Never Have I Ever Been Stuck in Purgatory

Tags

books, fantasy, fiction, literature, Marisha Pessl, Neverworld Wake, reading, wine, young adult

And that’s a great thing because Marisha Pessl’s vision of an infinite time-loop, like some sort of hellscape-Groundhog’s Day on the bougie New England coast, sounds like my worst nightmare.

Neverworld Wake is a wild ride. It starts out very casual; 19 year Beatrice, still coming to grips with her boyfriend’s death the previous year, seeks closure and answers from the four friends she abandoned when Jim died. It ratchets into overdrive pretty quickly once she arrives at the estate where they’re all spending the night (yes, moneyed teenagers, this is still a thing).

Once at Wincroft, we’re introduced to a highly unlikely cast, complete with eccentric names (Cannon, Wit, Kipling, Martha. Honestly it’s bizarre that Bee’s dead love interest who is supposed to be so extraordinary has the most banal name). It’s awkward and no one wants to talk but they go out anyway. In a typical case of underage drunk driving, their convertible Jaguar careens off the road on a rain drenched Cape Cod cliff face.

Twist: They live! Kind of.

Twist: They’re all dead! Kind of.

They’re actually condemned to a rift in time called a Neverworld. They will live the same day over and over until they can unanimously vote on which one of them should live.

Pessl sets up each character to have both ghastly flaws and stunning virtues, and interweaves these qualities with the slowly unfolding story of how Jim died. Beatrice is convinced that discovering the truth will somehow help the whole group to navigate their way out of the Neverworld but the problem is that there doesn’t seem to be just one version of the story.

Through the book, the characters experience a macabre spectrum of madness. They get depressed, sometimes suicidal (but of course they’re already dead). They experiment with self harm, harming others, drugs, alcohol, heists, and holdups. When I wrote a blurb for my bookstore I said that this book made me want to hold up Gatsby on a party yacht then dive deep into a metaphorical ocean. This whole novel glitters darkly with the ways that money just exacerbates normal teenage problems and doesn’t shy from the fact that even young people can be driven to terrible lengths.

I don’t want to risk spoiling anything, so I’ll just say that I honestly didn’t see the ending coming and I was surprised over and over with each new shift in reality the characters faced. Though it’s categorized as YA, I think Neverworld Wake is a fun and fast paced read for lovers of speculative fic in all age groups.

The wine pairing for this one was tough but we eventually settled on something bubbly with just a little grit.

Face Nord is a Pehu Simonet Brut Grand Cru (none of these words mean anything to me guys, that’s why my sister picks the wines).

Haling from vineyards on the north-facing slope of the Montagne de Reims. The Pinot Noir aromas of this champagne lead to a highly vinous palate; round yet glossy and salty, with a ton of potential that tastes just like the wasted youth of Pessl’s cast of characters.

Drink up, read up, and enjoy!

Florida by Lauren Groff

Tags

books, feminism, Lauren Groff, literature, marriage, reading, review, short fiction, wine, women

In this new collection of short stories, Lauren Groff perfectly captures a sense of always present dread. An insidiously vague feeling that something isn’t right, like the first prickle of sweat when the Florida heat hits you after leaving an air-conditioned room, sits tightly coiled amidst its pages. Set against a backdrop of impending ecological disaster and contrasted by Florida’s irrepressible wildlife, this book is held together by quiet rage and biological anxiety.

Though there is a host of fascinating characters, including a pair of abandoned sisters, a professor turned homeless drifter, and the lonely son of a herpetologist, they are only the chorus that surrounds an unnamed wife and mother. She stands tall in this collection, a steel-edged woman who is filled with restless anger. I identify with her more than is probably healthy. She coldly relates unspeakable truths about motherhood, like our unshakable fear that our children will die but also our unacceptable resentment for their disruption of our lives. It’s a balancing act of burdens that I think most mothers experience.

She is frightened of her children, because now that they’ve arrived in the world she has to stay here for as long as she can but not longer than they do.

