The Trouble of Authenticity or Why I Prefer Young Adult Fiction

It is a beautiful Sunday in London. I awoke at 7:00am of my own accord, well-rested and refreshed. After a quick tidy of my lovely studio flat, I grabbed my new book and trotted out to Starbucks for breakfast and a good read in the sunshine. Now, I have set a certain limit for myself that I will always give a book at least seven chapters to redeem itself before I make any decisions about whether or not to discard it. The book I began this morning is Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James– it's all anyone has been talking about these days. I thought it would make for some lovely, light recreational reading.

 I'm on Chapter 4 and don't worry, there is no need for a spoiler alert, I have no intention of unveiling plot points although I do discuss some elements of the book, so if you don't want to know anything about it beforehand, stop reading here.

In my attempt to avoid a critical reading of this novel, I'm able to allow myself to suspend disbelief enough to overlook the poor writing, both in style and grammar, including endless and often over-repeated adjectives; this is a feat for which I will provide two examples of what I mean:

1. "Saturday at the store is a nightmare. We are besieged by do-it-yourselfers wanting to spruce up their homes. Mr. and Mrs. Clayton and John and Patrick– the two other part timers– and I are besieged by customers." p. 24

2. "Drinking in the cool evening air in the parking lot makes me realize how drunk I am." p. 59

I can even force myself to swallow the pop culture references that will render this book outdated fairly shortly. What I can't seem to get past, however, is that I simply do not believe the characters!

There is a reason for this: I live in London, England and am, therefore, somewhat familiar with the local idiom although I grew up in the Pacific North West. The novel is set between Vancouver, Portland, and Seattle WA, with a main character who is only a bit younger than myself. However, this character seems to have a penchant for speaking like a middle-aged British woman. She refers to a green cross-walk signal as 'the green man', she drinks Twinings English Breakfast tea (not with lemon and honey as one is often offered in the States), and her friend threatens to send 'search and rescue' out to find her if she doesn't report home. Also, for a girl who is supposed to have grown up in Montesano, WA, she has a shocking understanding of the climate of Washington State and her step-father, who is also supposed to be from Montesano is a regular man's man who drinks beer, doesn't talk much, is a carpenter, and likes European soccer!?!?

It's simply too implausible! That, coupled with the fact that the love story is articulated with the worst trappings of romance-fiction (she seems to have a conniption every time the man's name is mentioned) makes me sad.

Why is it that current adult fiction seems to be as inane as it is escapist? I am by no means suggesting that there are not beautiful books out there that I am not currently reading and, of course, there are always the classics; but this is the third book I've picked up in so many months by a British author that has made me consider Sex and the City to be epically poetic writing! I will give the book it's due seven chapters, but it's not looking good...which leads me to the second part of my Sherlock Holmes-esque title: why I prefer young adult fiction.

It's just better! When I'm looking for something fun to read, I usually go to the Young Adult section. These books are written simply, yes, but elegantly, keeping in mind that teenagers and adolescents have many options for their time and will not suffer nonsense (unless it's fun). For example, The Hunger Games series, not amazing writing but a fantastic story, captivating characters, a very enjoyable read. I even love a series aimed at slightly younger readers called The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart; it encourages creative thinking, adventure, friendship, and a value for the idiosyncrasies that makes each of us different and special. Notice I haven't yet mentioned the Harry Potter series or the work of Roald Dahl, CS Lewis, and the list goes on...

I recognize that not everyone is looking to be intellectually challenged while reading a beach-side novel, but a book should at the very least be absorbing, no? A book written by an adult for other adults should be written at an adult reading level, no? Am I expecting too much? Why are intellectual pursuits and relaxation diametrically opposed in our current society?

I've asked too many questions now. I will stop.

Let's be careful what we call a 'spade'!

It's been a while since my last post, I know. I began to feel that my blogging was heading into 'vent space' and that I should probably take some time to reconsider the direction I wanted this exercise to go in. However, the events of yesterday evening were such that I had to do something, anything, and so I write:

It all began while sitting in a lovely black cab with a dear friend. We were halted in traffic, waiting to get on to a busy bridge at rush hour. Another cab pulled up beside us and the driver leaned out to address ours: "Hey, I've got a great joke for you." Keep in mind, it's raining and we're in rush hour on a busy street so the driver has to strain to be heard. Our driver replies jovially, "is it about waiting to get onto Westminster bridge?" The other driver then tells the following 'joke':

"How do you get a spade out of a tree? Cut the rope!"

