A Curious Statistical Anomaly

I’m intrigued by the communities that women create for themselves, and so I often read books centered around crafts, especially the crafts that I also love. Knitting is one of the ways that I bring meditation and calmness into my life. So, I read a lot of books with knitting as one of the central threads of the books.

Knitting by Anne Bartlett is the story of two women who chance to met and find that they have a lot of textiles, crafts, or the work of women’s hands in common. Sandra is an academic who teaches about women’s work and textiles throughout history. Her husband died of cancer and there are many firsts coming up without him and Sandra is coping by trying to control everything in her life and moving on. She hasn’t even mourned her loss.

Martha is more of an enigma. She lives alone and is about Sandra’s age. She lost her husband years ago; several months after their marriage. She’s moved on but not without cost. She carries her mistakes about with her literally and figuratively. And, she’s a bit of an obsessive-compulsive with errors throwing her into strong stress reactions.

Once they met, Sandra is inspired to put on an exhibition of knitting from 1900 to 2000 and wants Martha to knit all the pieces historically correctly and from period knitting patterns. Martha is overwhelmed but can’t seem to say no. Sandra doesn’t even recognize that she’s never asked, she’s only assumed.

The story threads from one viewpoint to the other so that the reader gets a feel for each of the characters. Kitting is the theme that hold the story together and the only thread that makes a connection between these two women. The real theme is one of communication and acceptance. How do we communicate with each other? How do we listen? Or, do we listen to each other? What is the nature of friendship? What causes a bond to exist between some people and not others. How do we look at ourselves and how do others look at us.

None of these questions really get answered but they are at the heart of the story. There’s a lot of knitting terminology and some nice insights into the psychology of knitting and its place in many people’s lives but the story is not about knitting — it’s about women and their relationships to each other.

It takes place in Adelaide, Australia and that also lends a nice air to the story. It’s a slow story that drifts in and out of the lives of these two women. It’s a thoughtful story and depends as much on what the reader brings to it as what the writer puts into it. Not a stay up all night page turner; but it is a thoughtful look at women, their work, and their lives.

I’m evidently still in a Austen mood. Prior to vacation, I finished reading The Darcy Connection by Elizabeth Aston. This one, I can give my whole-hearted endorsement. Aston definitely has a feel for the original characters and brings that into her follow-on stories even when the original characters are only on the pages for short periods.

In The Darcy Connection, the daughters of Mr. Collins and Charlotte are of marriageable age. Jane the eldest is a beautiful girl with many of the same qualities as her mother except that she is so reserved no one ever knows what she thinks or feels. Eliza, named after Elizabeth Bennet Darcy who is her godmother, is much as Elizabeth was in her youth but not as tempered by her common sense.

Mr. Collins is now the Bishop of Ripon due mostly to the clever manipulations of him by Charlotte. He is as insufferably full of himself as ever. The Collins’s also have a son but he only shows up for a few paragraphs and is, I’m afraid to say, his father’s son in temperment and mental acuteness. Sadly, it’s the girls that take after their mother. I say sadly, because women didn’t have many options in those days except to manipulate those around them to achieve their goals.

Jane is to be taken to London to have a season by a relation of Charlotte’s, Lady Grandpoint. Eliza was not to go until it’s found that she and the son of the local Squire are a bit too fond of each other. Eliza believes she is in love. So, naturally the cure it to remove Eliza to London with Jane and for the young man to learn to run his father’s estate. It’s clear from the start that Eliza is to be included only in events that take place at the Grandpoint’s home. She will not have a season. She will only be included when it would be impolitic not to have her at a social event outside the Grandpoint home. This is fine with Eliza as she is happy for Jane to take center stage.

The relationship between Jane and Eliza is not as close as that between Jane and Elizabeth Bennet or between the Darcy girls in Mr. Darcy’s Daughters. The connection of the title seems to be to the Darcy daughters as Eliza visits the household of Mrs. Camilla Darcy Wytton. It’s here that Eliza meets a number of people and through them begin to be invited out. Eliza turns out to be a young lady of surprising resources and accomplishments some of which are not in keeping with being a bishop’s daughter.

