Sic vita est

Time flies. With three children in the house and two courses on the go, my reading has lapsed. This isn't to say that I haven't read; in fact, considering everything, I've probably done pretty well. Mostly, I've picked up titles that I could read in a very short time and postponed longer titles for the not-too-distant future.

In spite of myself, I did read Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years. Sue Townsend could leave the series here and not feel guilty about it. He's grown; hell, he's old (40ish, like me) and we've seen him mature and/or resign to his lot in life. It is a rather bleak tale without as much of the humour as I've come to expect from the series. At any rate, I think he and I will part ways here. Really, it's over. I'm not going back. And, truthfully, I think it's him, not me.

Graphic novels are a great sanctuary for me -- especially those in the memoir or journalistic vein -- and I surprised myself this week by reading Nylon Road by Parsua Bashi. Why surprised? Because it -- the graphic novelization as much as the subject itself -- is not exactly a new idea: a journey from girlhood to womanhood during Iran's revolution. But it was fresh and original and, of course, inevitably linked in my mind to Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis series from frame to frame.

Three days ago, I read 9/11 Emergency Relief, a graphic novel anthology compiled in aid of the American Red Cross. I'd picked it up used for about five dollars at my favourite comic/graphic novel store last summer because I thought it would be an interesting read. It ended up being a surprising array of talent and an excellent opportunity to sample the graphic wares of dozens of artists/writers. (I've burrowed through quite a few graphic novels over the years and I'm always impressed by the originality of the inking, colouring, and lettering styles of each artist.)

The day before yesterday, it was Rutu Modan's Exit Wounds. I think I understand why it was received with such critical acclaim. The story -- both mystery and romance, set in Tel Aviv -- is very moving and it flows seamlessly. I loved the plot twists. This g-novel won the 2008 Eisner Award.  (I really enjoyed her graphic blogging, Mixed Emotions, on The New York Times website in 2007).  The next stop for me where this author is concerned is Jamilti -- I almost finished it, several times.  It's not that I'm not interested; I just keep putting it aside right next to Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli.

Last night, I sped through Clubbing (Andi Watson/Josh Howard) -- 176 pages -- a graphic novel for the Young Adult audience.  There isn't much to say about it: breezy, brief, and enjoyable.

And I have no idea where I'm headed next.

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education . . .

Well, except maybe for the past two weeks or so.

After school starting (for both myself and Devyn) and family emergencies, reading became too difficult this month.  Not that I haven't tried. I wanted to try. It's just that, in a tiny compartment of my brain that stores possibly-useful superstitions, I interpreted the fact that I'd misplaced my book as a sign that I should just stop trying for the time being.

Well, now school progresses smoothly (for both myself and Devyn), the family emergencies have diminished in intensity, and, alas, I have found my book: Paramedic to the Prince.

Where's my booklight . . .

And the winner is . . .

Pippi Longstocking.

Having finished Mary Poppins -- and enjoying the solitude afforded me by my weekly babysitter for Molly -- I intrepidly approached the basement stairs a few Wednesdays ago.  At the bottom lay one of dozens of bins containing children's books and I had the enjoyable yet daunting task of selecting a range of books from which Devyn (mostly) would choose our next read. My pile included:

Pippi Longstocking
Beezus and Ramona
The Prince and the Pauper
The Littles

So, as I sorted through the now dusty lot, it occurred to me that I hadn't read many of the classics in grade school. Why not? Why weren't they in the curriculum from year to year? They were available in the school libraries and we could discover them or be directed to them occasionally; but they weren't emphasized in my primary classes.

Just as importantly, why weren't the classics read to us on a regular basis? Etched into my brain somewhere is an image of myself as a grade one student sitting cross-legged in the library while listening to the outrageous behaviour of the Herdman children in The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (Barbara Robinson). I later revisited that book over and over again (though I sometimes mistakenly remember it as The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever, and, if you've ever read it, you'll know why). Only a couple of other periods of being read to in school -- once in grade five, another in grade ten -- really stand out.  I want my children to end up with more memories than I have in this regard.