He then chuckles heartily and drives off. While our driver does not look amused, he doesn't look outraged either- outrage, the exact emotion building in my chest and egging on my heart rate. I pull out my phone to double check that I haven't misunderstood the meaning of 'spade', which is indeed a derogatory and extremely outdated slang term for black people. My friend appears not to have heard the deeply offensive joke and our driver is not acknowledging it so I keep quiet until we exit the cab. My friend and I have a frank discussion about how incredible it was and how it speaks to the way of the world blah, blah, blah...

We then go to the theatre to watch the play that was the purpose of our outing, a revival of She Stoops to Conquer at the National Theatre. The play had a wonderful (and colorblind I might add) cast who played their parts extremely well. It was a camp and lavish production that was highly enjoyable.

Within the span of half an hour, I was exposed to deeply ignorant racism as well as the increasing attempt in theatre to transcend reductive classifications, such as race, by foregrounding character/acting over appearances/convention.

What disturbs me though, and why you're reading about it, is that I didn't DO anything. I was there, I heard the joke, I felt the outrage, I had the distanced conversation, and was more aware of the appearance of the cast of a play based on these earlier experiences; but that cab driver drove away thinking that joke was funny!

I woke up this morning still upset by the blithe indifference of our cab driver, by the implication set forth by the 'joking cabbie' that we live in a world where people still hold such vicious and narrow minded opinions of others, and mostly that I could do nothing but be outraged!

So, here I am- inverting my helplessness. I am putting forward the above example, not in an attempt to rile anyone up or to send bad vibes to the offender from last night. I am, however, putting it forward to remind people that 'ignorance' when coupled with discrimination is not commensurate with naivety- although the cab driver may not have understood the impact of his actions, they were intended to be hurtful and at the expense of not only a group of people but, also, a deeply painful history. To put it mildly: It's not ok!

We are in the year 2012 people! Racism, Homophobia, Sexism...we're supposed to be evolving past these things!! Let us not regress, and more importantly, let's not become desensitized please.

In the end, I'm glad my internal reaction was outrage and not complacence.

Mourning the promises of my childhood...

I grew up in the late 80s-early 90s and, as most childhoods seem to be (if you're lucky), it was magical. I had muggy Toronto summers, sneezy Vancouver springs, mosquito bites, grass stains, fresh blueberries, snowmen, and halloween fun-houses. I lived in the back-story of Home Alone. My favourite saturday morning cartoon was Captain Planet, and this is where this blog begins.

Captain Planet, an entire cartoon dedicated to saving the planet and being environmentally friendly; then, Inspector Gadget, a cartoon about being resourceful; X-Men, a cartoon about using your abilities to the fullest...and then we move on to my musical idols: Michael Jackson, singing about 'making a change' and looking at the 'man in the mirror', Whitney Houston singing about being 'every woman'. It is here that I question: I grew up with optimism, visions for a healthy and whole future, where is that world? Where is that world full of empathy and compassion? What happened to us? When did 'The Lion King' stop making us cry? When did 'the circle of life' stop making sense?

Forgive me my deeply sentimental post today, but didn't we care about this stuff when we were too young to do anything, and now that we're old enough, why don't we care?

Mythological Creatures: The Griffin, the Dragon, the Man...

Perhaps the single greatest upset to coupledom for a woman is waking up one day not soon after the headiness of new love has worn off and realizing the 'man' she fell asleep next to is, in actuality, just a well aged boy.

Hollywood (and Gregory Peck) packaged the illusion of contained, confident, romantic men who were able to tap in to their vulnerability while remaining impervious to irritation from the heroine's many foibles. And so we, or at least I, grew up with the unconscious expectation that, one day, all these boys would magically get it together and become suave, well-read, steadfast, and 'only-for-me-soft' men.

Here's how you spot the myth: hands up if 'a man' in your mind is always (and perpetually) older than you are now? When you were a child, 25 years old was 'a man', and when you hit 25 it was 40...