The interplay between what is happening with Jane and her season and Eliza and her non-season, plays wonderfully well as the plot threads weave around each other. Eliza may be the sister that is usually in trouble but Jane with her reserve often made this reader think of the phrase “still waters run deep.” As the story unfolds and the characters come alive with their actions and reactions to each other and changing situations and scenes, we suspect that more is going on behind the scenes than we know. In other words, the reader gets hooked into the story quite quickly and then it’s straight on ’til morning or the end of the book.

The story runs along allowing us to enjoy Eliza and her wit, charm, and observations of everyone and everything she meets and interacts with. There is comedy, drama, pathos, and sparkling conversations, several dastardly men (definitely not gentlemen in spite of their societal level and without mustaches but nevertheless not nice, if not down-right evil), and some interesting twist and turns.

Still the ending is as it should be, and as it usually is with an Austen-like novel, satisfying. So, you end the book with a sigh of completion and satisfaction of a story well told and some lives well settled.

I did a lot of reading while Hyperion was driving on our nearly cross-country road trip. I enjoy light reading that I can take up and put down as the mood takes me. I’ve also been on a big Jane Austen binge including the follow-on novels. Before leaving on our trip I stopped at the library and along with the other books I checked out, I got An Unequal Marriage or Pride and Prejudice Twenty Years Later by Emma Tennant. I hadn’t read anything by this author before but that’s not unusual as I’m just diving in to my Jane Austen phase.

First I have to say the book is very well written. Tennant has the tone of the times just right. The dialogue rings true and has the same rhythm as a book written about that period. Twenty years after the events of Pride and Prejudice, we find that Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam Darcy have had two children. The oldest a daughter is very much like Elizabeth and loves Pemberley, the land, and the people. Their son on the other hand is wild, rebellious, determined to ruin the family. Many of the other characters from Pride and Prejudice make an appearance or are mentioned to fill us in on what has happened during the intervening years.

I didn’t like the book until I cleared my mind of all references to Pride and Prejudice. As I said the writing is clear and the plot is interesting. The problem for me is that during those twenty years, Darcy has devolved to being the man Elizabeth thought he was based on her first impression of him in Pride and Prejudice. In fact, he is now the man Wickham said he was. He’s arrogant, cruel, and cares only for himself and his name. He has no care for his tenants or his servants. As a father, he was and is aloof and cold and gave his son not even the minimal care that he took of Bingley in Pride and Prejudice. But he is not the only person who has changed, Elizabeth has lost all respect for herself and is meek, self-effacing, insecure, and throws herself at another man just to feel better about herself. Aghast at these severe changes in core of these beloved characters — I was shocked.

I just could not conceive of these characters completely changing from who they were. The reason they could get together in the original story was because of their characters, values, and honor. To see all that they were totally twisted and changed just didn’t sit right with me. There was no indication of what could have caused these incredible changes in their character, honor, and values. It went against those hints and glimpses of them from the original novel.

I could only keep reading by convincing myself that these people only had the same names as the beloved characters from Pride and Prejudice and thus, it was an alternate universe version of Fitzwilliam and Elizabeth. With that little mental gymnastics achieved, I was then able to enjoy the writing and the story.

So, I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who loves the original novel. That is, unless, you can completely divorce yourself from the history of the characters and read this novel as related to no other book in existence and see it only as a stand alone novel of a troubled marriage in the post-Napoleonic War era.

Emily Albright seems to be having a bit of a problem finding her perfect mate. From the sample date the reader experiences with Emily, it would seem that either the barrel is nearly empty and these are the dregs, or New York City has very slim pickings indeed.

Running an independent bookstore, having a good income, living on her own, having friends — well, it seems Emily is still buying into the whole “a woman isn’t whole without her man thing”. Her secret is that she watches the A&E version of Pride and Prejudice, the one with Colin Firth and the wet shirt, after every dating debacle, when she’s lonely, and when she just wants to believe love is out there somewhere.