I want to foster an appreciation of reading but I also want to give the girls a literary foundation before they enter secondary school. It doesn't have to take the fun out of reading; fun is built into the experience: Devyn speaks about and looks forward to our reading sessions before bed; the end of one book promises the beginning (and selection) of another; we spend one-on-one time together which is very special to us.

What I really like is the idea that, over the years, story after story, the girls will recognize that books tend to "speak" to one another long after they're read: associations arise, alternative interpretations occur to us, light shines on areas that we hadn't noticed before. I've found that while reading Middle Eastern/South Asian literature, The Arabian Nights (and all the variations of the title) has been of great value to me.

And doesn't narrative just seem to work its way into our lives? How much of our reading to this point in our lives is affected by our early exposure to, for example, Alice in Wonderland? The expressions in popular culture that derive from this story abound. (I fondly recall that the parallels between Homer's Odyssey and the Star Wars phenomenon, as well as other cultural events, was a favourite topic of one my late professors.) I hope that this endeavour of mine to ensure that the girls inherit many of the classics enriches their lives as adults.

In general, and not that Dora doesn't have her place, I want the girls to have more sources of cultural information in addition to what they receive via media, school, and peers.  Clearly, I can't control the messages that they receive through media and peer exposure (though I firmly believe even stemming the flow and limiting sources is possible and that it helps), but I can exchange one channel of information for another and mitigate the influences. So, this summer, but for a few isolated events, I turned off the television and introduced Devyn to another form of entertainment that went beyond the few minutes of bedtime stories that children expect; and, we often read for hours because we just can't wait to find out what happens in the next chapter . . .

So, my resolve strengthened, I realized, after carrying my little pile of books upstairs:  Devyn and I (and later, Molly and I) would read the classics of children's literature; not exclusively, not consecutively, but consistently.

So, Pippi.  One of my favourite childhood characters.  I actually remembered little of her except the lopsided braids.  How appropriate, considering the time of year, that, tomorrow, Pippi goes to school.

__

Astrid Lindgren - Official site (English)
Astrid Lindgren - Wikipedia
Pippi Longstocking

Astrid Lindgren's World

Damage control . . .

I'm reading a magazine right now. (It's a Royal Conservatory of Music concert brochure.)

That's good, Molly.

Is this a big girl book?

Yes. But I'm not a big fan of telling you what you can or can't read.  If you like it, that's good.

Grandma says little girls should read books for little girls.

Yes, well, as I told you yesterday, Grandma knows some things but I know more.

Mary, Mary . . .

Despite time constraints, Devyn and I have almost finished Mary Poppins.

The omniscient third-person narration is divided into chapter-sectioned anecdotes. She's a woman who has access to the unwritten laws of the world; she really does know more than the average nanny and more than the average person; she is exciting, if not a little intimidating, to be around. 

In her presence, animals and infants can speak with each other; actual journeys into pictures occur where imagination is tangible; relationships that require little conventional conversation transpire.

She may be an efficient nanny but Mary P. is also arrogant and possesses a sharp tongue.  This surprised me.  I think we'll have to watch the movie this week once we've actually finished the novel.

And so we've decided . . .

As soon as the shape was inside the gate the wind seemed to catch her up into the air and fling her at the house. It was as though it had flung her first at the gate, waited for her to open it, and then had lifted and thrown her, bag and all, at the front door.  The watching children heard a terrific bang, and as she landed the whole house shook.

Devyn loved the magic of Mary Poppins once she realized that the woman could slide up railings and pull endless items out of an ostensibly empty bag.

What enhanced my experience of the reading was that we have a particularly old copy of the book.Plus, serendipity being what it is, I found a packet of Certs (original flavour) just as I was about to read and gladly allowed her to have her first one.

She cuddled me, watched me as I read, closed her eyes and allowed herself to be drawn into the narrative. 

But today wasn't about Mary Poppins until the end.  Before this, as Devyn attended a pottery day camp at the local art school, Molly and I headed to the library.  There, she pulled book after book for me to read; in all, there were 19 books most of which were pretty short. Her selections aren't always so short but today I was pretty grateful that they were and, thankfully, as I grew tired, she decided to play and didn't choose a 20th title.

