Things You Think When You Can't Sleep

Have you had the experience of being absorbed in a story, and everything seems to be going wrong, events winding quickly to a sad conclusion, and then you realize that there are a hundred pages or more in your right hand, still to be read? The story can't possibly end where it seems it will, and you are relieved to have the reassurance and a bit irked to be pulled out of the story and unable to just experience the tension and uncertainty in the plot.

Well, I would really love to have that feeling about my own story right now. I can accept that this is what my life looks like now. I can bear the losses and the struggle and the sometimes wretchedness, but I can't bear to think that this is the story on the last few pages. I need a few hundred more. It would be so much easier to breathe if I could know that.

On Fear and Vampires

So, I didn't spend my birthday in the hospital. It was actually kind of celebratory and nice, in a low key way, thanks to my sister, who really brought the festivities (and the birthday dinner) to the table single-handedly. Everything was ok.

Everything is ok now, too. Probably. But my counts are just staying weirdly low. Lower than they've been in months. I keep telling myself that chemo is just endlessly strange. And that if I were heading into a relapse the doctors would catch it in my labs (which are weekly again.) But..I don't feel confident. Even the fact that they're having me come in weekly again seems like a reason to worry rather than an encouragement to leave the worrying to the professionals.

The goal is: hold it together, breathe, and remember that there's no point in worrying about something like that before it happens. You can't change it. The worry is a waste of valuable resources. Oh, I hate being scared. But I'm not having much luck at reasoning it away.

An interesting side-effect of fearfulness turns out to be reading ridiculous fluff. Seriously, I ended up reading The Vampire Academy the other day. I'm always up for escapism, but swerving all the way into tween vampire trendiness seems like overdoing. Here's the thing though, it can be a real challenge to find reading material that doesn't have a cancer ambush in the plot. The Actor and the Housewife: cancer ambush, The Friday Night Knitting Club: cancer ambush.
It seems like the go-to way to give your story weight, give your protagonist tragic baggage, or even trim your cast of characters. And so I read Vampire Academy, where there may be a blood disease of sorts, but nobody's holding a mirror up and reminding me of my own worries.

I guess I would probably be safe with the classics of Literature, but honestly, I think the situation calls for a little something frivolous. Also honestly, I don't think I have the mental focus that would require.

Someone point me to a book list guaranteed to be cancer free. Surely one exists.

I'm fighting the urge to make some horrible joke playing off of blood counts and vampires. People don't know to be grateful when you successfully restrain yourself from inflicting that kind of thing. There's no reward in it.

Two Years

This time two years ago I was sitting in a hospital bed. I'd been having weird health problems, inexplicable debilitating pain in my hips, exhaustion, and a low grade fever that just lingered and lingered. I went to the doctor, and then went for blood tests, and then got a call from the hospital where the labs were done, as I was driving home, saying I needed to come back right away, and to check in through the emergency room.

The doctor I saw there painstakingly avoided saying anything about cancer, but somehow, I picked it up from the way he was talking, or something. I was admitted, had a bone marrow biopsy, and was diagnosed w/ acute leukemia and transferred to a different hospital with the right specialists. And I had another bone marrow biopsy, done badly, which as torturous. They shouldn't hurt that way, but didn't know enough to protect myself. And so I sat in a hospital bed by myself, and tried to adjust to the idea that I would be receiving massive doses of a variety of chemotherapy drugs, continuously, for the next three years of my life.

I was just about to turn 25, and had all kinds of plans for the next few years. Instead, well, I have made it two years, and that feels like a pretty solid achievement sometimes. I am so tired, and so sad about the part of my life that I lost. And so scared, sometimes, that I think I could drown in it. My counts have been dropping for weeks, so now I'm back in that severely compromised state where I'm not supposed to do anything or go anywhere for fear of catching a fatal cold.

But hey, with any luck, I won't spend this birthday in the hospital, and that's something. No really, that's definitely something. And I'm counting down to finishing this chemo protocol in months now.

Pegasus, by Robin McKinley

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I received an advance copy of Robin McKinley's new book, Pegasus. I've been reading slowly, trying to stretch the story. I already know the end is a cliff-hanger, and that the conclusion to the story will be a while in coming, as book two still has the author banging her head on her desk, and won't be out until this time next year. But I also know it will be worth the wait, because this is a delicious and magical story. It wraps around you with an intimate and honest narrative voice that makes the fantastical elements seem very real, a voice that I think developed at least a little bit because Robin McKinley has taken to blogging with similar honesty and grit about her own life.