She’s trying to come to grips with the fact that she may always be alone and when her friend and co-worker Stella tries to convince Emily to join her on an 18-30’s trip to Mexico. Emily makes the snap decision to instead take a Jane Austen tour of England. She figures that she will exorcise her Darcy fantasy, recover from her expectations of manly perfection, and get on with her life alone and happy to be so. Since she’s read all the books she believes it will be a great adventure and fun. Of course, once she arrives she finds that most of the women on the tour are closer in age to her mother and the only males are the bus driver and the young, obnoxious, news reporter covering the tour for his paper. (If you’ve read enough of these romances you know that obnoxiousness and dislike are a sure sign of true love developing — or maybe not, I mean this guy is really, really, obnoxious). Nevertheless, as the tour progresses Emily learns more about her companions on the tour and finds that all of them are women to be admired and reckoned with–all with talents, ambition, and full lives.

That’s the set up. What that doesn’t tell you is just what a great piece of work this novel is. I was about half way through before it dawned on me that Potter was retelling Pride and Prejudice. It’s very subtle but the story of Me and Mr. Darcy parallels the basic plot line. There is no line by line or plot point by plot point comparison but it’s there in feeling, situations, and actions. It’s also not a follow on to Pride and Prejudice either. Me and Mr. Darcy is a truly modern story of modern people with all the problems of living in this century. Flights of fancy and a bit of paranormal hand-waving aside, it’s a romance in the same vein of Austen.

It’s witty, funny (hilariously so in some scenes), sad, poignant, and in some places too close to my heart. I can’t believe I read it so fast that I read it in a day, considering that I went back to reread the beginning once I realized what the author was doing. The time with Me and Mr. Darcy just flew by.

I’m a romantic at heart. It’s probably why I enjoy the Jane Austen books so much. The heroines are strong women (even for her time) and the close family and sibling relationships are ones that most of us in our far-flung living arrangements probably wish we had. I know that I often wish I had a Jane to talk to when I have problems in my life. But families are smaller now and no one (at least no one I know my age) stays put for life as they used to do.

But, in spite of how much the world has changed and how much has changed for women over the last hundred years or so — we want romance in our lives. There’s also a big difference between fairy tale romance, love, and hormones. Sometimes, we even find that what we thought we wanted is not what we really want. We want the dream but with caveats and addendums, riders, and codicils. We want a Mr. Darcy, but one who can live in this century and be a man of this time but with the honor and integrity of the ideal from the book. Jane Austen once wrote,

“There are such beings in the world — perhaps one in a thousand — as the creature you and I should think perfection; where grace and spirit are united to worth, where the manners are equal to the heart and understanding; but such a person may not come in your way, or, if he does, he may not be the eldest son of a man of fortune, the near relation of your particular friend, and belonging to your own county.” (Letter to Jane Austen’s niece Fanny Knight).

Maybe some of us will be lucky enough to find that man: but just as surely he’ll be missing some of these criteria and yet he may still be our perfect Mr. Darcy (with or without a wet shirt). So, if you’re also in love with the writings of Jane Austen and her very real characters, give Me and Mr. Darcy a try.

I usually start my day out reading Amazon Daily’s entries. Today there was one about Starbucks new drink the Vivanno — Banana Chocolate and you can have a shot of espresso added. The writer gave it good marks and it sounded interesting. Didn’t think much more about it, that is until we stopped for coffee on the way home from the doc’s.

There we were in Starbucks and feeling adventurous I order a Vivanno, the Banana Chocolate with a shot of espresso. So, here’s the good and the not so good.

Good: It contains a banana which is really good for you. There’s no gritty taste from the whey powder. It doesn’t give you brain freeze like the Frappaccino does. The texture is really nice on the tongue — I sort of imagine it would be like silk if you wanted to actually taste/lick silk but why would you ….

Not so good: There’s no taste. It has a hint of banana, even less of a hint of chocolate and I couldn’t taste the espresso at all. My husband, the coffee hater, took a sip and yucked about the coffee taste. But I really didn’t taste anything. It had less taste than cream of wheat (and I like cream of wheat). It was super bland. I expected it to be banana-chocolate and sort of hoped more chocolate than banana but it wasn’t either.

So, all in all nice temperature, nice texture, filling. But absolutely little to no taste to it as far as my taste buds could tell — perhaps they were out on a break but I finally gave up and threw out 1/3 of it because that stuff they give you before a lower G.I. series has much more flavor than this stuff (at least to me).

Notice all the caveats and IMHOs — I wanted to really like it. I’m disappointed and I won’t order it again. But on the other hand, I love their Iced Caramel Macchiato (this is my new summer favorite).

