In Which We Discuss Thirtynothing

Lisa Jewell's second novel is probably my least favourite.

The storyline focuses on Dig and Nadine, two people who've been friends since secondary school, and who have just turned thirty(nothing). Despite everyone thinking they must be together, and despite having dated for the grand total of one day, they are emphatically not interested in each other.

You can see where this is going, right? So could I. From the very first page.

Then, the girl who broke Dig's heart, Delilah, shows up. Her disappearance was just as mysterious as her reappearance, so Dig tries to solve that mystery while falling for her over again. In the spirit of revenge/competition, Nadine calls her ex, Phil, and then shenanigans ensue.

I think I dislike this book because of it's predictability. The character's spend pages and pages obsessing over why they shouldn't do what we all know they will, and I find that very frustrating. Honestly, you want to just slap some sense into them.

This book doesn't involve as many people or links between them as Ralph's Party did, but it does delve deeply into the past, and how events there formed people's reactions today, a theme Jewell revisited in her later novels.

As I said, Thirtynothing is my least favourite of Jewell's novels, but it's still better than some by other authors.

In Which We Discuss Ralph's Party

So, I finally got started on my Lisa Jewell campaign.

I first read Ralph's Party several years ago. At the time, the drug use really bothered me. I think I was about fourteen, and I just wasn't used to a world in which drug use was so casual. I'm still not a huge fan of them, but now I barely bat an eyelid. It's not like Kilo where the entire point is drug use - it's just people who occasionally smoke weed. And, at one point, cocaine.

As well as being the first Lisa Jewell book I read, this is also the first one she wrote. It began as a bet, much like Frankenstein, or Ozymandias (although, of course, they were challenges between writers, and this was a bet so, as the story goes, Jewell didn't spend all her time on the dole being depressed).

Ralph's Party is about a large house in London, split into flats were five people live, with another moving in at the beginning. In the basement flat, Ralph and Smith are best friends with nothing in common, who are looking for a new flatmate. They get Jem, short and sparky, who believes the flat is her destiny.

In the middle flat live Siobhan and Karl, who have been together for years. They're quite happy, for a given measure of happiness.

Finally, on the top floor, there is Cheri, a blonde, beautiful ice queen.

I'm about halfway through my reread now, so that's all I'll say about this one at the minute. Here's the rest of the list, in order;

Ralph's Party (1999)
Thirtynothing (2000)
One Hit Wonder (2001)
A Friend of the Family (2004)
Vince and Joy (2005)
31 Dream Street (2007)
The Truth About Melody Browne (2009)

In Which We Discuss Chart Throb and Lilly Aphrodite

...okay, I'll get to the Lisa Jewell thing just as soon as I'm done reading all the library books I had reserved.

Chart Throb, by Ben Elton (who worked with Richard Curtis on Blackadder) is about reality TV shows, particularly those along the lines of Pop Idol. It describes a man who's come up with the very epitome of what made pop idol work, and done it so well that he's ousted Simon Cowell (presumably, this is so Simon Cowell doesn't sue). The story focuses on his quest to have a certain person win, based purely on clever editing, and, in doing so, exposes many of the tricks pop idol uses. It's definitely worth a read. One of the things it points out is the sheer impossibility of the judges actually seeing the seventy-five-thousand-plus people who usually show up for these things (up to ninety-five-thousand for the book). At ten minutes each, with ten hour days for the judges, it'd take around three years. It's well-written, absorbing, intriguing and hilarious.

Another book I read recently was Beatrice Colin's The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite. It's fiction written as if it might be fact, focusing on the career of a German silent film star, Lilly Aphrodite. What I found most interesting was the portrayal of everyday life in Berlin throughout World War I and before World War II. It's something I've thought about but not really seen before. Turns out, it wasn't so different from here, except for the fact that they lost.

In Which We Discuss Lisa Jewell

I've settled on a new project for myself and this blog. In short, to read the complete works of an author, in chronological order, reviewing each one, to see how he or she has changed over time.

My favourite authors are Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman, and Sheri Tepper, but each of those has a bibliography as long as my arm. Instead, I'm going with Lisa Jewell. Her bibliography, in chronological order, is as follows;

* Ralph's Party (1999)
* Thirtynothing (2000)
* One Hit Wonder (2001)
* A Friend of the Family (2004)
* Vince and Joy (2005)
* 31 Dream Street (2007)
* Roommates Wanted (2008)- alternative title for 31 Dream Street
* The Truth About Melody Browne (2009)

Of those, I've read six; the first six, actually.
Thirtynothing I find to be sickeningly sweet, while One Hit Wonder and A Friend of the Family are two of my favourite novels.

So, I'll be starting with this just as soon as I'm done reading my current library books and Tepper's Arbai trilogy. That'll give me time to get used to typing on this new notebook.

In Which We Discuss the Problems with Not Proof-Reading

I like the book (and the film) of The Devil Wears Prada. They're both fun and interesting. But the book has two major mistakes and every time I get to them, I just want to go find Lauren Weisberger - or, possibly, her editor - and ask them how they could possibly miss something so obvious.

Firstly, the following;

I had Googled her and was surprised to find that Miranda Priestly was born Miranda Princhek in London's East End. Hers was like all the other orthodox Jewish families in the town, stunningly poor but devout. Her father occasionally worked odd jobs, but mostly they relied on the community for support, since he spent most of his days studying Jewish texts. Her mother had died in childbirth with Miriam and it was her mother who'd moved in and helped raise the children. And were there children! Eleven in all. Most of her brothers and sisters went on to work blue-collar jobs like their father, with little time to do anything but pray and work; a couple managed to get themselves into and through the university, only to marry young and begin having large families of their own. Miriam was the single exception to the family tradition.