She walks in the morning to clear her head, and walks at night when she can see glimpses of life through the lit windows of her neighbor’s houses. She walks when she’s angry, when her skin itches, when everything seems small and inevitable in the face of our planet’s grim circumstances. Whether she’s alone or in a room full of people, she can’t reconcile who she is on the inside with what people expect her to be on the outside.

I see the mothers I know in glimpses, bent like shepherdess crooks, scanning the floor for tiny legos or half-chewed grapes or the people they once were, slumped in the corners.

Each story in Florida reveals another facet of marriage, of loneliness, of survival, of womanhood. It’s filled with snakes and stalked by a slouching panther, sinkholes open under your feet without warning. I was particularly moved by the story “The Midnight Zone” which features most prominently the panther that graces the book’s cover. In it, the mother character is camping with her two sons when she sustains a head injury. She fights to stay conscious while they wait for help to come, certain that if she falls asleep the worst thing is not that she could die. The worst thing is that the panther they’ve heard is in the camp could come in and kill her boys.

The anxiety and fear that seep out of this story so accurately represent our physical tie to our children, our bone deep knowledge that we’re the only thing standing in the way of harm. But it is also the insidious truth that even we, even mothers, cannot always protect them. While she struggles to stay awake, her youngest son rubs a lock of her hair against his lips (she tells us he did this when he nursed as a baby), and it rekindles in her a primal tenderness that is too raw to speak of. Imagine then, that in this same book a woman leaves her daughters behind and never looks back. That, too, is a raw, forbidden truth.

She buries her failure in this, as she buries all her failures, in reading.

Whether I was reading about a woman with more ghosts than living lovers, or a childless couple that haven’t realized their marriage is over, I was sucked into the dense humidity of their lives. This collection is deeply human and deeply female, and I know will spend a long time absorbing its many, fluid layers.

Pair Florida with a wine that will match its intensity and complexity and will coax you to discover its hidden secrets. My sister Alicia, fabulous artist and wine connoisseur, has chosen the Alma Negra M Blend for it’s earthy richness and dark aesthetic.

Winemaker’s Notes:

“Alma Negra means “Black Soul”, because the color of the wines made from the bonarda grape is deep and intense. The first wines made, which were all reds, had a real “black soul” when you saw them in the glass. Ernesto Catena, the owner of Ernesto Catena Vineyards in Argentina, also wanted to create a wine about which little was known, the composition or technical details, so that the wine was judged solely on how the taster perceived it. When the line was launched in 2006, the wines were named Misterio, and the mask on the label was a symbol for a hidden identity or mystery.”

Tasting Notes from Alicia:

“Shows elegant notes of spice aromas, violets and mature blueberries. The palate has a great body, powerful but balanced. The secrets of this blend incite enjoyment without revealing itself. Dense, dark and tasty, intriguing aromas of black fruit, coffee and a wonderful earthy smell. On the palate, it flows smoothly with rounded tannins, complete and lasting for a long time with echoes of ripe cooked fruit.”

Crazy Rich Asians Take Center Stage

Wayfarer by Alicia Giuffrida

When I was twelve or thirteen I remember having a conversation with my mom about an old movie that she found indescribably dull. I can’t remember exactly what movie it was but I have a vague impression that it was some sort of period piece or historical fiction featuring lots of brocade. She told me it was too long and too boring but, “Oh, it was a feast for the eyes”.

What an expression, so vividly visual itself! Let thine eyes feast!

She used other words like “opulent” and “stunning”, and from that I acquired a residual etching on my retinas of extreme wealth. As a woman whose favorite color is glitter, I wanted to see that feast.

If you have hungry eyes, and I’m sure you do, I’ve got a book (actually two) for you. Kevin Kwan’s Crazy Rich Asians and China Rich Girlfriend are nothing if not a four course dinner of extravagance and ostentatiously bourgeois indulgence. In this series, Kwan follows the lives of several members of the “Asian jetset” and one haplessly middle class girl, Rachel, who—quite accidentally—has hooked one of Singapore’s most eligible bachelors. The story follows their courtship during a visit to Singapore to visit family.

