Showing posts with label
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.
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Showing posts with label
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life.
Show all posts
After writing a few weeks ago about the hilarious diaries of Adrian Mole, aged 13 3/4, I was reminded by Kathy at Catching Happiness of another diary keeper - Bridget Jones. This humorous work by Helen Fielding is one that I missed in the '90s although I did see the movie. I mean really, who could resist a film featuring both Colin Firth and Hugh Grant? Not me.
My library had a copy in ebook form and I was able to download it quickly. It begins, as does Adrian Mole's year, with a list of New Year's resolutions. Bridget's intents focus on not drinking, losing weight, quitting smoking, and not buying lottery tickets. She doesn't have much success.
Bridget is a 30-something single woman living in London who works for a publishing company. She has a heavy crush on her boss Daniel (a sleaze) which eventually turns into an unsatisfying relationship. There is the enigmatic Mark Darcy lurking in the background as well.
The thing is, and maybe it's just my age, but for all the book's humor, Bridget's self-loathing, her focus on weight (she records her weight at the beginning of every entry), and a proclivity for breaking her promises to herself begin to wear thin. Of course, I have all sorts of journals from my younger days filled with the same railings against my fate. Perhaps that's why it feels a bit uncomfortable to read Bridget's angst-filled pages.
The conversations with her female friends about men and their wicked ways are pretty funny. And her mother, who has recently left Bridget's father, now has a new lover and a new career. She flits in and out of Bridget's life and is not exactly a stable role model for her daughter.
I'd like to go back and watch the film again. I think perhaps Bridget and her trials and tribulations come across better on screen. And then of course, there are Colin and Hugh to admire.
I just finished another book that also looks at life from a woman's point of view: Heating & Cooling by Beth Ann Fennelly. This small book runs for only 107 pages and is made up of 52 micro-memoirs — many are only one or two sentences long while others are more fleshed out essays. They are at once humorous, wistful, and sometimes heartbreaking.
One essay recounts how one of her neighbor's exotic hens escaped and took up residence in Ms. Fennelly's yard and offered up an egg a day as rent. Another recalls, at age 8, how she and her father and sister slogged (thanks to the blizzard of '79) through the deep snow to church only to find the doors locked and Sunday Mass cancelled. Then there is the two-sentence report on the contents of a friend's freezer: a bottle of vodka and a dead cat in plastic wrap.
You'll just have to read the book to find out about that cat.
Ms. Fennelly teaches in the MFA program at the University of Mississippi in Oxford and is the state's poet laureate. That should give you an idea of the quality of writing here. There is not a dull verb anywhere. This is one to read again.
I love a book like this — brief memories captured and recorded. It reminded me of the late Amy Krouse Rosenthal's Encylopedia of an Ordinary Life (here). One of my favorites and another one to be savored.
What's new in your reading pile?
I was quite saddened to learn the other day of the death of Amy Krouse Rosenthal on March 13. She was 51. Amy was a writer of children's books, a maker of videos, a presenter of Ted Talks, and a Beckoner of the Lovely.
She also wrote two of my favorite books: Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life and Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal.
I so admired her generous spirit. I was inspired by her creativity and kindness. I am glad I got to know her through her words and actions and ideas. I feel as if I have lost a good friend.
Here is what I wrote in May 2015 upon my introduction to Amy.
******
I admit that I am as enthralled with the idea behind Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book as I am with the book itself.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is her memoir, of sorts, presented in the form of an encyclopedia...A-Z. So we have entries such as Answering Machines; Anxious, things that make me; Monopoly (like me, she hates the game); the relief of a Rainy Day; memories of a Red Gingham Tablecloth; and Writing Tools - hand, typewriter, computer - and what influence they may have on a writer's style.
There are plenty of entries detailing some of her quirks that I can identify with:
**She fantasizes about getting rid of everything in her closet except for an outfit or two.
**She not only eats when she is hungry, but also if she is worried that she will be hungry. For instance, if she determines she will be in the middle of watching a film at dinnertime, she grabs a sandwich before she goes to the theater, even though she is not yet hungry, to eliminate any future hunger discomfort.
**She returns again and again to the photo/bio of the author on the flap of a book she is enjoying.
I have done all those things.
The entries are almost all short which appeals to my diminishing attention span. I swear, I found myself laughing out loud at an entry, nodding my head in agreement at another, and getting misty-eyed at the next one.
It seems I am always on the quest for a way to record my life,
(see this post) and looking at it in the form of an encyclopedia certainly has its appeal.
