lady_schrapnell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lady_schrapnell) wrote2007-01-26 11:17 am
lady_schrapnell) wrote2007-01-26 11:17 am
Will eventually get around to Books
*Not some new group only I've heard of because I'm cooler than cool - I mean this literally.
So, there was a bit of flocked cursing about the news concerning MA I got immediately after submitting the Dread Essay (if you didn't read it, don't worry, you missed nothing), but I was coping - indeed, I was valiantly coping with stiff upper lip and all (but not coping well enough to avoid cliche - see here for MotherReader Fun with Cliché, 'cause you won't get fun here just now!) and then
Tuesday I arrived home about 12:30 to find OD had fallen down the stairs in my absence, badly hurting her wrist. Asked if she'd put ice on it, she said 'There's no ice in this House of Hell', or words to that effect, which caused me to mutter a bit as I got her the ice-pack (mostly bought because she was always spraining her ankle) from the freezer. A bit late for it though, but she lay on the sofa with it elevated and icing and talked about injuries of the past (hers), and the stupidity of web-advice like 'In severe cases, the bone may be sticking up at an unusual angle' (like anyone needs to go check the web to see if that just might possibly be a broken bone at that point), and how much we both wanted to avoid going to A&E if possible...
So, a few hours later, we were on the way to Dun Laoghaire and the A&E, with her wrist at least now in a fetching sling, courtesy of the pharmacist at our local. (Okay, there are three chemists in the village, but ours is the essence of all I love about living here. Okay, okay, not all of it, but they're great.) Two and a half hours later, we're finally on our way home, with her arm splinted - not obviously broken, but the doctors* wanted the radiologist to check the x-rays as there might have been a chip which might dislodge, so we'd be phoned in the morning. Next morning I phoned, to be told that it would be the afternoon before the radiologists' reports came down. At 4:45, the third call got me a 'Hopefully by this time tomorrow we'll have the reports down', which I wasn't taking - supposedly being in Bristol by that time tomorrow, if the wrist was unbroken and all was well. Doctor* spoken to another two phone calls, and was told the radiologist had said it was fine. Daughter took splint off (revealing wildly impressive bruise) and all was happy, except that she didn't feel very well. Another couple of hours and she was throwing up - a record number of times for her life too. She had asked me if I'd heard the question from the next curtained area: 'So, how long have you been vomiting blood?', but the answer being a week kind of meant not contagious any more, I'd hoped.
[ETA the * - meant to say that her not-considerable pain was considerably lessened by said Doctor's being young, hot (her description) and having an accent exactly like the hot (her and Younger Daughter's description) Australian doctor on House.]
It's just not rocket science - vomiting bug going around - long wait in small, wildly overheated waiting room with tightly-shut-door - people there for x-rays mixed with the flu-of-all-sorts ones => asking for trouble. No idea why she got it and I didn't (YET - I'm not jinxing anything else) - oh, unless it was the tongue-ring-touching incident! (Uh, not my tongue-ring.)
Anyway, the poor thing is much better - it was furious but fairly short-lived, and I'm trying to live by my new mantra of 'Any day without throwing up is a good day'.
And you all were probably spared the Further Rants of the Crazed Lady S about I, Coriander, which I'd undoubtedly have indulged in before heading to Bristol ... [feels hands begin to twitch] No rants! But [falls off wagon] - I spent at least 15 hours researching the historical background, so every time I was saying something about the slanted presentation of the history I had a reputable reference and could show that it was not merely one-sided, but misleading. It's misleading. Or downright inaccurate.
Last thing: any book which has a 17 year old girl who's just rescued her love and wants to be with him but feels she has to go back because she hears her '[dead] mother's sweet voice calling and knew then that I must return and find my father. I must for her sake put away all childish thoughts. I must for her become a young woman and accept my lot in life.' is a book which needs some serious critiquing. (Quite aside from its high queasiness-factor.) Just for the record - if I'm dead and manage to give my daughters advice from Beyond, I will most certainly not be telling them to give up their lives in order to find out what's happened to their father. I might well say 'This or that can't be changed - find a way to deal with as best you can.' but then I suppose that wouldn't earn the sweet voice award anyway!