Said bachelor, Nick, is a college professor living in New York and just happens to belong to a family that is so old, so venerable, so filthy-stinking-rich, that their entire Singaporean estate doesn’t officially exist. The estate, which is roughly the size of Central Park, doesn’t even appear on Google Earth, it’s just a blank on the map. Let that sink in a moment. What kind of people have enough money and sway to live off the grid on an island as small as Singapore?

As all good satire and beachy reads are, Kwan’s two books are punchy, hilarious and packed with delicious melodrama. The main plot takes us on a ride as Nick’s scheming mother competes with her son’s stubborn love in an effort to separate him from Rachel. And all of that is set against the backdrop of Singapore’s most notable and lavish wedding in the island’s history, a marriage between Nick’s best friend Colin (very wealthy) and the international model Araminta (about to be even wealthier).

The cast of characters is more colorful than a room full of peacocks and not a single one disappoints. He gives us everything from the stereotypical, rich, self-obsessed heiresses that populate such novels as The Great Gatsby (obviously modern, but just as shallow) all the way to a Hong Kong starlet, Kitty Pong, who shows her former life as a porn star with her increasingly lewd outfits and behavior.

It’s hard to say what I enjoyed most about the books. I was deeply fascinated by the varied cultures represented in the story and the way they interact; I actually listened to these on Audible so I got to experience all the accents, including a heavily prevalent British accent. Why British? Well because all the “good” families send their children to good British schools and then they go on to good British universities, of course. The first book opens with Nick’s aunt purchasing the most expensive hotel in London because the racist maître d’ wouldn’t honor her reservation. Just buys it. Just, without a second thought, buys a multi-million (billion?) dollar business. If that isn’t posh, I don’t know what is.

What really sold me though is Kwan’s language. He leaves no glittering stone unturned, treating the readers to such sumptuous descriptions of luxury and profligate materialism that you truly feel like you are looking, with your actual eyes, at the gorgeous scenery surrounding his nutty cast. As anyone who knows me can tell you, nothing does it for me like words and Kwan doesn’t disappoint. Not one opportunity to lavishly drape words on the page is bypassed; every croissant, every Asian delicacy, and every haute couture garment is given the royal linguistic treatment. It’s a feast for the eyes, I devoured every single word with eager hunger. The sweet cherry on top? Humor. Kwan’s sharp eye for comedy and the absurd is 100% delicious.

Crazy Rich Asians deserves a wine as far out in left field as they are. Cue “A Proper Claret”, a Cabernet-based blend from California, christened as such using the age-old British term for Bordeaux. Founder of Bonny Doon Vineyard, Randall Grahm has long been considered the mad scientist of the California wine scene, known not only for his pioneering work with Rhone varietals but also for his whimsical and (sometimes) wacky labeling. With tongue firmly in cheek, A Proper Claret exhibits notes of black fruit and plum on the nose and palate with hints of cocoa and violet, ending in a well-balanced finish with hints of cedar tannin.

Wine pairing courtesy of Alicia Giuffrida,  CSM and Wine Director of Gallery of Wines where you can purchase “A Proper Claret”.

My Slow Regard of a Sometimes Sadness

Tags

Auri, Blandy, books, depression, joy, Kvothe, literature, Madeira, Malmsey, mental illness, Patrick Rothfuss, sadness, The Kingkiller Chronicle, wine

Cathedral by Alicia Giuffrida

Sometimes you meet a book at just the right time.

I have long been a fan of Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicle, a heroic fantasy series that tells the story of Kvothe, a man who has “talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.” This blog isn’t about him.

This blog is about Auri, whose story is told in The Slow Regard of Silent Things, a novella following the second Kingkiller installment.

Auri knows the way of the world, she knows the right and proper way of doing things. She knows better than to do what isn’t right. Auri is a young girl with more hair than physical substance; she is perhaps insane, perhaps OCD, perhaps lonely.

This is where I have to be honest with you: I thought figuring out what is wrong with her was the reason to read her story. But it’s not. I started out wondering, “Why does she wash her face and hands and feet so much? Why must she place everything just so? Do inanimate objects really speak to her?”

