spynotes ::
  September 05, 2006
Stars upon thars

The houseguests have all gone. AJ and I were both feeling a little blue this morning. AJ was sad because his grandparents walked him to school and met him afterwards on Friday. �Who�s going to take me to school today?� he asked. It wasn�t really a question. But he�s understanding the sad face I drew on his calendar next to where I wrote �Bamma and Bop go home.�

I always feel sad when my mom and dad leave. They live too far away and I don�t see them often enough. But it feels a little worse this year, I think because I seem to know so many people with dying or recently deceased parents. I feel lucky that mine are relatively young and healthy, but it all makes me want to hang on a little more tightly.

Life always seems to go into a holding pattern when people are here, and now I must reapply myself with a vengeance. There�s a syllabus to finish, CDs to order, a dissertation to complete, mountains of laundry to wash, bills to pay. I�m feeling a little overwhelmed, which translates into a desperate desire for a nap. But I only have two hours before I had to get AJ, so no rest for the weary.

I did managed to finish Elizabeth Crane�s second collection of short stories, All this Heavenly Glory over the weekend (when life gets crazy, I tend to retreat into fiction). To call it a short story collection, doesn�t really describe it, nor is it a novel. It�s a kind of hybrid. Each story is about the same character, the (I presume) semi-autobiographical Charlotte Anne Byers (I think her first book of stories might all be about Charlotte Anne as well, but I haven�t seen it yet). In terms of story trajectory, it�s more short stories than a novel, in that a) the stories are not in chronological order and b) the attention to character development/growth over time takes place at the story level rather than book level. And yet there is also a certain amount of growth over time (once you sort out the chronology). I found myself wondering why she decided not to write a novel (although I�m not sure one needs a reason � as a writer, I find the story more appealing than the novel because it�s easier to control and to be experimental) and also why she decided to mix up the chronology in the particular way that she did.

I also wondered about how much of Crane�s quirky style is Crane and how much is Charlotte�s voice. I�ve never seen so many run-on sentences in one book, and yet it works, even the first story, which is a single colossal sentence long. Mostly the style worked, but it sometimes gets to be a little much. I tend to like my prose a little more spare � Charlotte is long-winded, not just because she has a lot to say, but because of the circuitous route she takes to saying it.

Mostly, though, Charlotte herself shines through. She�s a very appealing and appealingly flawed character. And I identified with her more than a little, particularly with her childhood incarnations. It was an interesting read. Also, since I have a morbid fascination with the bound-in book group guides, I read this one and it was the least excruciating I've seen to date. Well, the questions were still excruciating. But most of it consists of entertaining excerpts from Elizabeth Crane's blog. In any case, I had to finish something on my nightstand � two more books have been added to the collection this weekend. Pretty soon I�m going to have to hang the bedside lamp from the ceiling to make room. I�m fairly certain it�s a fire hazard.

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