Now, the new book chatter. Finally. Just finished Bali Rai's (un)arranged
marriage. Bearing in mind the fact that I'm exhausted, stressed, feel boring, unaccomplished and self-pitying, you might think twice about reading what I have to say - about it, but also about the issues of identity, racial integration (or otherwise), etc., etc.,
First the good: cover's great, isn't it? No, more than that - I love books about kids of mixed or transplanted cultural identity. Call it sad exotic-craving if you will, or ability to identify (except I'm only American (WASPey American at that) and Irish hybrid), but whatever it is, I love reading about immigrant families' experience. Born Confused (fell apart a bit at the end - wonderful anyway) being a great example. And Bend It Like Beckham - a movie reference works here too! (One of the first DVDs I bought after discovering the joys of extras not available on rental. Highly recommend the extras! ) And this is very vivid of its experience of being a boy whose family consider him Punjabi, while he considers himself more British of Punjabi background. (Yeah, again with the exhaustion. I should try again after a nap, but...)
The book starts with Manny, aged 17, on his way to his arranged marriage, but determined to escape it. With that opening, don't feel I have to worry too much about spoilers, as it's unlikely that the story will finish with his accepting his lot in life and going along with the marriage. He starts with the time 4 years before, when the realisation really hit that his 'old man' would be arranging his marriage, as he had of Manny's two older sisters and two older brothers.
But here's the thing - his family is so unremittingly, unredeemably awful that I spent a lot of the book cringing on behalf of Punjabi British people. His dad is an alcoholic, an ignorant, violent racist, who hates not only blacks but also goreh ('whites'), and is even very disdainful about Hindus, despite being (repeatedly) seen by Manny as being completely hypocritical about his own purported Sikhism. And at the end of the book, Manny (2 years older) does reflect a bit about how his family (we're talking very, very extended family here, so not just the 5 or 6 it might mean) and all their respective friends distort Sikhism : 'The problem is that people like my old man tie in all these old traditions to the religion - arranged marriages, all that racist shit, the caste system stuff, things which are nothing to do with religion and more to do with culture and politics and social norms.' Fair enough, and not unique to this culture or religion, but not riveting prose style.
The other thing is that Manny himself just isn't very easy to like. Not that it's difficult to feel for a kid who actually wants to make some kind of choice about how he lives and is beaten, emotionally blackmailed (the extent of his mother's relationship with him is to threaten repeatedly to kill herself if he shames them by not getting married as expected) and essentially abandoned in India (with family - and this isn't spoiler, despite Manny's extraordinary dimness in not seeing it coming). And the family don't even want him to do well in school! Jeeze. But, still couldn't warm to him. And couldn't quite buy the relatively painless move from the desperation and anger which caused him to behave in a way he knew would make his family reject him completely to two years on, and knowing 'deep down inside' that they'll never forgive him and accept him back in any way, and only regretting the way in which he did 'the cheat', which 'disrespected' the bride's family and the Sikh temple. Weeeell, maybe.
It was interesting to read about a forced arranged marriage from the boy's point of view, as it usually seems to be the girl's one (as is mentioned in the book). But the dialogue... Ugh. Manny hates his brothers' ignorant way of talking - 'every sentence ends in "innit"', but his own narration, and especially talks with his best friend Ady, who's black, give things like this: (Can't indent here - not my fault!)
'So what did you and her get up to, then?'.. Go on Ady, man, tell me what happened.' I realized that I was begging for the information and felt stupid. 'Don't tell me then. Probably nothing anyway.'
'Nah, Man!' My trick had worked quick time. Ady was on the defensive. 'We did nuff tings, man. Nuff!' I just laughed at him as he tried to convince me that they had had sex.
'I'm tellin' you, Manny, it were wicked. We did it an' everything, man.'
'I don't believe you, ady. You're just like a politician. Too lie.' I was speaking in my pretend black accent and I knew it was winding Ady right up.
