take her down!

[rhiannon-jehane.livejournal.com]

Oh! The Animal Family! I adored that book!

So, no Little Women here (that book has always seemed so gay to me, fwiw), no Judy Blume books, no Paul Zindel, no Zorah Keatley Snyder

Most of those didn't appeal to me, either, except for Keatley Snyder. She talked about magic, which was fascinating to me, coming from a conservative Catholic family. The Changeling and The Headless Cupid were favorites of mine when I was around ten or so. They were out of print for a long time, and in the days before the 'net I went nuts trying to find copies of them.

*makes note of the Rumer Godden and George McDonald books to look for during next library run*

[zeldadestry.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite moments of the 'little house' books:

"Almanzo smiled. 'Your new ring is becoming to your hand,' he said.

Laura turned her hand in the sunshine. The gold of the ring gleamed, the garnet glowed richly in the center of the flat, oval set, and on either side of it the pearls shimmered lustrously.

'It is beautiful, this ring,' she said.

'I would say the hand,' Almanzo replied."

I don't think of myself as a swooner, but I guess I am, cos...swoon!

[raveninthewind.livejournal.com]

I totally think Tanya killed Mr. Piddles, though I'm thinking neglect rather than out-and-out murder.

I think she murdered Mr. P b/c she is a cat-hating skank who is jealous of anything that Dana loves.

Is it true that Marian won't be back next year? Or is that total rumor?

I saw Alice's interest in Dana a few eps back, and it's nice to see that I was right. Bette and her carpenter (can't ever remember her name) might be Bad Girls, but they did have a spark. The sex between Bette and Tina at the end was creepy-wrong.


Weren't you the one looking for pretty Ewan icons?

http://www.livejournal.com/users/wickedripeplum/133560.html