Tragic Sandwich

Tag: Wicked

  • Book Talk: Books I Do Not Like

    Book Talk: Books I Do Not Like

    I read a lot. I’ve always read a lot. Over the course of the pandemic, one of the few things about myself I’ve been able to hold onto was reading. I’ve become a heavy user of the public library over the past three years, and I don’t see any reason for that to change. I’ll write more about that later, but for now, here are some books I don’t like.

    Wuthering Heights
    I resisted reading it because I hate every adaptation I’ve seen. These are not people I want to spend time with. Then someone suggested reading it not as a romance, but as a horror story. I still hated it. Also, I don’t read or watch horror, so that probably didn’t help the way that person thought it would. (I recently read an updated version by Alice Hoffman. Much as I love her work — she’s one of my favorite authors — I hated her take on the story, too.)

    Wide Sargasso Sea
    I have read this book twice. I still have no idea what happens. Jane Eyre has been a favorite of mine since 4th grade, and during a re-read several years ago, I was surprised to realize that I cannot stand Rochester; in fact, I vastly prefer the parts of the book that do not include him. But I just don’t get Rhys’s book at all.

    Play It as It Lays
    I want to write a post about my somewhat complicated feelings about Joan Didion’s work, but I’ll start here, with this book. I first read it in college and didn’t like it. The characters seemed incomprehensible to me. I have read it at least twice since then, on the grounds that my perspective may have changed. It has not. I still find the characters incomprehensible. (All of this also applies to Candace Bushnell’s Sex and the City, except that I was long out of college by the time that was written.)

    Wicked
    Mr. Sandwich and I saw the musical about 10 years ago. I liked it so much, I bought the CD at intermission. At a book swap, I picked up a copy of the novel. One of the other women said, making a face, “It’s really different from the play.” I thought I was okay with that. Turns out I was not. Oz was a weird place, but this world is mean and nasty. There are scenes that I just found gross, and completely unnecessary. There are long stretches in time that are hard to follow. The characters I found compelling on stage are flat in the book. I’m really, really sorry I let this book in my head.

    What books are you sorry you read, and why? Share away.

  • Books I Don’t Love

    This isn’t a list of books I hate, which would be led by Gregory Maguire’s Wicked. (I loved the musical, but there was not one thing I liked about that book–and I finished it just to see if there would be.)

    No, this is a list of books that are widely agreed to be excellent, and I just don’t care.

    Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. I’ve loathed every adaptation I’ve seen, and I only read the book after it was suggested that I might like it better if I read it as a horror story, rather than as a romance. I didn’t.

    The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I just can’t get into it, and I’ve tried more than once. I also tried Tender Is The Night with the same result. For my money, Fitzgerald–like Hemingway–is better at short stories. I’ll pass on the movie–particularly since I also don’t love Baz Luhrmann’s work. (Fun fact: If you want to excerpt, the Fitzgerald estate will only approve it if you have pulled your selection from specific editions, which they will identify by ISBN.)

    Play It As It Lays by Joan Didion. I do not get the appeal of this book. I didn’t get it when I first encountered it in college, and I didn’t get it several years ago when I re-read it after loving The Year of Magical Thinking.

    What about you? What books mystify you with their acclaim?

  • My First Books

    Come on. You know you want to. Everybody’s doing it.

    I’d say “enough with the bandwagon propaganda,” (Check that out–I remember something from eighth-grade English! But I don’t remember that teacher’s name, even though I always thought she was one of my best English teachers. Also, my favorite propaganda category title remains “glittering generalities.” But I digress.) except that you know you want to talk about books, too.

    Bookshelf porn

    So, with no further ado (adieu? adew? Punny options abound), here are my answers:

    First Book I Loved
    My mother would say that it was Mimi, the Merry-Go-Round Cat, because I had her read it to me so many times that she could still recite it when I was in my 30s. I’m going to go with The Secret of the Old Clock, because as a redhead I loved Nancy Drew (don’t tell me she started out as a blonde–that girl was a redhead), and because the most valuable shopping lesson I learned as a child was that when you go to Toys R Us, you will not get all the toys you want, but you will definitely be able to persuade your mother to buy you more books.