A young girl is left behind when her family takes a trip and, in her anger and hurt, she makes the kind of wishes for badness of one type or another to happen to them. Unfortunately, they are killed in an accident and Jin Ryu is convinced it is her fault.

She hears of the wizard K who can grant wishes. The price of one and only one wish granted it to have K take from you that which you value the most. However, he refuses to bring her family back from the dead — and she must either become his apprentice or be killed because she has seen him.

I mean with a choice like that, you know she’s going to be A-one apprentice material. There are several stories about people who come to K to have their wishes granted. Apprentice Jin Ryu, in each case, can not understand K’s apparent lack of concern for the people who come to him. She goes out of her way to try to help them. Misunderstanding occur and Jin Ryu and K are in a kind of ballet of learning, understanding, misunderstanding, like, and dislike.

The images illustrating the text are clean, sharp, large eyes, beautiful people in an androgynous sort of way. The women and girls are feminine but often so are the men. I often got confused by K and Jin Ryu when they were in the same panel (then once I realized K is prettier it was no problem — but, hey, that’s just me). What I did love about the presentation is that the dialogue and written descriptions were large enough to read without straining. Some manga have very small typefaces that make reading (even with glasses) difficult, but this one is a treat to read so you can bustle through with the pace of the story. This is also manga that’s presented in the form most American readers are familiar with from front to back and left to right (usually manga is back to front and right to left).

This is volume one of what I assume will be a continuing series of stories. I think what drew me in was the fact that K is aware that wishes have consequences and dangers. He takes what someone values most in exchange for granting a wish. Think about that for a moment. That’s horrific. Pure evil actually.

Think of all the times in a year that you wish for something. Not the times that you wish someone a good day or a Happy Birthday or a top of the morning, but those times you wish someone had never been born, or would get hit by a car, or whatever evil. We don’t really mean those wishes. In fact, they’re just a way to blow off steam when we’re angry and upset. But what if in that heat of the moment you could go to someone who could make it come true and all it would cost is the thing your value most.

Now on the flip side, someone you love is in pain, hurting, or ill. A simple wish could be the means to helping someone you love life a full and rich life. But how do you frame such a wish — do you really know what’s best for someone else? If they’re dying of cancer maybe wishing for a cure will fix the disease but will it truly make them happy or just give them more years of a life they don’t like — it truly depends on the person. But such a good wish also only costs you what you value most.

Remember, you can only have one wish granted in your lifetime. So, it has to be a good wish that will do the most for you or someone you love or someone you hate.

Now, what about the price. Do you know what you value most in life? I don’t know what I value most in my life. After reading I Wish…, I tried to think what it might be. If we’re completely honest with ourselves, I doubt anyone really knows what they value most. Someone might say they value their children most in life. But do they really value the children or the joy the children give them or even the power they have over them. Flip sides to everything. Nuances in feeling — hidden unconscious desires and beliefs. K doesn’t take as the price what you say you value most. No, he takes what you actually value most and he doesn’t even know what that is until he has it in his possession.

Wishes aren’t the simple things we think they are. They can be dangerous — especially if they are granted. I Wish… may seem like simple tales of people with problems and a wizard who can grant a wish, but like life, nothing is that simple.

Just saw The Incredible Hulk this afternoon.  I really enjoyed it.  It seems that the super hero movies are really getting much, much better since Marvel decided to maintain control over the process.  This is the Hulk — tortured by what he’s become, afraid to be around people, desperate to control the beast within, determined to rid himself of the beast, and hounded by a military that wants to control him/use him/replicate him.

If you’re a Hulk fan, this is the film to see.  Previous movies have skipped over the many of the factors that have made the Hulk so popular.  They’ve left out the pathos of being a person who can not control himself in certain situations.  Banner, after the laboratory experiment that turned him into the Hulk, has been trying to find a cure.  He’s built his life around finding a cure, keeping a low profiles and out of the sight of the government, and has been working on recognizing triggers that cause him to transform and controlling his emotions.  He’s not just the cardboard cutout character that so many other films have made him out to be.  There is depth and emotional underpinnings to this man.  His life has been turned upside down and he can not longer afford to be who he was–a scientist with a life that included friends, a girlfriend, social interactions, and a future.