I thought it funny that people commented on the number of books that Molly wanted me to read to her since the place was crowded with children and parents participating in some sort of read-for-prizes club. But it might have been the rapid-fire pace with which the process of choosing, sitting, and reading, took place that drew attention to us.

At any rate, I declined to participate in the reading club this year, not knowing if I would actually have to list each book then and there and have Molly recount all 19 stories.  She gladly would have done it but it was, as I say, crowded, noisy, and chaotic to the degree that even Molly remarked on this and asked if we could leave.

Time flies

I happened upon an online journal entry from almost three-years-ago to the day. 

The growth of my girls - July 9, 2007

"I didn't want to have my face painted today."

"No?"

"No. I was scared."

"Oh, I can see how that might be scary."

"Nobody else, just me."

"Nobody else was scared?"

"No."

"How did that make you feel?"

"Sad."

Devyn's aware of herself in the context of others. She compares herself to others.

She's also shot up another two inches in the last couple of months. She has a tiny waist, so her pants are long enough but she needs to wear a belt. (It's surprisingly difficult to find a belt for a preschooler.)

At her last Well Baby appointment (June 29th), Molly was 10lbs 8oz (I won a bet with K about how much she weighed) and 23 inches long. Funny, we didn't know how long she was at birth because that measurement isn't routinely sought.

We've had a difficult month, I'd say. Devyn's feelings about having a sibling aren't always positive and this is to be expected.

She's told me that she's disappointed that I can't spend as much time with her, so I spend as much as I can.

She's told her father that she doesn't always like being a big sister.

She's asked if we have to take Molly along on drives, etc. One day last week or so, while at the kitchen table, she asked:

"Why do we have to have Molly?"

"Because she's part of the family," I struggled. Begging the question, I know.

"Why was she born?"

So, she's struggling with big questions, too.

This might explain why, a couple of weeks before her 4th birthday, she is extraordinarily defiant, argumentative and generally difficult. This makes for long days.

One funny expression lately: when asked if she's ready, Devyn will say, "Ready as a liver bee!"

At least, Molly sleeps through the night. The breastfeeding clinic told me a few times that she's too young to miss feedings and that she needs to be awakened in the middle of the night. Everyone else, including my family doctor, told me to allow her to sleep and that demand-feeding is perfectly fine at this age (10 weeks). I've stopped going to the clinic.

We're continually amazed by Molly, just as we have been amazed by Devyn. She's started kicking and making sounds other than crying. She smiles easily and raises her arms up and down quickly when she's pleased with her toys, etc. She kicks now, lifts her head (but she has since the first week) and always has a pacifier in her mouth.

She's so calm, never cries anymore unless we let her go beyond the hand-sucking stage of hunger. Colic only lasted a few weeks.

Finally, my concentration has returned and I finished reading the first book since becoming pregnant (I'd been averaging about one per week prior to pregnancy) on July 7th.

Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I haven't collected my thoughts about this coming-of-age story set in a strife-ridden Nigeria. I do know that it made me long for some fiction by Uwem Akpan.

Pregnancy -- and then sleep-deprivation -- really affected my concentration and made reading impossible.  Considering thatI was on bedrest for much of the latter part, this was a problem. 

Devyn is now very comfortable with being a sister and they're usually the best of friends.

What a pleasant surprise it has been to look back!

Review: The Breakwater House

A while back -- in December -- I won an ARC from Anansi Review Crew (House of Anansi): Pascale Quiviger's The Breakwater House.  I only just thought to check the website to see my review (February)posted and it's there.  This is how behind I am on the List of Things to Follow Up.

(It's funny because, more recently, in March, I tweeted a review to CBC (140 characters) of this book and won a copy of The Present Tense of Prinny Murphy by Jill MacLean.  This, in turn, led me to tweet a review of another book -- can't remember which -- and I won a copy of Edith's War by Andrew Smith.)

I enjoyed reviewing The Breakwater House for several reasons but I'll have to add the elaboration to my List of Things to Follow Up.

OK, she can watch TV

I'm just about to walk down the stairs when I hear a bang: something has hit the floor outside the girls' room.  Molly appears.

"They DO roll, Mummy.  Rocks roll.  That's what they do."

"Really?"