'Nuh bother talk like fool, bwoi', he replied, mimicking my mimic, 'me know seh yuh tink you is black.'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you really did it with her.'
'All right, all right, man. Me never really score the goal.'
'See? Yuh too lie, man.'
Ady grinned a wide grin at me. 'Me done hit the woodwork though!'
Authentic maybe, but not very entrancing reading.
On second thoughts, while this brain-dead, I'm not going to say anything witlessly about people coming to other countries to live and have children (obviously not refugees) while completely rejecting all the values (and indeed the laws) of that country. Would probably get myself in trouble. But it is an interesting question, and one I've experienced in much lesser form first-hand. For another day's ramble...
I feel like watching Bend It Like Beckham now ...
So, there was a bit of flocked cursing about the news concerning MA I got immediately after submitting the Dread Essay (if you didn't read it, don't worry, you missed nothing), but I was coping - indeed, I was valiantly coping with stiff upper lip and all (but not coping well enough to avoid cliche - see here for MotherReader Fun with Cliché, 'cause you won't get fun here just now!) and then
Tuesday I arrived home about 12:30 to find OD had fallen down the stairs in my absence, badly hurting her wrist. Asked if she'd put ice on it, she said 'There's no ice in this House of Hell', or words to that effect, which caused me to mutter a bit as I got her the ice-pack (mostly bought because she was always spraining her ankle) from the freezer. A bit late for it though, but she lay on the sofa with it elevated and icing and talked about injuries of the past (hers), and the stupidity of web-advice like 'In severe cases, the bone may be sticking up at an unusual angle' (like anyone needs to go check the web to see if that just might possibly be a broken bone at that point), and how much we both wanted to avoid going to A&E if possible...
So, a few hours later, we were on the way to Dun Laoghaire and the A&E, with her wrist at least now in a fetching sling, courtesy of the pharmacist at our local. (Okay, there are three chemists in the village, but ours is the essence of all I love about living here. Okay, okay, not all of it, but they're great.) Two and a half hours later, we're finally on our way home, with her arm splinted - not obviously broken, but the doctors* wanted the radiologist to check the x-rays as there might have been a chip which might dislodge, so we'd be phoned in the morning. Next morning I phoned, to be told that it would be the afternoon before the radiologists' reports came down. At 4:45, the third call got me a 'Hopefully by this time tomorrow we'll have the reports down', which I wasn't taking - supposedly being in Bristol by that time tomorrow, if the wrist was unbroken and all was well. Doctor* spoken to another two phone calls, and was told the radiologist had said it was fine. Daughter took splint off (revealing wildly impressive bruise) and all was happy, except that she didn't feel very well. Another couple of hours and she was throwing up - a record number of times for her life too. She had asked me if I'd heard the question from the next curtained area: 'So, how long have you been vomiting blood?', but the answer being a week kind of meant not contagious any more, I'd hoped.
[ETA the * - meant to say that her not-considerable pain was considerably lessened by said Doctor's being young, hot (her description) and having an accent exactly like the hot (her and Younger Daughter's description) Australian doctor on House.]
It's just not rocket science - vomiting bug going around - long wait in small, wildly overheated waiting room with tightly-shut-door - people there for x-rays mixed with the flu-of-all-sorts ones => asking for trouble. No idea why she got it and I didn't (YET - I'm not jinxing anything else) - oh, unless it was the tongue-ring-touching incident! (Uh, not my tongue-ring.)
Anyway, the poor thing is much better - it was furious but fairly short-lived, and I'm trying to live by my new mantra of 'Any day without throwing up is a good day'.
And you all were probably spared the Further Rants of the Crazed Lady S about I, Coriander, which I'd undoubtedly have indulged in before heading to Bristol ... [feels hands begin to twitch] No rants! But [falls off wagon] - I spent at least 15 hours researching the historical background, so every time I was saying something about the slanted presentation of the history I had a reputable reference and could show that it was not merely one-sided, but misleading. It's misleading. Or downright inaccurate.