None of that matters.

I met Auri at the right time.

Depression is a weird thing to experience. Where does it come from? Why does it go away? Like most people, I get depressed sometimes. It’s like wading through a vat of cornstarch, heavy and viscous. And also not. That’s the problem. I can’t describe it and I can’t say why it comes or goes. I only know that when it’s here I resign myself to waiting it out and hoping it won’t be too long.

I picked up Auri’s story during just such a time, a waiting time. It didn’t make the depression go away but Rothfuss’ rhythmic, poetic prose struck a bell in my heart. A pure, tonal resonance that reverberated in my ribs.

Auri does everything a certain way so that she can remain in control of herself and her surroundings, she knows how fragile the world is, how fragile she is. She is broken, but she understands that broken is not shattered. She knows what a look entails, the graceful way to move, and the angry dark (those are all chapter titles, take a moment to enjoy the brilliance of them). More importantly, she knows that when all her carefulness doesn’t work and her world spins out of orbit that, eventually, something will set it to rights. Oftentimes it’s something that doesn’t make a particular kind of sense and that’s okay.

And I guess that’s what I needed. I needed to know that someone else had felt the earth tip sideways and panicked, that someone else surrendered a day to weeping because nothing else can be done on such a day. That’s a whole chapter, it doesn’t even have a page number. Just look at it for a second. It knocked the breath from my chest.

What is most striking about Auri is the persistent thread of joy that strings her days together. She lives in a hard world (don’t we all?) and the pieces of her life, the pieces of her, sometimes slip, but she knows that when it comes back together she should smile. That when something delightfully unexpected happens, she should laugh even if two minutes ago she never thought she could laugh again.

I don’t know if Auri is all of us, but she is at least part of me. Rothfuss himself admits to being self-conscious of this story, and I too am self-conscious of writing about it because I’m not sure if other people will understand Auri. Here is a character I instinctively wish to protect, she is precious and wise and I can’t stand the thought of anyone hurting her. She tries not to be selfish, she tries to be right, she trusts that she’ll survive, even when she isn’t sure how.  I feel like her. I want things to be right, I want to be good; I want to be content and not wicked or greedy, as she might say.

I realize I’ve said very little about the story. Plot isn’t always the point, heretical as that may be. If you have read the Kingkiller books but shied from this short fiction because it isn’t the book you’re waiting for (yeah, yeah, we all want Book 3), shove that aside and read The Slow Regard of Silent Things. It matters. Auri matters. This is a small and enlightening adventure that left me so hollow and so full. You deserve to experience it too.

Mr. Rothfuss, I’m raising this toast to you. Thank you for writing something brave and quiet and needed. You were afraid this book wouldn’t be suitable for publication but I’m so glad Vi Hart and your agent and publisher assured you otherwise. I hope Auri will always remind me that I am right where I ought to be.

Today’s pairing is a Blandy’s Madeira 5 Year Old Malmsey:

Produced using rigorous traditions that date back hundreds of years, the sweetest Madeiras are made from the rich Malmsey grape. After vinification, the wine is aged in American oak casks in the traditional ‘Canteiro’ system. The wine is heated gently in a lodge and transferred over the years from the lofts, to the middle floor and finally to the ground floor. This gradual aging and cooling process is called estufagem and seems fittingly reminiscent of Auri’s travels through the Underthing.

Just as Auri exhibits enduring and quirky character, so to, does Madeira.

This wine exhibits a golden brown color with a rich and nutty aroma. The palate is full-bodied with richly textured notes of spice, dried fruit and toffee, beautifully balanced on the finish with fresh acidity.

As always, I thank Alicia Giuffrida, CSM and Wine Director of Gallery of Wines, for providing the cover art and perfect wine pairing. The art below can be found in the book.

Book illustration by Nate Taylor

Fates and Furies, A dichotomy of tragedy

Tags

art, books, carmenere, chardonnay, Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff, literature, reading, tragedy, wine

A slash of red lipstick in a pale face.