"Yes. Taury from Dinoworld says 'Rocks don't roll'."

"And what do you think?"

"They DO roll."

Molly's Lexicon, Age 3 years + 3 weeks+

Validator

noun. a vehicle that takes you where you want to go and which makes you feel good.

"I took the validator but I didn't get trapped inside."


Me:  Why do you call it a validator? You know it's an elevator.

Molly: (giggling) I just love that word SO MUCH!

So, we aren't allowed to use the word 'elevator' around here. Ever.

Mother's Day

Ah, well, it hasn't yet arrived but I know Paramedic to the Prince: An American Paramedic's Account of Life Inside the Mysterious World of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is on its way.

I'm really looking forward to it. 

Bob Marley and Ballet

It’s a typical Saturday: Keith has already taken Molly for her short ballet and music classes; Devyn and I have done music theory homework and practice. Now, we’re on our way to the school again for the other half of the day.

It’s a pleasant, relaxed drive. Bob Marley is playing loudly – Devyn is singing along to her favourite song, Buffalo Soldier.

-- Where does he live?

-- Who?

-- Bob Marley.

-- Well, he’s not alive anymore, but he used to live in Jamaica.

-- Where’s that?

-- It’s a country in the Caribbean, an area like where Granddad and Papa come from, like Barbados and Trinidad. We should go there sometime and learn about the culture.

-- He’s dead? When did he die?

-- Yeh, he died when I was a little girl, around 11.

-- How did you know he died?

-- My mum, Nana, came home from work and told me. She said Jamaica was mourning. There’s a day now to celebrate him, called Bob Marley Day. People want to remember what he did for his country, for music, for people . . .

We’ve parked the car in the rear lot of the school and we’re now walking ahead of Keith and Molly. It’s cold; I hold her closely as we walk.

-- How did he die?

-- Uh, he died of cancer.

-- What kind of cancer was it? Was it in his arm, his leg, his head . . . ?

-- It was in his lungs. He had lung cancer.

I adjust the bag on my shoulder. I see the double doors of the reclaimed Victorian building; I hate these doors. There’s nothing wrong with them but traffic flows both ways and it’s uncontrolled. On top of that, I always have to maneuver a headstrong three-year-old up the side of the stairs that I’m on and keep her from darting up the other side where a quickly opened door would send her flying backwards down the steps. All this and carry all the bags; but, at this moment, Keith has Molly and I don’t think they’re very near us.

As I walk up the steps, I hear the voices of several parents trying to speak to the school’s administrator or trying to prepare them for lessons or trying to get them to listen. Devyn’s voice, at times strong and full of confidence, is so quiet or, at least, it’s lost in the bustle of Saturday-morning craziness.

-- How did Bob Marley get lung cancer?

-- Huh? Oh, he smoked.

-- Smoked? That’s awful. How much did he smoke?

-- He smoked A LOT.

A mother walking past hears us. She looks at me and we both laugh. There’s the sense that she and I are both aware of what I’m not saying, that the legendary Bob Marley smoked pot. Thankfully, I don’t have to have that conversation today!

-- Come on, luv. Let’s go.

She’s walking ahead of me, my hand on the back of her blue leotard. I can see her bun. I watch her bounce confidently down the stairs – she has taken ballet classes here since she was newly three years old. She's almost seven.

I have images of her as a teenager. Maybe she’s tall and wearing jeans with colourful Converse sneakers. Maybe I’ve allowed her to have dreads. Maybe she plays bass in a reggae band. Maybe she knows traditional Jamaican dancing.

-- Mum! Mum!

Ten years might fly by. But she’s calling me. She’s calling me at this moment because she can't wait to get to her ballet class.

-- Come on!

-- OK, go on. I’m right behind you.

Molly's Lexicon, Age 3 years + 2 weeks

Polka dot ear-ness:

Acute condition of unknown etiology. Characterized by tears and sudden need for attention, relapses and remits in direct relationship to presence/absence of older sibling receiving attention. Refractory to treatment that does not include the application of ice.

"I have polka dot earness."