Last thing: any book which has a 17 year old girl who's just rescued her love and wants to be with him but feels she has to go back because she hears her '[dead] mother's sweet voice calling and knew then that I must return and find my father. I must for her sake put away all childish thoughts. I must for her become a young woman and accept my lot in life.' is a book which needs some serious critiquing. (Quite aside from its high queasiness-factor.) Just for the record - if I'm dead and manage to give my daughters advice from Beyond, I will most certainly not be telling them to give up their lives in order to find out what's happened to their father. I might well say 'This or that can't be changed - find a way to deal with as best you can.' but then I suppose that wouldn't earn the sweet voice award anyway!
Now, the new book chatter. Finally. Just finished Bali Rai's (un)arranged
marriage. Bearing in mind the fact that I'm exhausted, stressed, feel boring, unaccomplished and self-pitying, you might think twice about reading what I have to say - about it, but also about the issues of identity, racial integration (or otherwise), etc., etc., First the good: cover's great, isn't it? No, more than that - I love books about kids of mixed or transplanted cultural identity. Call it sad exotic-craving if you will, or ability to identify (except I'm only American (WASPey American at that) and Irish hybrid), but whatever it is, I love reading about immigrant families' experience. Born Confused (fell apart a bit at the end - wonderful anyway) being a great example. And Bend It Like Beckham - a movie reference works here too! (One of the first DVDs I bought after discovering the joys of extras not available on rental. Highly recommend the extras! ) And this is very vivid of its experience of being a boy whose family consider him Punjabi, while he considers himself more British of Punjabi background. (Yeah, again with the exhaustion. I should try again after a nap, but...)
The book starts with Manny, aged 17, on his way to his arranged marriage, but determined to escape it. With that opening, don't feel I have to worry too much about spoilers, as it's unlikely that the story will finish with his accepting his lot in life and going along with the marriage. He starts with the time 4 years before, when the realisation really hit that his 'old man' would be arranging his marriage, as he had of Manny's two older sisters and two older brothers.
But here's the thing - his family is so unremittingly, unredeemably awful that I spent a lot of the book cringing on behalf of Punjabi British people. His dad is an alcoholic, an ignorant, violent racist, who hates not only blacks but also goreh ('whites'), and is even very disdainful about Hindus, despite being (repeatedly) seen by Manny as being completely hypocritical about his own purported Sikhism. And at the end of the book, Manny (2 years older) does reflect a bit about how his family (we're talking very, very extended family here, so not just the 5 or 6 it might mean) and all their respective friends distort Sikhism : 'The problem is that people like my old man tie in all these old traditions to the religion - arranged marriages, all that racist shit, the caste system stuff, things which are nothing to do with religion and more to do with culture and politics and social norms.' Fair enough, and not unique to this culture or religion, but not riveting prose style.
The other thing is that Manny himself just isn't very easy to like. Not that it's difficult to feel for a kid who actually wants to make some kind of choice about how he lives and is beaten, emotionally blackmailed (the extent of his mother's relationship with him is to threaten repeatedly to kill herself if he shames them by not getting married as expected) and essentially abandoned in India (with family - and this isn't spoiler, despite Manny's extraordinary dimness in not seeing it coming). And the family don't even want him to do well in school! Jeeze. But, still couldn't warm to him. And couldn't quite buy the relatively painless move from the desperation and anger which caused him to behave in a way he knew would make his family reject him completely to two years on, and knowing 'deep down inside' that they'll never forgive him and accept him back in any way, and only regretting the way in which he did 'the cheat', which 'disrespected' the bride's family and the Sikh temple. Weeeell, maybe.
It was interesting to read about a forced arranged marriage from the boy's point of view, as it usually seems to be the girl's one (as is mentioned in the book). But the dialogue... Ugh. Manny hates his brothers' ignorant way of talking - 'every sentence ends in "innit"', but his own narration, and especially talks with his best friend Ady, who's black, give things like this: (Can't indent here - not my fault!)
'So what did you and her get up to, then?'.. Go on Ady, man, tell me what happened.' I realized that I was begging for the information and felt stupid. 'Don't tell me then. Probably nothing anyway.'
