Let's Talk Nebraska

Last weekend, the hubby and I rented the Oscar-nominated film Nebraska. I'd seen a little bit about it before Oscar season broke out into full swing. I decided I really wanted to watch it for a couple of reasons: 1) I like just about everything director Alexander Payne has put out there (Hello? Sideways or About Schmidt, anyone!), 2) I'm from the Midwest, from a town very similar to the one depicted in Nebraska (only smaller, if you can imagine that) and I went to college in Nebraska, and 3) I just don't think the modern-day Midwest gets highlighted enough in films.

When I first heard about the film, it was being discussed among a group of friends. One woman in the group, who spent a majority of her life living in the actual state of Nebraska, vehemently denounced the movie altogether. She had no intention of ever seeing the film. At first, I thought it might be because of the film rating (R, for language), but then after watching Nebraska I think it was for a more specific reason. I think she viewed Nebraska as akin to the Holy Land with only hard-working saints living there. In other words, she believed that Nebraska would be portrayed poorly.

Not so, my friends!

I'd have to say I loved every minute of it because, in my opinion, Payne hit the nail on the head when it comes to families such as the one portrayed in Nebraska. Payne, himself, is from Nebraska, so who better to do the storyline justice than he.

Here's a little rundown on what goes on in the film:

Woody Grant, an aging alcoholic and perhaps suffering from early Alzheimer's, sets out almost weekly to claim his million dollars waiting for him in Lincoln, Nebraska. Only problems are that he can't drive and he lives in Montana. To appease his father, even though he knows the "sweepstakes" is a scam, Woody's estranged son David agrees to drive him down to Lincoln. Along the way, they get caught up with family in Hawthorne, Nebraska, where David learns more about his father than in all the years when he was growing up.

It's a sad, yet bittersweet story about family. Watching it, you realize that there were so many problems lying just below the surface of this family, waiting to come to light when the time was right. Woody's a man with long-suppressed demons, but it's David's connection to his father that twists, turns, and in the end grows into a final act of love. Even if it only means taking a drive down the center of town. Holding a lifelong grudge because someone is unwilling to sacrifice for you, only hurts you. Letting go and finally sacrificing for that other individual without accepting payment in return is sometimes the one thing you have to do. This is what David comes to realize about his father.

You may have watched Nebraska and all the while were asking yourself, "Do people really live and act like this?" The short answer is yes. Let me point out a few things about Woody and David's family that was readily recognizable with my own:

Woody and David searching for that "borrowed" tool.

• Old men really do sit around talking about random things, like a car one of them owned once upon a time. I've been to those family reunions and have heard those conversations. And I've been down to the local diner/convenience store, which is filled with old men discussing the most random things.
• There is the occasional relative who likes to sit alongside the road in the evenings and watch none of the traffic that goes by. Ours was, and still is, the front porch for our family. Usually while shelling peas or pitting cherries. Believe me, not much happens on my parents' street back home.
• People really do go and pay respects in cemeteries even if no one has recently died. It's just what you do. I still do it when I go back for a visit. We'll be driving down a country road somewhere and my mother will say, "Do you know so-and-so is buried there? Let's stop by." And the next thing I know I'm standing over the grave of some unknown great aunt I never knew I had. My mother tells me her life story and introduces us like it's about time we met, probably hoping we could have coffee and bologna and butter sandwiches with the lady.
• There's always a black sheep in the family, and that black sheep still usually lives at home (or thereabouts) and everyone acts like the sexual assault/robbery/drug bust never happened. Although, I must say my mother has warned us over the years of who to steer clear.
• Everyone pretty much drives an American-made car. Here's why: Where I grew up, the only local dealerships were Ford and GM. If you wanted any other type of vehicle you had to go to the city, sixty miles away. No local mechanic really worked on foreign cars, so if your city-bought car broke down, guess how far you'd have to drive to get it fixed?
• Finally, you'd be surprised at the brazenness of neighbors if you weren't used to it. The guy across the street could borrow your lawnmower, never return it, and he'd still come over all the time to talk to you. It goes the other way, too. Vegetables tend to get left quite often on doorsteps. It's like Mayday all summer long. I should know. My parents are one of those neighborly donators. 

Like anyplace in America, the Midwest has stories to tell, and they can be pretty darn good at times. I recommend seeing Nebraska if you haven't already. It's a simple storyline, but a very telling and touching one.

P.S. It really is in black and white.