Ghosts and Lightning - Trevor Byrne

Sisyphus by Titian, 1549

I needed to finish Ghosts and Lightning by Trevor Byrne. When I began reading it, I found it so easy to set it aside in favour of another and I did so several times. (I think there’s something to be said about a book to which you can so easily return after long absences.)

Set in Dublin, modern day, the first-person narrative of the life of a twenty-something man is disturbing and sad. Denny Cullen wallows: drugs, alcohol, and unemployment; violence, bigotry, and death; suicide, loneliness, and poverty as well as filth and grief. But this isn’t dystopia; it's simply an ugly reality.

This man needs a change. In fact, each character in the novel, to varying degrees of awareness, needs change. Only Pajo, a longstanding friend of the narrator, seems positive about his situation. At least, he isn’t as despondent as Denny and his relentless pursuit of the religious experience counterbalances Denny’s godlessness.

Not surprisingly, Pajo both annoys and inspires awe in his friend:

He’s mad into this kind o thing; life after death, ghosts, yetis, any and all religions. Basically, anythin there’s fuck all proof for, Pajo’ll believe it. Almost like he’s definin himself against the world in some way.

I think Pajo’s belief-seeking faith provides him with a certitude that Denny does respect even if he doesn’t believe that he could have it for himself.

Denny, in contrast, finds little by way of supernatural motivation or guidance and certainly no comfort. When we consider the appearance of a stuttering priest at a funeral (his message makes no sense to our narrator) and the fact that Pajo’s relentless, religious optimism bothers Denny, then we are as certain as he that nobody’s god will scoop him up to safety, either.

And Denny often muses, unpretentiously, about the nature of stories and the function of narrative in our lives. Mostly, there’s the sense that stories and their sources are to be questioned but the possibility that some stories ring true objectively – ghosts, gods? -- is never entirely discounted, either.

But it seems to me that narrative in itself is a transcendent experience and individual story might be a form of mysticism or mystical experience. I don’t know if Trevor Byrne agrees, but when Denny explains:

Stories though, man. The way they work on yeh. They’re a kind of spell, aren’t they? Or a prayer, maybe, some o them. An article of faith. How the fuck else can yeh make sense o things, like?

It sounds like transcendence to me.

Conversations about fairies, banshees, and the wee folk abound as do the legends of pre-Christian Ireland in Cúchulainn and Finn MacCumhail (McCool); Buddhism and Catholicism are also dominant. I love the appearance of so many kinds of stories. In addition to the above Irish and specifically religious ones, gossip, drinking tales, jokes and even Jack Frost, appear. And, as Denny says, “Stories don’t ever actually end, do they? They go on.”

But there is the sense that the author wants us to examine our tales in a philosophical context. We need stories – and Denny says so -- but why?

It’s not just all fuckin . . . like . . . evolution or wharrever. Cells and impulses. There’s got to be stories as well. This happened and then this happened and then this happened. And it all meant this. It all meant this.

The stories in our lives – those told to ourselves, to others and those that just seem to have followed us all our lives – give life meaning which, our narrator seems to sense, is otherwise lacking.

We find, consequently, strong themes: personal responsibility, action, the necessity of defining ourselves and isolation. We decide which stories make the most sense to us as well as who – and where -- we want to be; and we decide that we are, ultimately, alone in determining these things.

The novel’s messages call to mind Sartre and Camus and make me want to revisit Being and Nothingness and Myth of Sisyphus, respectively, as two decades have lapsed since I last read these. They also remind me of Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game which I read at the end of 2009 (in which Camus’s work actually explicitly appears).

I love this novel but love it in retrospect. I strongly suspect that there’s so much more to it that I haven’t here mentioned or even considered yet. I think it bears thinking about for some time.

There's seamlessness and everything hangs together so well that I have to admire the final product even if it isn't exactly what I wanted. In fact, there isn't anything about the characters that I could not believe: The strength of Denny's own voice is unwavering throughout and each character eventually confronts the future and the question of personal responsibility in his own way.

And French settles around us . . .

My just-turned-three Molly sits at the top of the stairs with a small keyboard:

"Happy Birthday à toi! . . . Happy Birthday à toi!"