'Nah, Man!' My trick had worked quick time. Ady was on the defensive. 'We did nuff tings, man. Nuff!' I just laughed at him as he tried to convince me that they had had sex.
'I'm tellin' you, Manny, it were wicked. We did it an' everything, man.'
'I don't believe you, ady. You're just like a politician. Too lie.' I was speaking in my pretend black accent and I knew it was winding Ady right up.
'Nuh bother talk like fool, bwoi', he replied, mimicking my mimic, 'me know seh yuh tink you is black.'
'Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you really did it with her.'
'All right, all right, man. Me never really score the goal.'
'See? Yuh too lie, man.'
Ady grinned a wide grin at me. 'Me done hit the woodwork though!'
Authentic maybe, but not very entrancing reading.
On second thoughts, while this brain-dead, I'm not going to say anything witlessly about people coming to other countries to live and have children (obviously not refugees) while completely rejecting all the values (and indeed the laws) of that country. Would probably get myself in trouble. But it is an interesting question, and one I've experienced in much lesser form first-hand. For another day's ramble...
I feel like watching Bend It Like Beckham now ...
no subject
The refugee/second generation thing interests me partly because of how I see it changing around me. When I was a kid, second generation kids were told on all sides to jump into the "big american melting pot" because the melting pot was a good thing and they had to throw off the old world stuff and Be American! speak like everyone else, eat hot dogs, play base ball, blah blah.
Now I notice that almost all our second generation kids do not speak English at home whatsoever--there is a strong drive to keep the family culture as much as possible. One girl wrote wistfully in response to one of my book report questions (in which I ask them to enumerate the differences between the fantasy or sf world of the book of their choice and ours, and tell me which one they'd prefer to live in and why) that in this world her life is the same every day: school, homework, Vietnamese School, homework, school, homework, Vietnamese school, homework. She'd love to escape to Narnia and live with the talking beasts.
In fact, yesterday, one girl brought her Japanese calligraphy set to compare it to another girl's Chinese calligraphy set. The sets are fascinating, little cultural clue-boxes, the girls chattered about how tiresome Japanese/Chinese school is on top of regular school, and I thought of the kids who go to French school Saturday mornings, the Arabic school kids in the evenings, and thought about change.
no subject
That's interesting about the differences you're seeing in the schools. I was just talking to C. about the bit I wrote up and then cut again to the above, about my ex-in-laws. They (second generation) were sort of somewhere between the two extremes you have mentioned: all spoke Spanish to their kids and among themselves part of the time, but English as well. (I know my ex's parents never made the kids reply in Spanish, so it was pretty much a question of learning themselves if they wanted to speak properly - pretty sure that was true of the cousins too). Felt (and said - around me sometimes) that 'their culture' was better than American but wouldn't dream of wanting to live in Mexico. And I guess that's where it starts to get a bit sticky, or at least it seemed to me to be so - what exactly, defined that culture which was supposed to be better than that around them - as if you could boil 'American culture' down to one thing anyway! I think back in the days we could talk about it, the ex said it was the importance of family and all, but -- Well. I could write many paragraphs on the importance of family and what that means, and some of them would be about that particular family (not good) and some of them would include names like Bush, and some parties like Republican and Tory/Conservative ones, and it would just waste a lot of keyboarding!
And then you had the Irish-Americans who were sending money to 'help the families of Republicans (the other kind now) imprisoned or killed' without having a clue how things had changed there or what that money was really doing...
Yeah, I'm just a confused mongrel. But at least I've had the opportunity to live in the two countries making up my background, which is nice. And seem to be getting a sort of time-share option in England, for the ones who went to the States from Britain!
no subject
Anyway, I think you put your finger on it: the tension between family ties, one what perceives as "due" to "family" and "home"--and just how one defines home. For so many, it's an idealized state that excludes the reasons one left it, or one's parents left it, for others, home is family, period. For X, it's material, for Y it's an idea.
no subject
no subject
:) To the peas - we didn't have any in the freezer after the last massive freeze-over/defrost... but we did have a soft ice-pack specifically for sprains and all. Had she put it on from the beginning, the whole A&E thing might have been avoided. Sigh.