Her blog and the book have some strong points in common: whimsical details, keen observations, and a admirable narrator who is uniquely herself. The story is truly original, and the pegasii are not generic mythical creatures, but believable beings with an intricate and fascinating alien culture. First person narration is tricky, and I used to think that you had to sacrifice beautiful writing if a book was done in the first person, but I am proven wrong by Pegasus, which is beautifully told and as finely wrought as anything the Pegasii themselves might make. The story is a gift, and I feel privileged to be reading it.

Protecting Children from Getting the Wrong Ideas

It’s Banned Books Week again. I’ve just finished reading Lois Lowry’s The Giver, which has been one of the most challenged books in the country several times since being published in 1993. Parents made a concerted effort to have it removed from the reading list at in the district neighboring my own when I was in school.

So there’s that. People never seem to tire of trying to keep ideas they don’t like away from kids. The most recent hot button is the attempt to ban Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak.

Pulling the books from library shelves and reading lists is one way that people try to keep ideas from harming kids. Editing the harmful ideas out of the material is another. Honestly, I didn’t even know the later was a popular option until I saw it discussed in a YA lit blog entry.

Philip Nel, English professor and children’s literature commentator, frames the issue on his blog. He teaches a course about censorship of kid’s lit that he says is about “what you can and can’t say in literature for children and young adults.” And it seems that if you say the wrong thing, many people feel it is their right and responsibility to ensure that children will never know it.

This treatment canned be used as a fix for most books on the Most Challenged list, but beloved classics are being reissued with a new coat of paint that is meant to obscure the overt signs of values that would disturb most modern readers. Plenty of thoughtful people are considering the validity and effectiveness of this approach, and they seem to be coming to the same conclusion. It is better to supervise how kid’s experience the original than to give them tidied up versions. I agree, as far as that goes, but I still think they’re missing the point.

We are not giving kids enough credit. Yes, they should learn to read critically, and it’s great for them to get to talk about some of what they’re reading with their parents, but if we look over their shoulder at most of what they are reading, we will being taking something valuable away from them. There is an experience you can have of a story that can’t happen if someone is guiding and monitoring your reactions. The personal meaning you find, and all the connections to your own experience. The most important books in my life were like personal treasures. Didn’t we all read these same classics? We grew up to be thoughtful, conscientious people who care about books and care about children and care what kind of people they will grow to be. We did it with those imperfect stories as part of what got us here. The children we want so much to protect are capable of doing the same.

Incarceron - A prison with some odd quirks

Finished Catherin Fisher's Incarceron. This is a kind of steampunk dystopia that shares some common ground with books by Scott Westerfeld, or Suzanne Collins. It was recommended by someone with very good taste who liked it very much.

In the world of the story, a society survived some kind of catastrophic conflict and responded by attempting to eliminate all possibility of future instability. Any trouble-making elements are confined in a vast prison, which is designed as a kind of social experiment, aiming to create a utopia within. The prison's location is a secret, and no one ever enters or leaves. Outside, society has been artificially restored to a reproduction of life in the 18th century, and progress, change, or any use of knowledge or technology which doesn't fit into that era is forbidden.

We follow two protagonists. The first is a girl who is about to marry the prince in a marriage arranged by her father, the Warden, who has sole oversight of the titular prison. The second is an inmate of the prison, a boy who is troubled by strange fits and visions, and who believes he came, impossibly, from the outside world, though he can't remember his life before. Their adventures and discoveries about their society, about the prison, and about their own and the realm's history, give us book one of a two part series.

And, ok, this was not a bad book. Unique world building, interesting characters, political intrigue and some creative ideas.

Maybe I was predisposed to be irritable with it, because the author had a word choice tic that pulled me right out of the plot a few times early on.

On page 23, "something inside her went cold." Well, sure, that's fine, but then:
on page 24, "the threat of his unveiled personality turned her cold" and that exact description "_______ turned him/her cold" was repeated by different characters 3 times or more in the first 75 pages. Granted, there is a lot going on that is creepy, unnerving, unsettling, chilling, and ominous, but surely the very different characters could have slightly varied reactions.

That quirk of word choice got me started noting every repetition or odd phrasing. Soon everything seemed to be done coldly, or arrogantly, and everyone was incessantly scowling or muttering.

Trying to set that aside, I just didn't ever come to really like the protagonists, and some of the central riddles of the plot were never really explained and, well, this one left me appropriately..cold.