Don't get me wrong, this entry is not meant to be an indictment of 'boys'. Merely a call to women to wake up and realize that we are full of moulds we're expecting someone to fit! Sometimes we hide these behind 'my ideal man' or 'things I find attractive'. Boys/men are as complicated and subject to the accumulation of their experiences and expectations as we are.

In fact, imagine their shock when not soon after the headiness of new love has worn off they wake up and realize that the girl they fell asleep next to is, in fact, a (gasp) woman!

**Now I could go on about why the gasp is there, but that's a whole other blog entry and I don't have the kind of steam in me right now to deal pejorative understandings of 'woman'. Maybe next time...

The Soup of Regret

I've been thinking a lot lately about the regret we all stew in: I couldn't have done this, I should have done that. We even engage in preemptive regret: if I don't do this now I won't be that, if I don't make certain choices I won't have my desired outcome. It can be a maddening and life consuming exercise. Ultimately, this line of thinking leads to an inability to experience the present without a constant, internal cost/benefit analysis-- yet we still do it!

I, personally, spend so much time in my own head that regret and I are like old drinking buddies: we get together each time hoping to connect and catch up but after a couple of rounds we wind up telling the same stories we always do just to stew in the familiar soup. And the radical alternative, the equally imbalanced other side of 'no regrets', carpe diem, 'live as if you'll die tomorrow', mentality is reciprocally alienating as one slowly realizes that it is an exhausting way to live long-term. Being constantly aware of one's own and others mortality can (and often does) hinder deep connection. Perhaps, like labour pain, mortality is something we cannot keep at the forefront of our conscious thought or we would not commit fully to life.

The constant pressure to be 'happy' and to make all major life decisions based on this rather tenuous premise is the underlying culprit. The myth of striving until we reach some sort of stasis 'happy', where all our choices will somehow coalesce into the right formula for coasting through the rest of our lives with only minor bumps, is an even more insidious fairytale then the happily-ever-after sold to us by Disney! Also, the vast influx of penny psychology (my own included) inundates us with cerebral and verbose analysis (and over analysis) of every choice, every partnership, every twinge of anything other than blissful happiness. There are many 'systems' for living a happier life that present us with buzz terms and numbered steps for a low effort high yield 'better life' solution. Although, arguably if there were a proven 'system' for happiness that didn't require a deep commitment to self reflection (i.e. hard work) and if 'happy' were a universal experience then such a system would work--but, alas, the human condition is complex. So, we are offered bandaid solutions--breathe, do yoga, chill out, focus on something greater than yourself-- and, while these are all useful and helpful practices, there is a schism between problem and solution where the process part has been completely removed.

I offer no penny solution here. Regret, like 'drive', currently serves in my wheelhouse of motivators. For example, I am compelled to push harder in my work to avoid regret, I value my current relationships more so as not to suffer having taken them for granted. Perhaps one day I will find a better use for that energy or will find myself enlightened enough to let regret retire from my team. But, for now, it is what it is.

Happy New Year and First Blog Post:

So, Happy New Year! I've never really been sure of the whole blogging thing, mostly because it seemed a bit of a self-indulgent pursuit to me to leave one's thoughts and ideas, scattered and unedited, all over the internet. But, as I've been reading the blogs of some of my friends, I see that it is much more than merely public diary and so I'm throwing my keyboard in the ring (there is always room at the table for some good cheese!).

I hope to use this space to write of many things (shoes, ships, ceiling wax...), to escape the confines of 'academic register', to pose questions and engage in dialogue.

I begin with a small conundrum:

We often put our best foot forward for our work, our bosses, our colleagues; we strive for our goals and are completely comfortable with the idea of working hard for our success. Yet, somehow, we feel that personal relationships should come easy, should be effortless; and when they don't work, instead of being proactive, we become defeated. Why is it that we can accept that our success is directly linked to how much work we put in and, at the same time, feel entitled to completely functional personal relationships- friendships, romantic partnerships, familial relationships- where effort is considered a turn-off?

For those of you who pass this way, I look forward to your comments and opinions. As a relative newcomer to the pursuit of blogging, I thank you for your patience and understanding.

With best wishes and mighty ambitions.