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On another note, we just wanted to announce that for the third year in a row The Writing Sisterhood has received first place in the New Mexico Press Women Awards for best informational blog in the state of New Mexico! We're thrilled to have this award! If you'd like to check out any of the winning entries, feel free to do so:

• Writing Through the Storm ~ by Sister Mary
• Teaching Empathy: A Novel Approach ~ by Sister Stephanie
• Breaking Bad Double Standards ~ by Sister Lorena

Children's Stories for Grown-Ups

I had another post planned for today, but it requires research and logic and thought, and as it happens I got horribly sick this weekend—just a gastric virus, nothing fatal (though for about twelve hours there death seemed preferable)—and, as this is the second weekend I've come down with a stomach bug, I just don't have the energy to pull that off. Instead I'm just going to write about a pleasant trend I've noticed lately ... but with a caveat.

The pleasant trend is that more and more serious literary writers are creating adults novels that read like childhood adventure stories. I really enjoy these romps, which bring with them that all-encompassing joy of nights spent under the covers with a flashlight, tearing through Joan Aiken's The Wolves of Willoughby Chase or Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series.

Three that come to mind most readily are Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and Chang-Rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea. (That last book I just finished this afternoon, as I lay half-dead on the sofa, willing my mind to escape my body.) Not surprisingly, all three books follow the escapades of a young teenager, an ordinary kid who finds himself or herself in extraordinary circumstances. Adolescence feels so surreal and bizarre anyway, it's a natural landscape for this sort of story. All three novels infuse the confusion of pubescence with the atmosphere of an even earlier bit of youth: Lee's novel, for example, often reads like a Grimm Brothers fairy tale, in the best possible sense. One character stumbles from what feels like an idyllic reprieve scene into a field of human bones, turning to find a child "with a wide skewed smile, which was not for Fan but for the rest of her family, who were now out in the clearing and heading toward them in a pointed mass ... The biggest boys carried machetes." Some will shudder, of course, but I adore this sort of thing. The Juniper Tree, anyone?

The Goldfinch is the story of a teenage boy who loses his mother to a terrorist bombing and finds himself the possessor and protector of a prized painting that soon becomes his most beloved treasure ... and a terrible burden. What I loved about this story was the way Tartt just threw herself into making the boy's life utterly colorful, with no restraint. Restraint was quite popular for a long time in literary fiction. Reality was parceled out parsimoniously, always in shades of sombre grey. I can appreciate that mode of writing, but I am loving this meaty, full-fat version of fiction, bursting with fervid imagination.

Imagination is at its fullest with Gaiman's The Ocean At the End of the Lane. Perhaps because Gaiman doesn't wear the mantle of "literary star," (unlike Tartt and Lee) he can do whatever he wants. So this slim novel plunges us right into fantasyland. It could almost be classified as YA except that the beginning and end of the book anchor it as intended for adults. (Not to mention one discomfiting scene in the middle, involving the father and the wicked witch.)

And that brings us to the caveat: all three books are strongest in the middle, where they allow themselves to fully plunge into the adventure story. But because the authors want to be taken seriously as writers of adult literary fiction, they laden a bit too much exposition into the story. In Tartt's case it's really egregious, as she takes the last ten percent of her novel to do nothing but think deep thoughts via her protagonist. (It's not even plausible that the protag would think such thoughts—it's obviously Tartt speaking.) Lee sprinkles his deep thoughts throughout On Such a Full Sea, in aphorisms I'm sure were highlighted hundreds of times by Kindle users. The philosophy these authors share is explicit, heavy-handed, and not especially original. Authors of fiction who think they're doing philosophy should really let it come through in the story. "Show, don't tell" applies as much to philosophy as anything else. Authors who want to take part in the laudable trend of adventure stories for adults might want to look to Gaiman for guidance: he seems to understand, better than most, that just because you're writing for adults doesn't mean you have to be boring.

The Cephalopod Coffeehouse: The Girl Who Played with Fire

"Salander heard a sound and saw a movement out of the corner of her eye just as she was putting the key in the door of the Honda. He was approaching at an angle behind her, and she spun around two seconds before he reached her." (The Girl Who Played with Fire, Page 193)

Welcome everyone to this month's round of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse. Make sure to make the rounds and see what everyone has been reading over the past month.

A couple of weeks ago I finished up the second book in Stieg Larsson's Millennium series, The Girl Who Played with Fire. I was going to review the third book in the series, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, over at The Random Book Review, but I haven't quite finished it. It's kind of been a busy week for me but, hey, I'm still reading!

