(This is the Booman Tribune premiere of the Weekly Book Diary that I’ve been doing over on Kos for a few months. The rest of the series can be found here, interspersed with the odd and very rare midweek diary. Hope y’all like it!)
Ahh, family values. The thing we’ve been hammered over the head with for lo unto these past five, six, what, twenty years now…
I kind of doubt they had Lazarus Long’s family in mind when they thought of “family values”, though. Or the Karenin family. Or even Harry Potter’s “muggle” family, terribly dysfunctonal and abusive. But families they are, some closer to reality than the whitebread Father Knows Best family that has been broadcast to us for the past 60 years.
What brought this on? A day with my family.
My family is an interesting and eclectic bunch, who could fill volumes with their own stories. We had much conversation, much food, and much fun. Many memories were freshened and new ones made, and there were several new additions that I hadn’t yet met. So, I was inspired by my family to do the book diary on literary families.
Mostly, though, it was these two.
Meet Abby and Izzy. Abagail and Isabella, the children of my first cousins.
They’re 3 and 2 respectively. They met for the first time today at a picnic my uncle had. Abby lives local, Izzy lives way across the state in Carlisle. It was love at first sight. They immediately went everywhere hand in hand, inseperable. What is it about families that makes that happen? And how do the families in literature and their creators convey that on a printed page so effectively?
Now I’m about as liberal as they get, but even I get a little creeped out by Lazarus Long and his mother and their relationship. For those who don’t know, Heinlein wrote a whole series of books about Lazarus Long, some of them dealing with his mother Maureen. “To Sail Beyond the Sunset” tells her story. Lazarus had inhereited some freakish longevity gene and was the progenitor of a group of “methuselahs”, people who would live for a thousand years or more. The concept was interesting and led to some compelling story lines.
The Kareninas are another story again. The first line of the novel “Anna Karenina”..
Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
sets the tone, and you know you’re going to be reading about an unhappy family. Ah yes, unhappy, dysfunctional, downright nuts, some of them, but a family with that unique bond nonetheless. The Karenins and their circle of friends and associates are one of my favorite literary families, right up there with those brothers named Karamazov.
Harry Potter’s muggle family are just nuts. They’re evil, a stereotype of evil step-parents and step-brother. But they’re fun, in their own way.
Who are your favorite literary families? Your love-to-hate literary families? And as ever, what have you read lately?
(Here’s one more gratuitous picture of Abby and Izzy. Just ’cause they’re so cute.)
Just finished “A Hat Full of Sky” by Terry Pratchett, and had a quick reread of “Fahrenheit 451”, it had been a while since I read it. As always, trying to keep up with my New Yorkers. Hard to do.
Hope y’all enjoy the diary-if you want, I’ll keep cross-posting them.
Those are gorgeous little girls, with beautiful names. Shortening Isabella to Izzy makes my toes curl up, though. Couldn’t they call her something like Bella?
How’s that for intruding on family?
they call her “iza” or “izzy”… either one is fine, she’s quite a kid for her age-she’s only 2 and you’d swear she was at least 3 or even 4 from her vocabulary.
Sorry about that. <shamefaced grin>
Nothing personal. But I do think Isabella is a pretty name as is.
All is forgiven. I will only say that Bella is usually followed by donna or lugosi while Izzy is a happy, carefree name. So we shall agree to disagree and never speak of this moment again. π
Francois Cheng’s exquisite novel, Green Mountain, White Clouds (go look!) set in 17th C. China as the Ming Dynasty is unwinding.
Today I opened John Updike’s latest novel, Villages.
And am about half through listening to Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.
Is anyone else a HUGE fan of recorded books?
[ JLongs — Thanks for doing these books diaries (now) here and on DKos. They’re my favorite! ]
You’re welcome. I enjoy doing them and it’s just as easy to post ’em over here too.
I can’t do books on tape/cd-I hate being read to. Shame, really, since I’d get a lot more in that way but there it is.
for a non-profit that loaned books on tape to the elderly and disabled communities. I’d have to say it’s probably the most fulfilling job I’ve ever had.
We recorded many of the books in house, and I had the pleasure of being one of the readers. For those who cannot read ink-and-paper books, audio books are a Goddess-send; we had several family members who would write us after a client passed away, to tell us that we had provided a lifeline.
(If you know someone who could use the service, or maybe have a few extra pennies to donate, here’s the web site.)
Recorded books are great for long car trips. I love to listen to literary fluff, like cozy mysteries and thriller books, especially those read by English accents. I’m always amazed at the acting skill involved in doing all the character voices.
Not fictional characters, but writers: Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.
I’ve been reading Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and I’m midway through a new biography by Lyndall Gordon. I’ve also picked up a fictional account of her life, Vindication by Frances Sherwood. When I was shelf-grazing at the bookstore this afternoon it seemed the perfect time to reread Frankenstein.
(AndiF, if you’re reading this, thanks for the recommendations!)
Any literary family is open for discussion. Fictional or real.
I read the wollstonecraft ages and ages ago, I can’t remember much of it now.