That’s the image that cemented Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff in my mind as a novel of poetic significance. That image is so visceral, so vivid, almost violent, that I knew I wanted to know the girl who wore rouge like a wound and the man who loved her for it.

Fates and Furies, the story of a marriage between two extraordinary people, is a tale of duality. It brings into sharp focus the contrast between the surface of a person’s life and the real meat that lies beneath. This book is, without any question in my mind, a Greek tragedy in the most classic sense of the word.

Lancelot “Lotto” Satterwhite, the first-born son of a wealthy southern family narrates the first half of the book, Fates. Groff paints him as a young prince, practically a demi-god, raised by his fervently religious mother to be aware of his own genius. So here he is, our royal, tragically flawed hero blessed by luck and dogged by fate. We spend a few hundred pages glossing over 40 or so years with him, and it’s very literary and comments nicely on the steady progression of a modern life. To be honest, Lotto is one of the most annoyingly optimistic characters I’ve ever crossed paths with. What makes him interesting (and this is part of what make Groff such a masterful writer) is the way a series of traumatizing events in his teen years deepens and mellows his otherwise glowing personality.

Mathilde Yoder, who was also born with a name she doesn’t use, is the dark mirror of Lotto’s life. While he tells us his story with a hazy, golden gentleness that is only sweeter for the bumps and brushes with depression and suicide, Mathilde’s own life remains mysterious, even to her husband. But he doesn’t think much of it. It can almost be argued that he doesn’t think much at all—he doesn’t have to. His life is one of privilege and his wife guards it ferociously.

While Mathilde is almost certainly the more compelling character, she isn’t what I would call a literary darling. Once we delve into her half, Furies, we are dropped into a bottomless well of tenacity, loneliness and, somewhere deep down in the dark, shame. Where Lotto is a lucky duck in a big pond of possibilities, Mathilde is a spider, carefully weaving the path of her life and always looking out for both prey and enemies. She has reason to be this way. She suffers through an isolated childhood, bounced between increasingly incompetent caretakers, until she eventually pays her way through college by being the live-in Sub of an artistic and elegant man. She only escapes when she marries Lotto, a calculated move in her ceaseless game of chess.

Reading through this book, I often found myself thinking, “How can this get worse? What else could possibly happen?” Because even though the balance of their 24-year marriage is happy (and at times mundane), it’s impossible to look back and not see the craggy, sharp-edged obstacles standing out like Greek ruins. I looked back on Lotto and Mathilde’s life together and I marveled that two people could be so intimate, so close, and yet never know each other. That even something as singular as marriage, could be so separate.

To get you through this harrowing, poetic, tragic and (morbidly) fascinating novel, I recommend two bottles of wine, one for Lotto, and one for Mathilde. God knows you’ll definitely need both.

For Lotto, pick up a bottle of Baileyana Firepeak Chardonnay:

This chardonnay from the Edna valley exhibits bright notes of pear, lemon and pineapple with layers of minerality and bright acidity. Just as Lotto is tempered and shaped by certain events in his life, this wine’s fruit-driven palette is balanced by toasted oak and hints of vanilla on the finish.

For Mathilde’s tendency towards deceit and hidden secrets, Concha Y Toro Marques De Concha Carmenere is an excellent choice:

Once mistaken for Merlot in Chile, this grape of French origin produces a wine deep and dark in color. This bottling exhibits aromas of black fruit and pepper with notes of blackberry, dark chocolate and vanilla on the palette, with well-integrated oak and voluptuous, fine-grained tannins on the finish.

Wine pairing provided by Alicia Giuffrida, CSW, Wine Director of Gallery of Wines

The painting above is December Frost by Alicia Giuffrida, prints found here.

I Can Hear Wedding Bills!

Tags

Bride Wars, champagne, diamond ring, engagement, fairy tale, Father of the Bride, film, literature, marriage, purity, retail, stress, The Wedding Planner, tradition, wedding planning, weddings, white, wine

This is a picture of the cookies my sister-in-law made for my engagement party last year! So cute!