This is not the basic origin story movie.  By the end of the credits the origin is over and we’re on to the story.  Bruce Banner has managed to keep his beast leashed for 158 days.  He’s learning techniques to control his emotional state and has a pulse reader that helps him keep track of his excitement or anxiety level.  He’s corresponding with someone over the internet and working on a cure or serum to help him control the transformation into the Hulk. However, the US government hasn’t given up looking for him and they manage to find him.   We’re off and running as he tries to escape, get the data he needs to help in finding a cure, and find another hiding place.

There’s lots of special effects. After all, who doesn’t love explosions, fights, and exciting battles on the big screen. All in all, the special effects while spectacular don’t drive the plot.  The people drive the plot and cue the audience into the players in this drama.  We learn from observation and interaction about the character and integrity of the other players in this story.

And for Hulk fans there’s a number of Easter Egg type moments.  Many of the armaments are by Stark Industries. Lou Ferrigno has a minor part as a guard and is also the voice of the Hulk. Ferrigno was the original Hulk in the TV series.  And so on and so on, I’m sure I missed a lot of other references.  There were a couple that I was told about by some of the people we went to see the film with but I don’t remember them now — if you know of others let me know. [Hyperion: They played the theme music from the TV show during one portion.  There are a couple of others, but to say them would be to spoil the moment in the movie.]

All in all, a good movie I’m glad I took the time to see on the big screen.  But as usual, I think $8 for a matinée is a bit steep.  I’d be much happier renting the DVD and viewing it at home for a lower cost.  However, the big screen and the theater experience does have a certain atmosphere that is nice to be part of occasionally.

Just watched Enchanted, a combination live action and animation film from Disney. Directed by Kevin Lima. Starring: Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden, Timothy Spall, and Rachel Covey — and others. Special Features: Bloopers, Deleted Scenes, a music video, three making of musical number features, Pop-up book of Pip’s Adventure, then a short bit that tells you if you got the BluRay Disc there would be some neat features you didn’t get on the regular disc (I think this was a cheap shot but that’s just me–but it did confirm my belief that I had spotted a lot of homages to past Disney fairy tale animation films.)

Enchanted is basically a mash up of Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella, with the main character named Giselle falling through the rabbit hole construct from fairy tale land to New York City — from a land of happily ever after to a place where no one cares and there is never a happily ever after. The reason for the fall through the interdimensional portal was that the Wicked Queen Narissa/Stepmother didn’t want to loose her crown and her power when her stepson, Price Edward, married. She’d managed to keep him busy for years and away from women so he’d never meet the girl of his dreams. But Giselle and Edward sang a duet and thus were fated to be lovers, married, and live happily ever after. Until the Queen (evil remember) decides to step in and fix things. In New York City, Giselle finds things very different but she’s plucky and lucky and manages to find a friend to help her. Edward, of course, is a hero and must save his beloved. So, much adventure, lots of wonderful musical numbers, miscellaneous misunderstandings, and then true love finds it way with a bit of a twist.

The animation in New York City is absolutely amazing. Top of the line and very realistic. The animation in fairy tale land, Andalasia is a wonderful homage to the original Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella animation of yesteryear. The acting is also top notch considering a lot of time it was responding to nothing at all. Amy Adams did a stunning performance playing Giselle as a innocent who has a totally different outlook on life. It reminded me a bit of the wolf in 10th Kingdom though with none of the innuendo and darkside of that rendition of fairly tale life.

This is definitely a film that the entire family can watch, including the younger children. The story is well told and the violence is the old Disney minor level that children should be able to deal with. The music is catchy and the musical numbers a lot of fun to watch, much like the old musicals I loved as a child: The Music Man, Mary Poppins, and so on… Don’t hesitate to have a family film night with this one.

As far as the Hugo award nomination goes…I don’t get it. The special effects are stunning, but the story doesn’t have the depth and layering that I’d expect a film nominated for a Hugo award should have. Is it a good film? Yes, it is. But it doesn’t have that extra textural/visual depth that I’ve come to expect in nominees, especially after last years slate of nominees (depressing as all get out but nonetheless outstanding films). And before anyone calls me on it — yes, I did nominate this year.

So, for some light entertainment and some good time to spend with family and popcorn at home, check out Enchanted. It is enchanting.