Category Archives: 365 Days 2012

Nine stories that changed the world via @huffpost

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Today I read an essay from one of the students in my writing class where she talked about having read her way through all the books about dogs and puppies in her elementary school library. She was frustrated and discouraged and not interested in anything but books about dogs and then her teacher suggested she read Sarah, Plain and Tall. It changed her world.

Huffington Post offers up a list of nine stories that have changed the world

What is the story you’d add to this list?

The Heights – Brian James

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Ask anyone, I am a sucker for stories about star-crossed lovers. I love angst with a capital A. So the premise of Brian James’s YA novel The Heights would seem like a perfect fit for me. I mean the tagline was “theirs was a love that would last forever.”

Sadly, for me, this book was a pale cousin to its predecessor, Wuthering Heights. James sets his novel in foggy San Francisco where Catherine Earnshaw and her older brother, Hindley, live with their widowed father. Henry lives there too. He’s the orphaned Mexican boy Catherine’s father scooped off the mean streets and raised as his own. Now, years later, Mr. Earnshaw is dead and Hindley, a big shot lawyer, has come home to make sure Henry doesn’t get anything he’s rightfully entitled to (as Mr. Earnshaw preferred Henry to Hindley – and no wonder, Hindley is a misogynistic asshat.)

Hindley is also intent on splitting up Catherine and Henry, siblings on the cusp of admitting that their feelings for each other might be just a teensy bit more complicated than they should be. Of course, they never get around to admitting their feelings to each other before Hindley throws his oar in and muddies the waters.

Told in alternating view points, we see Catherine mooning over Henry and Henry mooning over Catherine – but nothing much comes of it, especially once Hindley banishes Henry to the basement of their huge house in The Heights (a tony neighbourhood in San Francisco) and sends him to a rough school way across town where Henry is constantly in danger of being beat up. Make no mistake, he’s tough and can handle himself – and without Catherine’s calming influence, he’s more likely to swing than swoon.

James tries at Bronte’s themes: obsession, class, revenge – but the problem with The Heights, for me at least, is that the novel’s contemporary setting makes the characters seem sort of inert. I never wanted them to be together because neither of them seemed all that sympathetic. And yes, you could make the same case for Catherine and Heathcliff – but Bronte’s sweeping tale somehow elevates those characters to mythic, romantic heights in a way James never quite manages.

I will be happy to encourage my students to read The Heights, but even happier if they go on to read Wuthering Heights.

Write to solve your problems…

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I teach writing at high school and one of the things I always tell my students is that writing (and reading) are wonderful tools for exploring who they are. In the books they read, they will find their missing twins and soul mates; they will discover that they are not alone.  If they are able to write about how they feel – even if it’s not particularly eloquent to begin with – they’ll always have an outlet to deal with life’s joys and frustrations, triumps and failures.

A recent NY Times commentary posits that talk therapy is on the decline and being replaced with writing workshops.

Why talk therapy is on the wane and writing worksops are on the rise

Interesting article.

 

 

Women read porn. Shocking!

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In a recent Globe and Mail article, ‘Whips, chains and the rise of mommy porn’, Russell Smith discusses the meteoric rise of a trilogy of novels called Fifty Shades of Grey. These books, written by E.L. James, started out life as fanfiction. Then they were repurposed and sold in eBook format. Now the book’s out in paperback AND the movie rights have been purchased.

 I haven’t read the book(s) so I can’t comment on the quality of writing. I do know a little something about fanfiction, though. There’s a lot of it out there in varying degrees of quality from extremely, wretchedly bad to just as good or better than some of the published stuff you pay money for. Back in the day I may have written some fanfic (well, okay, a lot of fanfic) myself. Perhaps one or two of my stories had some sex (okay, a lot of sex) in them.

I guess the thing that intrigues me about all the kerfluffle surrounding Fifty Shades of Grey  is the notion that the fact that women read porn, or want to read it seems like news to anyone. Really? Porn is the domain of men?

And I wonder why so much is being made of this novel’s scenario: rich, good looking guy, beautiful, submissive virgin = sexual hijinks. I mean, men have equally lame fantasies (guy plus two gorgeous chicks; guy with big-breasted blonde…you get the picture.) Whatever floats your boat, right? In bed and on the page.

And I love it that male reviewers are weighing in. Tim Stanley of The Telegraph called James’s novel “exploitative, sadistic porn.”  Yep – that’s gonna turn off readers.  And anyway, Mr. Stanley admits that he is  “personally I’m not a fan of sex – I’ve always regarded it as a disappointing substitute for a cup of tea.”  Clearly he’s not in a position to weigh in with any degree of authority. Actually, sounds like he’s not in any position at all.  But I digress.

I read erotica. Sometimes it’s really good. Sometimes it isn’t. I bring my own personal preferences to the page – which is true of any book I read, btw.  Have I watched porn? Please, I’m way old; I’ve seen it all. Again, I’d rather Zalman King than Edward Penishands, but that’s just me.

Seriously, folks, it’s not news that women like sex.

Now, if you’ll excuse me – I have some, erm, reading to do.