Before I begin the main point of this post I would like to note that I dictated this text to my computer using the Dragon Naturally Speaking software. I did this while watching figure skating with my mother who made certain to tell me that I sound like an angry robot and it creeps her out. However, I cannot give this program a higher recommendation. It really works and makes few errors despite my lispy, angry robot voice.

Ahem.

I’m getting married in June, just a short five months from now. This happy occasion is proving to be the singularly most stressful event of my life. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting this. Foolish mortal.

My fiancé and I got engaged just before my final semester of college and planned for a leisurely year and a half engagement. During that last semester I completed my senior capstone, a project in which I used film to break down the American Big White Wedding. I analyzed several wedding movies (Father of the Bride, Bride Wars, The Wedding Planner etc.) to estimate costs of various wedding elements, what pitfalls a bride might run afoul of and I pursued the big question of why? Why do we mark and celebrate marriage in this lavish way? As a side note, my favorite scene out of everything I watched was from the original Father of the Bride starring Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor. At one point in the film, Tracy and his wife hold an engagement party for Taylor’s impending nuptials and he spends the entire time preparing mixed drinks for the guests who are not happy to drink the pitchers of martinis he had prepared in advance. Consequently, he runs through his private stock of high quality liquor and is unable to give his carefully written speech. This is hilarious and also disheartening because it starts to reveal the backwards priorities of modern wedding planning.

I bring this up mostly because I cannot escape it. Today, I helped a young couple from Boston who were enjoying a day off together. After we completed their shopping and were ringing up the purchase the young woman noticed my ring. It started the usual questions: When are you getting married? Where is the reception? Aren’t you so excited? And then she leans in close and whispers, “Has anyone ever offered you a free makeover and day of pampering? I’m a Mary Kay artist and I’d love to give you a wedding day look and $25 of free products.” Lady, I know a sales pitch when I hear one. I work in retail. The problem here isn’t that she was trying to drum up business under the false pretense of a free makeover. The problem is that weddings are no longer the celebration of the sacred union. They have become a consumer driven marketplace judged by the designer of the bride’s dress and the artisan cupcakes served at the reception.

Movies like Bride Wars exemplify this obsession with the retail value of a wedding. Both brides crave a June wedding at the Plaza. They consider white glove service, Vera Wang gowns and enlist the help of NYC’s most sought-after wedding planner. Pair this sort of movie with the hundreds of romance novels that end with big, fancy, outlandish weddings and you get a recipe for insanity. Every teenage girl and twenty-something in America dreams of Prince Charming (enter generic, too perfect male model here) showing up on a white horse to give her a white dress to wear to their extravagant white wedding. And when I say white, I’m not really talking about the racial stereotype, although that is worth considering; I mean the whole purity and virginity thing. If you think that this tradition isn’t important to modern women then you are sorely mistaken. Even if it isn’t literally true of most couples in this generation, brides still want the illusion and the representation of a new beginning. And if Say Yes to the Dress is anything to judge by, brides will shell out thousands of dollars to make their childhood dreams a reality.

At this point I find myself wondering why champagne is the wedding drink of choice rather than vodka.

I suppose what bothers me so much about all of this is the fact that I feel like my engagement ring is just a big dollar sign to some people. My ring is beautiful and my fiance put a lot of thought into it, but If one more strange woman walks into my store and tries to pry into my wedding (and this will happen, worry not) I’m going to tell her that the stones are paste and they represent my forever commitment to my 27 cats. Cheers.

Tonight’s wine pairing is provided by Alicia Giuffrida, CSW. I love this because the wine in question comes in gorgeous pink and blue mini-bottles complete with sippy straws which could not be more appropriate for brides-to-be and those who must deal with them.

Pommery Pop! Champagne

“Extra Dry (Cerulean Blue) – with notes of baked apples and pastry this is an elegant take on a more easy going,  traditional style

Rose (Pink!) – a fresh bouquet of strawberry and candied rose petals make this sparkler a shoe-in for the hip and trendy crowd

These perfectly portioned, single serve champagnes, complete with straws, are made for convenient consumption and minimal lipstick smudging.”