David, Goliath and Molly (Age 3)

Molly, this morning, announces that she wants to look at science books.  I explain that the book nearest us is about art.  It's called The Art Book and we inherited it from Uncle Walt a few weeks ago.

She flips deliberately through the pages until she lights upon Castagno's The Young David which has a picture of Goliath's head lying beneath the legs of a victorious David.

"Why is the man in the mud?"

I try a number of explanations avoiding certain words until I find one that's most comfortable to me: Goliath was a monster and David was a hero for confronting the monster.  I honestly consider giving her the details and using the conventional words to describe what happens in the story but it seems too soon, too harsh.

"Why was David a hero?"
"Why was Goliath a monster?"
"Why is he in the mud?"

Then, I manage, for the moment, to divert her to other pages but she wants to return to The Young David.  She likes Mary Cassatt's Woman Sewing in a Garden.  She loves Cezanne's La Montagne Saint Victoire Barnes and traces a mountain with her finger as she describes climbing up and then down it and I can't help but wonder if she'll love art as she grows.

I love these moments together and our mornings and Molly's learning.  She directs me and asks me and wants me to know things so that I can teach her.  I know nothing about art history or art but I learn. I learn for her.

Molly lives through pictures and I have an image of her sitting in her stroller at about 7 or 8 months and for the first time purposely turning back through pages in a book to revisit something she liked.  Here, too, she is taking in each detail with equal significance: the green hills, the brown mud, the wavy lines, the sky that could hold a rainbow like the one she saw at her grandmother's house a few weeks ago.

The sun lights up the dining room, exposing motes of dust, and warms the room. The pages are warming, too. I look up from the book for a moment.  Across the table, the keys on Devyn's laptop are hot -- she told me so earlier. Behind this, windows bear evidence of little hands. Through these, I see a dozen or more old-looking balloons on the floor of the porch, left over from Molly's birthday celebrations last week.

Everything today reminds me that Molly is growing up.  We move on to the living room.

"Here," she says, handing me a CD cover of Prokofiev's Romeo & Juliet.  "Why is he lying on the stairs?"

I'm suddenly struck by how much attention she pays to her environment.  I start to consider all of the cultural information that she could gather from this living room alone and it seems a bit overwhelming . . .

"Uh, well, Romeo & Juliet is a story about two young people who wanted to be together but their parents wouldn't allow them to be together."

"Why?"

"Well, they had their own ideas about who should be together and why."  I don't know why I avoid talking about the conflict between the families.  I guess I'm caught off guard.

"They were very sad," I explain, "about not being able to be together . . ."

The World of Michelangelo . . . by Molly

"Here," she says, bringing me a book we'd just inherited on Michelangelo. "Read me the words."

"Uh," I manage, trying to figure out where and how I'd start.

I flip to an image of La Pieta. 

"Who is that woman?"

"That's the man's mother."  Carefully sidestep religion -- check!

"What's she doing?"

"She's holding her son . . . Does she look sad?"

"No."

"Does he look sad?"

"No."

"What does he look like?"

"He looks like a bunch of clay."

Nujood, divorced

I am always amazed by how misleading the term Middle East is: there are vast sociocultural differences from country to country and even from region to region within the same country. The most immediately perceived common thread is the religion of Islam but it would be a mistake to draw any conclusions about a country without studying its history, political structure, geography, languages, etc.

That being said, I knew nothing of it and still know nothing about Yemen except what a little girl and her biographer, Delphine Minoui, have told me in I Am Nujood, Age 10 and Divorced: men are the primary decision makers in family matters that pertain to the perception of honour; women are veiled and wear niqab, are not secluded but segregated according to the laws that seem to govern the protection of male honour (women appearing in public alone, men and women who are not related spending unchaperoned time together, etc.) There is abject poverty, especially in but not limited to the rural villages. Women may be educated. Child marriage is more common in the rural parts of Yemen.

Anyway, Nujood -- a ten-year-old girl in a suburb of Sana'a (Yemen's capital) whose father gives her in marriage to a man three times her age.  She manages to escape her abuser and fights for a divorce through the court system.  See how ridiculously simple that sounds when you read it?  She pushes back against the mores and laws that govern her behaviour and she is aware that she is doing so.  What she does not anticipate is the media coverage of her actions and the fallout of such.

But as a result of her bravery, other children since have sought and obtained divorces in Yemen -- and in Saudi Arabia, no less.  She is one of Glamour magazine's 2008 Women of the Year recipients, alongside Hilary Clinton.  

In the original CNN article of July 2008, she speaks of wanting to help raise the legal marriage age of women in Yemen.  But in August 2009, in a follow-up story, Paula Newton of CNN writes of a changed Nujood:

We find her at the family's two-room house in an impoverished suburb of the city where Nujood is angry, combative and yelling. Tension surrounds the home like a noose . . .

[S]he thought the divorce would be the end of her struggle and she's still angry that it turned out to be just the beginning.


and the young girl's own words:

'There is no change at all since going on television. I hoped there was someone to help us, but we didn't find anyone to help us. It hasn't changed a thing. They said they were going to help me and no one has helped me. I wish I had never spoken to the media,' Nujood says bitterly.

I am moved by the reported change in her disposition. Disillusionment and disappointment.  I feel protective as if this should be the realm of adults but it is not and, as if this is not sad enough, this month brings another story of a child bride -- also from Yemen -- and this one did not survive.

But Nujood accomplished something and I am glad that I read her story.

***

There are countless articles and reviews. Child marriage is a daunting subject that encompasses many countries. Where would you start if you wanted to learn more?


Wikipedia

Child Brides: The Problem of Early, Forced Marriage
Unicef's Innoenti Research, Italy --  Early Marriage: Child Spouses (pdf)
 
Glamour Magazine's Women of the Year

I've developed a list habit . .

10 Awesome and Inappropriate Books for Kids

While there, scroll down to find a list of five books that would have "traumatized us as children".

(found via Flavorpill via Twitter)

The growing pains of Adrian Mole

If I had known beforehand that last night would be so windy, so stormy, I would have imagined myself reading something equally as moody as the weather -- a gothic novel such as Walpole's The Castle of Otranto or, as I have intended for years, Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolfo.

But, no. There I was reading The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole: 1999-2001 -- and I did not want to read it.  The day before,  I had intentionally abandoned my rule of alloting only twenty-five pages to a book for which I have developed a distaste.

Sometimes, I just cannot resist the pull of the past and the very name, Adrian Mole, takes me back to reading the The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, the first book in the series, in 1988 or so.

A misguided teen in the middle of England, Adrian has the sense that he should have a better life but lacks the adult tools with which to build one for himself at the time.  He believes that he knows what people in higher socio-economic classes do -- they read classic literature, they live in big houses with manicured lawns and they aspire to lofty professions -- but he does his homework by candlelight when the electricity is turned off in his council flat and his writing lacks the weight of actual experience.  We always feel compassion for him and for his family. It is an enjoyable read with credible characters and waves of humour so frequent that respite is necessary.  I am similarly disposed to the sequel, The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole.

But in the books that follow, from The Wilderness Years on, Adrian is a man and the personality traits that we find endearing while he is a teenager are neither excusable nor acceptable in his adulthood.  So, while our compassion for Adrian's plight -- he cannot see the error of his ways, he cannot escape poverty, he cannot achieve his career goals -- remains, it is tempered by disdain for his personality.

There are other, more minor problems. Some of Adrian's seemingly delusional beliefs are not, well, believable.  I am also uncomfortable with his awareness of Sue Townsend.  When an author appears in a novel, I am upset by the intersection of the real and the fictional.  It wounds my sense of justice somehow as if I feel entitled to escape reality for a while.

So, I did not enjoy the book but, strangely, the questions remain:  Will I read Adrian Mole The Prostrate Years and complete (hopefully) a series because I just might enjoy the book, or because I have a vague sense of loyalty? Or will I simply say that enough is enough and revert to my twenty-five pages rule?

***

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ (1982)

The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole (1984)

The True Confessions of Adrian Albert Mole (1989)

Adrian Mole From Minor to Major (1991) - omnibus including Adrian Mole and the Small Amphibians.

Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (1993)

Adrian Mole: The Cappuccino Years (1999)

Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction (2004)

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole, 1999-2001 (2008)

Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (2009)