Books, Food, and Books About Food

I was running late for my doctor visit today, and so only had a moment to spare for choosing a book to bring. I wasn't really in the middle of anything, and just took along Hungry Monkey by Matthew Amster-Burton, since it's light (literally light, as in make my bag too heavy) and I was in between novels anyway. This sort of anecdotal reading lends itself to a setting where you are absolutely guaranteed to be required to put your book aside right at the crucial moment in the plot. Doctor's really don't appreciate being told to hold on just a second while you finish a paragraph. Shocking, no?

Possibly not the best pick, as this book is full of descriptions of food and tantalizing recipes of all kinds and I was stuck at a cancer center that offers jello cups, shortbread cookies, and those scary neon orange cracker and faux cheese sandwiches (tell me those aren't carcinogenic, I dare you.) Hardly a serious problem, I know, though it was kinda sad to read about all the great restaurants the author frequents on a weekly basis. Restaurants are officially prohibited until my white cell count is something like twice what it is now. It's gotten high enough twice in the past year and a half, and one of those times I was in the hospital. I prefer to pretend restaurants don't exist.

Anyway, the recipes were promising, but the format's not all that practical. I like my recipes in a reference kind of context, easy to refer back to, rather than scattered through memoir. Simply Recipes is good, for example. But it is fun to read about food, especially when the author adores it and has a lot of information to share. But best to reserve this reading for times when you have access to a kitchen.

Next on the Library Stack: Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

Books in the Mail!

There is no better kind of mail than books (for a book lover, obviously) and I recently received two!

First, a dear friend from college was kind enough to send me a copy of Except the Queen, by Jane Yolen and Midori Snyder.

This friend is a book person, and one of the perks of her job is getting to take home books that have been sent to the mystery magazine she works for. I haven't read Jane Yolen in a while, and I'm not familiar with Midori Snyder, so this book offers the double benefit of returning to an old favorite and discovering a new author. Plus, my friend has great taste in books, and the cover and blurb make this one plenty intriguing.

And then, and then, folks, I received an advance readers copy of Robin McKinley's as yet unreleased new book, Pegasus. Eat your hearts out, fellow McKinley fans.

..Ah, I don't mean it.

Will you forgive my gloating if I tell you I am attempting to leave both of these tempting books untouched until I've reached the bottom of the teetering pile of library books waiting nearby? Is it weird to feel that it might be somehow rude to return them all unread? Probably. But I really did want to read those books until these shiny new ones came along. My good intentions will probably only last a week or two.

For those of you who love Robin McKinley's writing, but don't have an advance copy of her next book, I recommend that you devote some of you internet meandering time to Robin McKinley's Blog because:
a)Robin McKinley writes it, obviously
b)she also occasionally posts bits and pieces of what she's working on, and
c)reading her blog has a lot to do with how I ended up in possession of a copy of Pegasus.

Everybody ought to read John Green

I'm convinced this is true: you should go out and read one of John Green's books. I should go out and read another of John Green's books. This is one smart and talented author, as well as one funny guy, which you know if you've ever found him bantering with his brother on their youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/vlogbrothers

Read John Green. This is all I've got to say at the moment. I would really like to post about the actual content of Looking for Alaska, but am instead practicing delayed gratification..or delayed massive spoilers, since that, I realized, is what I was writing.

Massive spoilers to come later.

The Time Traveler's Wife

I wondered as I finished reading The Time Traveler's Wife how Audrey Niffenegger must feel to go from aspiring writer to blockbuster success with literary awards, a movie deal and a top spot on the best seller list with one novel. For an author who has thought so much about time travel, about cause and effect, about before and after - it must be an interesting experience.

The story is about love and relationships. That is its purpose, and time travel is the devise, the forge that creates and tempers the relationship that is the focus of the book, but the unusual details of the time travel itself were what stood out to me. This wasn't a story of a brilliant inventor or daring adventurer. Time travel wasn't achieved through science or magic. It was a disease. And while the main characters weren't all that relatable, being strangely sick I can relate to.

Henry travels through time, and he can't control when it happens or what happens when he travels. He is far more aware than most people that his life is not something he can really control. Looking at disability, at being unable to live a 'normal' life, through this science fiction analogy was fascinating to me. Time travel interferes dramatically with what this character wants to be able to do, it takes a heavy toll on him, and on his wife, who worries and waits, and it carries the constant risk of unforeseen catastrophe. Or foreseen catastrophe that cannot be prevented.

There was a lot of realism here - in the self-absorption that is so easy to fall into when you have a strange problem that isn't shared by the people around you, the futility and frustration of having your body malfunction outside your control, the wearying and wearing down effect of struggling for a long time, and the way hardship brings joy into sharper focus, but makes it almost inseparable from fear of loss.

Every person who has been terribly ill can find bits of truth in this story, however fantastical its premise and melodramatic its characters.