I’m finding the Wollstonecraft disturbingly relevant, given that it’s over two hundred years old.
I’m also hugely intrigued by the mother-daughter relationship between her and Shelley. She died when Mary Shelley was only a few days old, so they never knew one another, but it seems safe to assume that such a vivid, controversial figure must have been a presence in Shelley’s life, on some level, while she was growing up. I’ve never lost a parent, so it’s difficult for me to imagine how a kid negotiates that loss, and the more so when the parent in question can be accessed through her writings and public persona. And if you want to play armchair psychologist the parenting themes in Frankenstein are almost irresistable.
The hardest thing may be running up against the reality of the ‘replacement’ parent in comparison to the ideal of the dead parent who will never disappoint you. And, of course, for Mary Shelley the difference between the real and the ideal was vast.
I’ve just read it and you’re welcome. I hope you enjoy both of them — that way, I won’t have to feel guilty. π
(And if you like the Sherwood book, then you might also want to read her most recent book, “The Book of Splendor” — ah, I guess worrying about feeling guilty isn’t enough to stop from doing book recommendations.)
No worries on that score — midwayish through the biography and I’m enjoying it quite a lot.
… the Glass family from J.D. Salinger’s books.
And those kids are adorable! Plus, Izzy’s such a great name.
I was going to nominate the Glass family.
I just read H.G. Wells’ War of the Worlds. How’d I miss that before? Damn good book. Now I hear they’re making another movie version – I had no idea. (I seem to have totally tuned out the MSM.) I just read it cuz I found one for a quarter at a garage sale. Funny these little synchronicities . . .
Did you see The Royal Tennenbaums? I thought the family in that film… well, they weren’t like the Glass family, but had the same sort of feel to them.
I have a friend who has never read Salinger and yet wrote me a letter once that was a shining example of a Buddy Glass letter. I still have it all these years later. I’ve never read it in the tub, though. I’m not that far gone!
But to get back to the movie, the scene where Gwyneth Paltrow’s character was camped in the tub seemed like an homage to Zooey.
not that you’re biased or anything…
She’s a great kid though. For two, way ahead of the curve.
At least I don’t hide my bias! Gotta say, though, Abby’s a great name, too, and by way of full disclosure, neither I nor anyone I know is named Abby. But I did have a childhood fondness for the show Eight is Enough.
Both are from Madeline L’Engle’s books: the Murry family from A Wrinkle in Time and sequels (and the O’Keefes when Calvin and Meg get married and have kids), and the Austins from Meet the Austins and sequels. Both families obviously love each other “for better or worse”, and have enough love that they can open their hearts to others.
Oh, and one more, from the comics: the Pattersons from “For Better or For Worse”.
But one of the families from “The Incredible Lightness of Being”. I’m a little unclear on the details (big surprise) because I haven’t read it in years, but here goes…
My brother gave me the book a decade or so ago, told me to read it because our family was in it. I read it through and I couldn’t figure out what he was talking about… it was a fun book, but our family wasn’t in it!
Then I read it again, and saw what he meant. There was one family where the mother would levitate around the room, and I think there was something to do with lions or something… but the thing was, no one treated it as any big deal. Whatever was, just was.
We were sort of like that… odd (looking back) happenings here and there, strange pronouncements, interesting (and decidedly different) people visiting from time to time, and everything and everyone just accepted. Had our mom started levitating around the room we would not have been surprised in the least, and would probably have just continued playing our Monopoly game or something. Well, after imploring her to show us how to do that too, of course.
Excellent. Sounds just like my bunch, from my ultra-republican uncle to my hippie (when she was young) mother, to my grandmother dressing up as the great pumpkin for a party. Just par for the course.
Two very different families and books:
Clara by Janice Galloway is a novel about — surprise — Clara Schumann, her husband Robert, her father, her children, and her career. A brilliant book.
A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews about a Canadian Mennonite family that has come apart told from the point of view of the 16 year old daughter. It’s either one of the funniest sad books or one of the saddest funny books I have read but either way, it’s an insightful and moving portrait of family life.
Thanks for the book diary. Anything to do with books has to be tops with me. Interesting question about families. My favorites, I just realized, seem to be the extended families that aren’t family but are in the best sense of the word. And I guess that is no surprise since it follows my own experiences in life.
My favorite extended family, at least one of them, has to be the collection of folks in Fried Green Tomatoes.
A book that I have enjoyed immensely, recently, is Going Deeper, by Jean-Claude Koven. It is written as Fiction, yet manages to incorporate so many esoteric truths from an astonishing number of sources that it boggles the mind. Quite a good read and an amazing accomplishment. You can find it on Amazon I think but for sure at: Going Deeper How to make sense of your life when your life makes no sense
gosh it’s been a long time since I’ve read that. The relationships were pretty neat.
I was kinda tangenitally reminded of it by a book called “the secret life of bees”. A not-family family. Good stuff.