Bad Romance: Get that sexy face over here

Tags

50 Shades of Grey, bad boy, books, Christian Grey, E. L. James, Edward Cullen, Elizabeth Bennet, feminism, good girl, happy endings, Jane Austen, literature, marriage, Mr. Darcy, Pride and Prejudice, romance, Stephanie Meyer, Twilight, wine, women

“I really like him, but I also want to call security on him.”

Ah, the modern woman’s dilemma. What is romance without a little danger?

What is it that has made ‘bad boys’ so very attractive to ‘good girls’? I could speculate some theories, but I think it will be more efficient to take a look at some well-known literary heart throbs.

Let’s start with the most harmless:

Mr. Darcy

Handsome, rich and utterly devoid of charm. And yet, we (and Elizabeth Bennet) inevitably find ourselves sighing over him, pining for him, reaching out with desperate and lunatic cries for him. We find it totally satisfying that Elizabeth is able to put aside her own prejudice (or is it pride?) and pierce his moody cloud of pompous self-importance. So what’s the problem? They end up married, no serious emotional scarring occurs and we all rest assured that Fitzwilliam and his bride go on to lead a passionately normal life together. The problem is that hatred turned love is not the healthiest way to begin a relationship. Why do we find his cold indifference so appealing? Perhaps I am speaking too broadly, perhaps not all female readers feel their hearts flutter in anticipation when Darcy stalks into a room. But, as I said he is not the worst romantic lead out there and the classics are sadly not as widely read as more popular fiction. At this point I would talk about Heathcliff, but I’m afraid it’s been too long since I last read Wuthering Heights to make any compelling arguments. All I can remember from AP English is his seriously gross marriage to Isabella and that time he beat his head against a tree screaming Catherine’s name into the night. How their romance is considered to be one of the greatest in classic literature is beyond me.

*I am NOT saying that the following two novels are in any way comparable to the fabulous work of Miss Austen*

Edward Cullen

Yes, I read the Twilight series. Am I proud of it? No. Did I enjoy it? Unfortunately. Edward Cullen is arguably the wimpiest bad boy of literature. He sparkles, for one, and his whole self-hatred shtick got really old really fast. Yet we cannot ignore that he is, in fact, dangerous because of his burning desire to drink human blood. Vampire novels have seen a rise in popularity over the last decade but there has always been sexual tension where this mythological creature is concerned. Necks (where the jugular is conveniently located) are sensual, hot blood rushing through your veins is sensual, and in Edward’s case, immortality is glamorous and desirable (especially to our youth-obsessed culture). Bella wants it all, wants him, despite the danger association with Edward causes. How many times does she almost die? And let us not forget the wedding night festivities that manifest in huge bruises, torn pillows and broken furniture. I’m sorry, but Edward is controlling, vindictive, possessive and in some ways abusive. That doesn’t stop thousands of teenage girls from declaring themselves “Team Edward” and fantasizing about undead superheroes. Anyway, same idea as Darcy in the long run. Edward turns out to be a really nice guy, marries Bella, pulls her ‘up’ to his level of immortality and they live happily ever after. Gag me. Boyfriends like Edward (minus the necrophilia) exist and they don’t usually come with a guaranteed happy ending. The true danger of Edward Cullen is the appeal he grants to other men of his particular personality type. Which leads me to….

Christian Grey

I know these are two male characters who have been beat to death but I have to go here. I have to because I have read good erotica and 50 Shades of Grey isn’t it. An unpopular statement to be sure. He has sultry eyes and wears clean cut masculinity well; he has a sexy grip on control and we just ache to heal his wounds. Whatever. So, let’s talk about BDSM. It is a totally valid kink and if I had the time or energy I would pull up some statistics about how many real life couples at least practice light bondage activities in the bedroom. This is all fine and can be an enjoyable aspect of a healthy sex life with a trusted partner. The problem I have with Christian Grey is that seriously disturbing contract of his, his host of mommy issues (and here’s to you Mrs. Robinson, Jesus loves you more than you could know), and his god complex. Also, all that drivel about the submissive’s safety and wellbeing is nonsense because her happiness is never mentioned and she herself admits to being scared witless of his “Red Room of Pain”. Actually, I really hated the book and I feel no shame in admitting that no, I did not read the last two and I hate them anyway. BECAUSE THEY END UP MARRIED AND LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER. Hi ladies, the emotionally damaged guy who gets off on hitting you rarely turns out to be a charming billionaire who turns his life around and gives you a life of luxury and steamy sex for the rest of forever.