    Wait. I take that back. My fourth-grade teacher read A Christmas Carol to us, and I was so taken by it that I went home and told the story to my brother. From memory. Faulty memory. And had the poor judgement to record it on our then state-of-the-art toy piece of technology, the tape deck, so that my version could be replayed for years. But given that it made such a strong impression on me that I had to share it, maybe I should count this one.

    First Book I Hated
    I haven’t hated a lot of books. I mean, I outgrew Barbara Cartland’s formulaic (and tiny!) novels very quickly, and I did not enjoy Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire the way the friend who lent it to me hoped I would. So the book that comes to mind is one I read just a couple of years ago: Wicked. It’s very different from the musical (which I had seen and loved), but that’s not the problem. The problem is [WARNING: SPOILERS!] the pointless violence, the bestiality, and the lazy writing. The first two mean that I’m sorry I have this book in my brain, and the third means it was also a waste of my time.

    First Series I Read
    I’m going to have to go back to Nancy Drew here, except that it’s a series that never really ends. So I guess I’ll have to go with Susan Cooper’s “The Dark is Rising” series. I read them again recently, and remain impressed with them. Not everything holds up, but enough does.

    First Fantasy/Sci-Fi Book I Read
    It must have been The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, because I remember that my grandparents’ municipal library had sequels from that series that our library did not. Oh, wait, maybe this was my first series. Although I don’t think I read all of the Oz books–probably not even all of the Baum books.

    First Book That Made Me Cry From Laughing
    I think I’m going to have to go with Ginger on this one, although I think the first Bombeck I read was The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank. I read my mom’s copy when I was about nine, and although I didn’t get all of it, I knew it was damn funny.

    First YA Book I Read and Loved
    YA is a genre that confuses me. Is it for tweens and teens? About them? If it’s well-written, I don’t much care. So, um, Island of the Blue Dolphins, I guess? Or maybe The Witch of Blackbird Pond? I’m sorry. I’ve been reading for a long time now. I can’t remember all the details, particularly when it comes to sequence.

    First Horror Book I Read
    I remember a series of kids’ horror books that featured plots that focused on demons emerging from amulets or ouija boards or things like that, but I don’t remember the titles (they would precede R.L. Stine’s many “Goosebumps” books; yes, I am that old). Or maybe it was one of Lois Duncan’s many books? The first adult horror I read was Stephen King’s Night Shift, and “The Lawnmower Man” alone completely put me off the genre.

    First Book I Was Completely Obsessed With
    This is a tough one. But I’m going to go with The Black Stallion–which, now that I think about it, would also be a contender for First Series. When that movie came out, I could tell you every single plot point that differed from the book–to the point that my father said, “If all you’re going to do is complain about how it’s going to be different, I’m not going to take you to see it.” But we did, and I loved the movie on its own terms. And one of the perks of moving to San Antonio when I was 13 was that Cass Ole, the horse that played The Black, lived there, too. Although based on the story I told above, we may be looking at A Christmas Carol for this one, too.

    Wow. I’m long-winded, aren’t I? Now, what about your firsts?

    Photo by Queenie & the Dew, via Flickr.

  • Enchanted

    There Will Be Blood has been sitting on top of the TV for–I kid you not–two months. Clearly we are not maximizing our Netflix subscription.

    Or maybe we’re just not in the mood for drama. Enchanted has been here for less than 10 days, and this afternoon I watched it. Twice.

    It’s an adorable movie, and I’m really impressed with how well Disney made fun of itself. They did a great presentation of how insane the animated hair and costumes would look in the real world, and if New Yorkers ran into Giselle’s fairy-tale sensibilities, they’d be convinced she was crazy. The performances were spot on; Amy Adams is endearing as Giselle, and James Marsden makes the clueless, self-involved blowhard Prince Edward a surprisingly sympathetic character. Patrick Dempsey plays Robert as McExasperated, which works–I’m not a huge Patrick Dempsey fan, but I liked him here. And once again I’m sorry that I didn’t see Idina Menzel in Wicked when I lived back east. She doesn’t sing here, but she’s definitely got presence.

    By the way, if you get the chance, see Wicked. J got me tickets for Christmas, and we both loved it. But do not read the book, which is muddled and kind of gross.

    I’m not sure what we’ll wind up doing with the rest of the evening. But I’ll bet it won’t involve watching There Will Be Blood.