I never got around to checking out this diary series because I read buckets of Science Fiction and only a little political non-fiction. So, I obviously, wrongly assumed that my tastes would be too “low-brow”. :>)
I recently read a wonderful short story by one of my all time favorite authors, Ursula K. LeGuin, called “Coming of Age in Karhide”. It is based on her world Gethen, which is populated by humans who are neither male or female. They can take on either gender for the purposes of reproduction and sex. It is a bit hard to describe, but LeGuin does a marvelous job exploring one person’s “changing” in the story. It also explores the family relationships with respect to the main character. Wonderful look at gender identity and alternative families.
The other family I really enjoy is the Vorkosigan family from Lois McMaster Bujolds wonderful series about the son, Miles Vorkosigan.
I am currently re-reading A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for an on-line book club. I just finished House of Reeds, which is the sequel to Wasteland of Flint, by Thomas Harlan. It was ok, but it does have an interesting premise…it posits a timeline when the Aztecs were not over run by the Spanish and in fact took over the world. Kind of an odd twist in the SF world.
I hope you’ve gone back and checked out some of the past series… about the only thing that’s prevented me from doing an entire diary on science fiction is that I’ve been trying to make sure there’s something for everyone in each.
Favorite authors include Terry Pratchett, Heinlein, Clarke, Asimov, etc. Except for Pratchett, the harder the science the better.
I just went out an d checked out some of your older diaries. I love your approach. Very nice. I will definately keep reading here (I don’t have much time for dKos these days). Please continue.
Hard science is making a serious comeback, and it is morphing more and more with Space Opera. If you ask me, the best of both worlds. I like hard SF, but I am not a science geek at all and most goes over my head. However, I like SF that backs itself up, so when it at least makes an attempt to be realistic, I can go from there. I also love political sci-fi. Stories that imagine what political systems could work or not work in our ever changing world. I love exploring what new worlds might bring or what we could learn from “others”. I love looking to the future and seeing what we can make of it and how.
My favorite authors range over the history of SG: H.G. Wells, Mary Shelly, RObert Heinlein, Isaac ASimov, Ursula K. LeGuin, Connie Willis, Frederic Pohl, David Brin, Peter Hamilton, Octavia Butler, ad nauseum. :>)
If anyone is interested in Alternative Fiction, I am a moderator at a really geat site for dicussion of alt fic. I would be happy to provide the link.
Have you read any of Nancy Kress’ books? I think she does some of best combinations of hard science, speculative fiction, and character development in current sci-fi.
Another hard science (well maybe semi-hard) writer I like is Jack McDevitt — I enjoy his using archeology as a major part of most his plotlines.
I just finished Probablity Moon, Sun and Space. I read Brain Rose a while ago. I liked them and will have to check out Beggars in Spain soon.
I have really enjoed McDevitt, particularly for his use of archaeology (the books I mentioned upthread about the Aztecs also has a main character who is an archeologist), but sometimes his fast pace and ridiculous saves get on my nerves.
I also love Niccola Griffith for more gender bending, anthroplogic fun.
I liked Slow River better than Ammonite. What I really like are her mysteries, The Blue Place and Stay.
Have you read her partner Kelley Eskridge’s book Solitaire.
Two one of the scifi best books about gender I’ve read is Carolyn Gilman’s Halfway Human and Eleanor Arnason’s Woman of the Iron People.
waxing euphoric over Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo.
Read it to my child (movie is nice but the book is better). About a girl who moves to a new town with her dad and finds this opens up the big ache inside that started when her momma who left her long ago.
She finds a new family, not just the nuclear one, but a community of friends. Of course it wouldn’t have happened without her dog.
An emotionally honest book. Loved it. Good for adults, too.
is all too rare in books and in life in general, it seems.
Sounds like a terrific read-I’ll have to look for it.
All the families in Jane Austen’s books. The fact that they’re 200 years old doesn’t make them any less relevant.
I’m reading an interesting non-fiction book that looks at families on several levels. From Here, You Can’t See Paris, by Michael Sanders (Harper 2002) explores family and village and even world relationships. He writes about a husband and wife who run a restaurant in the tiny French village of Les Arques, the villagers as family, and how he moved his family to France for a year in order to write the book.
I read only one of the Year in Provence books, because I found it superficial and condescending (Oh, see how quaint the natives are). This is not like that.
My favorite literary families are the John Irving families, particularly the one from The Hotel New Hampshire (blood and extended). I love the dysfunction, the weirdness, the depth, and how real the characters feel.
has a way with family dynamics, doesn’t he?
The Marches from Little Women.
All of Ann Tyler’s families, which usually expand to having volunteer members.
And for dysfunctional families … no one beats the Snopes from Faulkner.
the March family and voila` SusanG did. What I love about them is their dedication to each other, to education and to culture that matters.
The family I love to hate would be the family in any of Pat Conroy’s books, which were his family of course. They were frustrating to me because they were disfunctional in many of the same ways my family was/is.
Have you read Geraldine Brooks “March”? I couldn’t quite decide how I felt about the book but I did like that she didn’t make Marmee a saint.
And for a really interesting “inspired by” there’s Katharine Weber’s “Little Women” which I definitely did love, though ultimately it’s connections to original Little Women might seem a bit tenuous.