After saving the small bills her older siblings would slip her whenever they were able, Miriam promptly dropped out of high school upon turning seventeen - a mere three months shy of graduation - to take a job as an assistant to an up-and-coming British designer, helping him put together his shows each season.

Firstly, there aren't that many Orthodox Jewish families in London, and it's highly doubtful that any of them would survive by donations, let alone have eleven children.

Miriam did not save bills. We have pounds and pound notes. She would have saved notes, or coins. Not bills.

Miriam did not drop out of high school. She would never have attended high school, since we don't have those in the UK. And even if Andy was just translating it into American, and meant 'secondary school' then Miriam would have left at sixteen. And she wasn't three months shy of graduation whenever she left, because we don't graduate (except from university, around the age of 23).

Oh, and London isn't a town.

Goddamit, do some fucking research.

The second mistake is minor compared to this one. A character says something to Andy at the start of a chapter, Andy goes into an inner monologue, and then, when she comes out of it, finds out that the person in question has been in a coma, and couldn't possibly have been around to say whatever it was, that Andy doesn't acknowledge anyway.

In Which We Discuss the Hindi-Bindi Club and Racial Identity

My father is Indian, my mother is a mixture of English, Irish and Welsh. Since my parents cannot stand each other, this causes problems. My mother spent many years insisting that I was British, pure British, which was a bit pathetic, since people would spend five minutes looking at me, and then ask "What are you?".

I'm not purely British. But, because my father is second generation and a lazy alcoholic to boot, I'm not really Indian. He's my main link to the culture, and he barely knows anything about it himself. My grandparents see me as one of his problems, not their grandchild (it probably doesn't help that my name is Kali).

In short, although my face loudly proclaims that I'm not white (for lack of a better term), I feel like a fraud pretending to be Indian.

I do read a lot of books by Indian and South-Asian authors. Very few seem applicable to me. Most South-Asian people on TV, in films, or in the media in general, are Pakistani Muslims. Indians tend to be from the Punjab, or the bigger cities like Mumbai or Kolkata. The mixed race characters tend to live with both of their parents, rather than be entirely cut off like I am. The few times I've visited my aunts or cousins in the last few years (less than five times in the last nine years), they've insisted on treating me like a baby and giving me badly cooked English food. They don't see me as one of them. But I'm not white either.

The Hindi-Bindi Club is about first and second generation Indian immigrants in America. One of them is mixed, but, as observed above, she lives with both parents. The three daughters refer to their mothers as the Hindi-Bindi club - because they speak in Hindi and wear bindi (bindi being the 'red dots').

A little note about Hindi. Although true Hindi is the main language of India, each region has its own dialect (and these differ from each other far more than most people would expect). For instance, most people have heard of chapattis. My family, who are from gujerat, call them rhotli.

Anyway, the book reminds me of Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club. Both books focus on first and second generations (Amy Tan's are from China), and how the mothers and daughters view each other and their culture, in short. The Joy Luck Club focused on the growing bridge and lack of knowledge between mothers and daughters, while The Hindi-Bindi Club focuses more on the different values held by mothers and daughters. It's also mentioned that, in Indian culture, love is shown via food. By the offer or refusal to make someone's favourite dish, for instance. Between every chapter, there are recipes. Most of them I don't really recognise. I've never eaten Indian food, except that cooked by my dadima, and she always gave my sister and I the most basic stuff. Since she didn't (and still doesn't) speak English, we never did find out what was in any of it. But I think I could make a passable rhotli, since the recipe given for chapatis is similar enough to what I've seen my dadima do. And we do have an anglicised potato and chicken curry. My dadima taught my mother how to make it, and she passed the recipe onto my grandmother. We've now successfully bastardised it, by adding more potatoes and leeching out spices.

Another issue that The Hindi-Bindi Club brought up for me was the importance of sons to Hindu families. I knew that they were important, since many of my father's issues stem from his having two daughters, but I never knew why. Now I do.

It seems that, for Hindus, only sons can perform the necessary death rites. In other words, my father won't make it to the Hindu version of heaven....because of my genitals. Considering that someone once thought it perfectly acceptable to call me a mutt, and I've been criticised for using the term "mixed race" to refer to myself (by someone who isn't actually mixed), I am now more thoroughly mixed then I usually am.

It was a good book though. I like Cowboy John best. I particularly liked the way one character described him as an American who had become Indian, much as their daughters were Indians who had become American.

In Which We Discuss Mary-Sue

Mary-Sue is a slang term used in fan-fiction and role-plays. It's when the writer, usually female, writes a version of herself into the story. Only, this self is incredibly beautiful, intelligent, good at everything, and a main character.

Every teenage girl (and possibly, boy) goes through that stage. I did, but fortunately, I was over it before I knew about the internet. It's great fun for the author, but quite annoying to everyone else, who does not identify with this fantastic, fantasy character.

I've said, in a previous post, that Harry Potter, Twilight, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer seem, to me, very Sue-ish. They are so successful because every teenager (and many adults) who read the books want to be the main character. They identify with them, and so, support them. And, as with any Mary-Sue, to anyone who does not identify with the main character, this habit is extremely annoying.

However, one adult book did manage to carry this off - Marianne Stilling's Damsel in this Dress. In many ways, it's an adult Mary-Sue, but, instead of being annoying, it succeeds in being hilarious. I don't know how she's done it, but it manages to be funny, reminiscent of my own mildly embarassing teenage fantasies, and highly enjoyable. Well done.