Are we noticing a pattern? Bay boy turns out to not be so bad and gets safely trapped into marriage while the good girl got to be a little naughty but didn’t get burned. That’s why we love the bad boys of fiction. They are completely unlike their real life counter parts because in real life the bad boys are bad news and bad things can happen. Even if he’s just cold and kind of mean, I’m sure you can find better out there; it’s not your responsibility to change him. I would go into ‘Why do women like to be hurt by men they love?’ but that’s a whole other can of worms. If you want a good novel that explores BDSM in an introspective and gorgeous way read Kushiel’s Dart by Jaqueline Carey. It’s a hulking fantasy novel full of danger, adventure, steamy bits and Carey’s excellent world building.

I toast these made-up men with a nice glass of Porto Krohn. It has nice blood-red color, just a hint of sweetness and a sensual flavor that will leave you aching for more. I will end on this: Enjoy those fictional bad boys, because who doesn’t like to be a bit weak in the knees now and then? But, be wary of the bad boys out here. Any romance can be thrilling. Life is only as boring as you make it.

A Short Introduction

Tags

books, John Irving, literature, retail, Stark Raving Red, wine, writing

One of the gorgeous things about working in the utterly mundane world of retail is the people you meet. Take, for instance, the old woman who approached me late one Saturday evening to tell me about her favorite serial killers. She was carrying a Norwegian advertisement book. How do I know it was Norwegian? I don’t, but it had Euro symbols all over it and the models were pale and blonde. I figured it was a safe assumption. She came to my cashwrap, laid the magazine on the counter, pointed to the attractive girl on the cover and queried, “Don’t you think she has a brother?”

I had expected a question about sweaters, or where the ladies room could be found. I had no answer for this particular inquiry. Apparently that didn’t bother her because she continued with, “Yeah. Yeah, her brother is that airline pilot. The one who killed all those women.”

“Excuse me?” By which I mean PLEASE go bother someone else Crazy Lady.

“Yes. I quite liked him,” She quickly flipped to the back page which featured cologne bottles shaped like limbless-man torsos. “And the man who makes these, he cuts women up. Into pieces. Like my mother. Mmhmm. Just like that fabric mill in Connecticut. I have a shirt covered with the newspaper clippings of all the serial killers in Oregon. They’re terrible stories. Terrible. I wear it to remind me of who I can trust.”

She gave me a long, piercing look. “The more you know…” She said, nodded, and walked away. Just away, out of the store, out into the mall without ever looking at a single piece of merchandise. Why was she in the store at all? Why did she stop at my counter, one of five on that floor? The world may never know, but I will always carry that moment of surreal unreality with me. 

It had a literary feel to it; like something out of a John Irving novel. I could well imagine his iconic character Garp running into a woman like this. We would then have to sit through six pages of introspective reflections on sanity, but you get my point. Sometimes real life feels like book life. Which is one of things this blog is about. My fiance claims that instead of facing my problems I read books. And he’s right; I’m a guilty stress reader. Well why not? In his film Shadowlands, William Nicholson wrote, “We read to know we’re not alone”. Books make me feel less alone, even when I’m not actively reading. Literature lives and occasionally breathes out characters into the real world. As a struggling writer trying to get a career off the ground, I find these wrinkles in my everyday life invaluable and, ironically, they keep me sane.

Tonight’s wine pairing is Stark Raving Red, an excellent and fairly inexpensive red blend that a friend introduced to me. So sit back, sip back, let go of the confines of reality, and write something.

~J