This is the part where I make the assumption that everyone under the sun has heard of Stieg Larsson and his Swedish Millennium series, but considering that not everyone enjoys the same genres, I won't make that assumption. When reading Larsson's background, it's really not surprising he chose topics such as misogyny, sex trafficking, and corrupt political systems to use in his books. Here's a little bit about Larsson's background according to this website:

Stieg Larsson (1954-2004) was a Swedish writer and journalist. Prior to his sudden death of a heart attack in November 2004 he finished three detective novels in his trilogy "The Millennium-series" which were published posthumously...Altogether his trilogy has sold more than 20 million copies in 41 countries, and he was the second bestselling author in the world in 2008. Before his career as a writer, Stieg Larsson was mostly known for his struggle against racism and right-wing extremism.

He liked extreme storylines, to say the least. There is supposedly a fourth book hidden inside Larsson's computer, but much controversy surrounds who should own the rights to Larsson's estate: his father and brother or his life partner Eva Gabrielsson. Feel free to visit the website I listed if you're interested in checking out the controversy.

Stieg Larsson

About the book:

Mikael Blomkvist, crusading publisher of the magazine Millennium, has decided to run a story that will expose an extensive sex trafficking operation. On the eve of its publication, two people are brutally murdered, and the fingerprints found on the murder weapon belong to his friend, the troubled genius hacker Lisbeth Salander. Blomkvist, convinced of Salander's innocence, plunges into an investigation. Meanwhile, Slander herself is drawn into a murderous game of cat and mouse, which forces her to face her dark past.

If you've read the first book in the trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, then you know that The Girl Who Played with Fire picks up roughly a year or so after the first novel. After Salander and Blomkvist's harrowing ordeal in the previous book, Salander has skipped the country with her loot and has spent time abroad. We find her in Grenada at the beginning of the story, doing what she does best: saving a young woman from certain death at the hands of her husband. This element is important because as the story unfolds we see that Salander's past, which is riddled with abuse, will come back and rear its ugly head.

Where in The Girl in the Dragon Tattoo Salander and Blomkvist spend a large portion of the book together, in the sequel, they only come in close contact with one another at the end of the book. I struggled with that a little bit, because I was expecting more one on one work between the two of them. The third book is shaping up to be much of the same, but I've yet to finish it (I have about a third of the book left), so I don't know if there will be any resolution to their relationship. I'm hoping so (but please don't tell me how it ends)!

Overall, I enjoy the hacking capabilities of Salander. I'm very fascinated with every nuance of the hacking world Larsson creates. I have no idea if what he's saying is true about how hacking works, but at least it makes for an interesting read. I do struggle with Larsson's portrayal of women in his books. None of them seem like the type of woman a man would want to settle down with and raise a family. Berger, Blomkvist's longtime love interest, is tough as nails in the publishing world. She knows what she wants, goes and gets it, and stops for a little hanky-panky if the need arises. Which seems to be quite a bit with her and it usually borders on kinky. For whatever reason, Larsson feels the need to divulge all the ends and outs of the female characters' sex lives, but he doesn't go too much into the mens' unless they're the ones doing the sex trafficking. Salander is a very damaged individual and more of who she is comes out in the second novel. When Blomkvist learns the truth about her rape, I feel it's disappointing how he rationalizes his physical relationship with Salander. She had come to him not long after her rape, so that meant it was okay. Sorry, but that's just sad. What the girl really needs is someone willing to listen to her, but Larsson builds her into an individual full of mistrust and the need for isolation that all I ever feel for her is pity.

The hard-looking Lisbeth Salander from the Swedish films.

If you've not read the book, know this:  the story feels dated. Larsson drops so many brand names, especially with computer technology, that it loses some of that here-and-now feel. Grant it, the book does deliberately state that it's 2004, but time can be tricky when it comes to contemporary thrillers. Readers are constantly wanting to feel the technology and brands of today. Palm pilots may have been cool in 2004, but I don't know anyone still using them now. The book also tends to become a tedious read. There are some pretty long passages of information dumps and over explanation of the basic facts that at times the storyline gets swallowed up. As a whole, though, Larsson weaves a great story concerning Salander's background. Which, is why I had to read the third book.

Have you read any of Stieg Larsson's books? If so, what's your opinion?

Make sure to check out the rest of the Cephalopod Coffeehouse reviews: