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BTT: Conditioning
2008 at 8am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
Today’s question: Are you a spine breaker? Or a dog-earer? Do you expect to keep your books in pristine condition even after you have read them? Does watching other readers bend the cover all the way round make you flinch or squeal in pain?
This is a very loaded question. Relationships have been destroyed over questions like this. My own relationship is a bit more complicated because of it…but I’ll get to that in a minute. (I’ve been planning to blog about this anyway, so I’ll take this opportunity to go just a little off topic.)
I am a spine breaker from way back. I want to be comfortable when I’m reading, and I’m going to hold and bend and fold the book however I need to to make that happen. When I leave for work in the morning, I toss my current book into my purse, where it gets jostled around all day, then I read during lunch (occasionally leaving crumbs or spills on the pages), toss it back into my purse, jostle it around some more while I run errands, and then drop it on the coffee table to be picked up again after dinner.
I don’t deliberately harm my books (just the thought makes me shudder), but they do look like they’ve been read when I’m done with them. I underline passages and write in margins and make notes on the blank pages at the very back. I’ve been known to draw diagrams of family trees or character relationships if the story is heavily populated, and this is the way I think God intended it.
My husband….well, that’s another story.
He thinks of his books as little trophies—evidence of his well-readness and reminders of his favorite pastime—and he absolutely, positively expects them to be in pristine condition after he has read them. No broken spines, no dog-eared pages (though I don’t do that anyway. I’m a bookmarker all the way.), and DEFINITELY NO WRITING.
Which makes things interesting if I want to read a book that he already has.
When I borrow one of hubby’s books, I have to hold my hands just so to keep from breaking the spine. I have to place it delicately into my purse in the morning and eat my lunch very carefully. I have to resist the urge to underline or write notes in the margin, a feat I achieve by keeping a notepad at my elbow while I read, and if I damage the book, you betcha I’m buying him a new one (this has only happened once). But that has its own set of complications because when the new book arrives, he can’t put the pristine one on the shelf and just let it be. No, he’ll know that he hasn’t actually read that copy, and he’ll feel compelled to read the book again.
Yes, I know my husband is weird. But he has many other wonderful qualities.
Where it gets really funny is when a new book comes out that we both want to read. If we’re going to share a copy, it will make him crazy to know that I read it first. So, we can either buy one copy that he’ll read and then pass on to me, or we buy two copies. If I recommend a book I’ve read to him and he wants to read it, he won’t read my copy (what with the notes and underlining and broken spine) but will instead buy his own to keep in perfect condition.
So what we end up with is a whole bunch of duplicates, his clean copies snuggled up against my well-loved ones. I suppose he would say the condition of his books is evidence that they are well-loved also, just in a different way, and I’d have to agree. The man does love his books.
And I love him, so I suppose I’ll keep him, weird book habits and all.
Now, off to the new Toni Morrison, which I will undoubted write all over. And I’ll love every minute of it.
Whose side are you on? Tell me all about it, and click on the icon above to read more Booking Through Thursday responses or leave your own.
Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
2008 at 1pm Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
This is my third book for the Book Awards Challenge.
Fifteen-year-old Christopher John Francis Boone is writing a real-life murder mystery book, but it’s not about a person. As the star detective, Christopher is investigating the murder of his neighbor’s dog Wellington, whom he found stuck through with a garden fork behind the neighbor’s house. Christopher’s investigation is thoughtful and methodical, and his story is written in chapters that are numbered not sequentially but by the prime numbers. Christopher knows all of the prime numbers up to 7,057. And, by the way, Christopher has autism.
Christopher narrates his story in a voice unlike any I’ve read in contemporary literature. He is sufficiently detached from his thoughts and emotions to examine them and think about them logically, and he understands that he is different.
I sometimes think of my mind as a machine…It makes it easier to explain to other people what is going on inside.
Just as other people have a hard time understanding Christopher, he often finds it difficult to understand them. He does not understand human emotions and is confused by figurative speech.
I find people confusing.
This is for two main reasons.
The first main reason is that people do a lot of talking without using many words…
…The second main reason is that people often talk using metaphors.
When things are not quite to his liking, Christopher becomes anxious and resorts to groaning and playing mental games with numbers to help him calm down. He does not relate to other people very comfortably, but he is very skilled in math, and his brain seems to be a sponge for facts and trivia. He tosses in interesting facts and trivia (and more than a couple complicated math problems) throughout the narrative, allowing us to better understand how his complicated brain works.
My memory is like a film. That is why I am really good at remembering things, like the conversations I have written down in this book, and what people were wearing, and what they smelled like, because my memory has a smelltrack which is like a soundtrack.
When Christopher’s investigation into Wellington’s untimely death reveals shocking information, he runs away from his small-town home and hops a train to London. The trip is bumpy and entertainingly eventful, though it is also uncomfortable in parts (for both Christopher and the reader), and it gives us yet another glimpse into Christopher’s mind and how it is that he functions in the world and makes sense of things the rest of us understand without even having to think about them.
The story of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is interesting and moving, but it is ultimately secondary to author Mark Haddon’s intelligent, inventive, utterly unique narrative technique. In Christopher’s stream-of-consciousness writing, Haddon gives a voice to autistic children and tells a story that is not only entertaining but insightful and informative. Before he became a writer, Haddon worked with children with autism, and that knowledge and experience is evident within the text and is a key feature of its intelligence and accessibility.
Through Christopher, Haddon does not just tell us about an autistic child’s brain works, he shows us. When Christopher lists of some of his “Behavioral Problems” and includes “saying things that other people think are rude,” he follows it up with a footnote that explains:
People say that you always have to tell the truth. But they do not mean this because you are not allowed to tell old people that they are old and you are not allowed to tell people if they smell funny or if a grown-up has made a fart. And you are not allowed to say “I don’t like you” unless that person has been horrible to you.
In the way that Christopher takes everything literally and approaches life with a mindset that is both incredibly concrete and remarkably abstract, we are able to see the world and social conventions through the eyes of an outsider, and we are invited to think about them in a new way. This is a tricky feat to pull off, and Haddon makes it look easy.
I have no idea why it took me so long to get around to reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I’ve been hearing wonderful things about it for years, and now I know why. This was a fantastic book, and its length and quick pace made it an ideal one sitting read. I’d recommend it to anyone who is interested in autism and education or who is just looking for a good read. 4.5 out of 5.
If you’ve read and enjoyed this book, you might also like Look Me in the Eye, John Robison’s memoir of growing up with Asperger’s.
We're "going dark!"
2008 at 10am Posted by Rebecca Schinsky
You may not know it, but we are approaching an important weekend. This Sunday, we’ll turn the clocks back, enjoy an extra hour of sleep, and officially acknowledge the transition into winter. I love it. And not just for the extra hour of sleep.
Back when we were in college, Bob and I began a tradition of getting up early on Fall Back Sunday (usually around 8, which really felt like 9, meaning it’s not really that early, but anyway), going out to breakfast, and then returning home to crawl back in bed for a few more hours of sleep and a day dedicated to laziness. We’d unplug the phones, tune out the world, and watch movies, read, play Scrabble, and enjoy the random offerings of Sunday afternoon TV. And we’d only get out of bed to make food (which we ate in bed) or go to the bathroom. It was glorious.
I looked forward to Fall Back Sunday for months in advance. No studying, no socializing, no wearing of real clothes (the rules of Sunday require PJs only, except when leaving the house for breakfast or a run to Blockbuster), and no worries.
This year, we’ve decided to expand our celebration into a full-blown Fall Back Weekend. It’s like going away for a weekend without all of the travel stress and extra expenses. After enjoying Halloween festivities with our nieces and nephew this Friday, we’ll make a few quick stops to stock up on snacks and videos, then we’ll head home to unplug the phones and let the relaxation begin. As I told one friend last week, we’re going dark. No communication with the outside world for 48 wonderful hours. Well, except for phone calls to order take-out and our Sunday morning breakfast outing. But still.
We’re going to watch the entire second season of 30 Rock and maybe a movie or two, settle in with a few books from our personal TBR piles, and do nothing that even remotely resembles work or requires any kind of effort. And we’ll only be talking to each other and the pooch. It’s a celebration of peace and quiet, weird couple rituals, and togetherness, and it’s a reminder about the importance of slowing down to remember why we like each other and what really matters.
We’ve agreed not to outlaw the internet because Sunday football (and fantasy football) are an important part of Bob’s weekend routine, and I look forward to The Sunday Salon and want to be able to write if I feel like it. So I’ll be around, and I’ll be writing posts about my awesome laziness in my jammies. If you decide to join the celebration and have a Fall Back Weekend of your own, tell me all about it.
What weird or silly rituals do you have with your significant other?