Perhaps my first entry could be:
Encyclopedia - A word I learned to spell from a little ditty that was sung on Mickey Mouse Club. Jiminy Cricket taught us to chirp EN CY C LO PEDIA. To this day, I have to sing the letters to myself whenever I write or type the word.
And although Ms. Rosenthal didn't make an entry for Z, I would have to write:
Zero tolerance - for barking dogs, cigarette smoke, heat and humidity, rude service people, radio and television commercials, and magazine advertisements.
Anyway, I adored this book. And as I sometimes do, I fell in love with Amy (which is why I now feel obliged to call her by her first name). She would make a wonderful best friend! I found out more about her via a couple of her Ted Talks and her short films on YouTube.
She loves a bit of wordplay, watches out for synchronicity everywhere, and wants to save the world by Beckoning the Lovely.
She also has created a journal just for us - An Encyclopedia of Me: My Life from A to Z - so we can write our own record of an ordinary life.
Amy - woman to thank.
******
Textbook Amy Krouse Rosenthal is not so much a book as it is an experience. Oh, sure, it has a hardback cover, pages, and spine. But, as you read along you come to instructions to text a certain phone number to hear, among other delights, a recording of Amy reading a list of vocabulary words from a notebook she started in her twenties, three renditions of Humming Wine Glass, and the musical accompaniment to the final section of the book.
At one point she asks the reader to hop onto the book's website and write a few words about what he or she is doing at that very minute. She calls them Purple Flower Moments. I happened to be reading the book the other morning at two o'clock and did exactly that. You can read my contribution here along with those of other readers. Mine is titled 'The 2 a.m. miracle'.
The book, just released ten days ago, comes a decade after her Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life (that I wrote about here). I was crazy about that book and thought the idea of writing autobiographical sketches in the form of encyclopedia entries was brilliant. And I love how she dreams up projects that allow her to include and interact with strangers.
A sketch from Textbook
This 'textbook' is designed with nine subject headings including Geography, Social Studies, Math, and Music all of which give Ms. Rosenthal a chance to tie in her musings (loosely) with each division.
The book is full of her meditations and memories, incidences of coincidences, anagrams, mathematical formulas using words instead of numbers, an assortment of short essays, charts, blank pages, sketches, photos, and an effusion of other clever goings-on.
Like I say, this book is an experience. I hope it is one that you will share with Amy. And me as well.
I admit that I am as enthralled with the idea behind Amy Krouse Rosenthal's book as I am with the book itself.
Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life is her memoir, of sorts, presented in the form of an encyclopedia...A-Z. So we have entries such as Answering Machines; Anxious, things that make me; Monopoly (like me, she hates the game); the relief of a Rainy Day; memories of a Red Gingham Tablecloth; and Writing Tools - hand, typewriter, computer - and what influence they may have on a writer's style.
There are plenty of entries detailing some of her quirks that I can identify with:
**She fantasizes about getting rid of everything in her closet except for an outfit or two.
**She not only eats when she is hungry, but also if she is worried that she will be hungry. For instance, if she determines she will be in the middle of watching a film at dinnertime, she grabs a sandwich before she goes to the theater, even though she is not yet hungry, to eliminate any future hunger discomfort.
**She returns again and again to the photo/bio of the author on the flap of a book she is enjoying.
I have done all those things.
The entries are almost all short which appeals to my diminishing attention span. I swear, I found myself laughing out loud at an entry, nodding my head in agreement at another, and getting misty-eyed at the next one.
It seems I am always on the quest for a way to record my life,
(see this post) and looking at it in the form of an encyclopedia certainly has its appeal.
Perhaps my first entry could be:
Encyclopedia - A word I learned to spell from a little ditty that was sung on Mickey Mouse Club. Jiminy Cricket taught us to chirp EN CY C LO PEDIA. To this day, I have to sing the letters to myself whenever I write or type the word.
And although Ms. Rosenthal didn't make an entry for Z, I would have to write:
Zero tolerance - for barking dogs, cigarette smoke, heat and humidity, rude service people, radio and television commercials, and magazine advertisements.
Anyway, I adored this book. And as I sometimes do, I fell in love with Amy (which is why I now feel obliged to call her by her first name). She would make a wonderful best friend! I found out more about her via a couple of her Ted Talks and her short films on YouTube.
She loves a bit of wordplay, watches out for synchronicity everywhere, and wants to save the world by Beckoning the Lovely.
She also has created a journal just for us - An Encyclopedia of Me: My Life from A to Z - so we can write our own record of an ordinary life.
Amy - woman to thank.
