How to Avoid Lady Chatterley's Lover

Banned Books Week brings out lists of books whose controversial content doesn't necessarily stop them from being ... well, sort of tedious.

This article, about books that they really oughta ban made me smile.  My first reaction is anti-banning, thought there's some truly sick stuff that kind of should be.  But I err on the side of freedom as a rule.  In this article, she's joking.  Really.  She doesn't want them banned, she just wants them not foisted off on kids who will turn off of reading if presented with them because they are  Good For You.

But it was hard to relate to this article because in my junior high and high schools, which were considered quality schools, we did not read books.

For serious.  We didn't.  We got a fat textbook every year, and in it there was usually a full-length work.  Not always.  Ninth grade had The Odyssey.  High School British lit had an edited Romeo and Juliet with the mildly suggestive jokes snipped out.  Maybe there was a full-length short work in the mega-textbooks for other years but I don't recall them, and I never encountered a Summer Reading List. Kids in the advanced ability-tracks probably read actual books like she's talking about. The high number of them who got National Merit Scholarships gave the school a great reputation for its rigorous academic demands. Us ordinary kids, who cared?  It was thanks to a good elementary school and book-crazy parents that I turned out functionally literate.

So while we think hard about what books to have school kids read, I'd be inclined to say, By the way, DO have them READ SOME.

Meanwhile, I try to read a Famous Banned Book at this time every year, but this year, I had trouble picking one. I haven't started a banned book at all, with the week nearly over. I feel like I've read most of the fun stuff, and I really need to NOT go out and buy more books, so my choices at hand are down to stuff like  Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, or Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.

Or  Lady Chatterley's Lover.  I'm not joking when I say I'd rather tackle Gibbon.  When I read that intro to the Laura Miller article linked above, saying "some classics are painful enough to ruin reading forever," Lady Chatterley was the first thing that popped into my head.

I've tried FOUR TIMES to endure Chatterley,  and found that when it's not boring me, it's aggravating me.  Lawrence actually got me to like Connie, but the rest of it was unendurable. I can't really review it.  I need to actually get through it before I accuse it of stupid ideas.  I can accuse it of tedium right now, but I can't yet say whether its .... I'm going to go ahead and say it; whether its heart is in the wrong place.  Haha.

This reviewer, however, has read it, and whether he misses its merits or not, his review is laugh-out-loud funny.  His language is also unflinchingly graphic, so be forewarned.

There.  That's what you get from me for Banned Books Week 2011.

Books for sleepless nights

I have an insomnia problem.  My version of insomnia usually cuts the middle out of my night.  I'll sleep for awhile, but that 1 AM to 5 AM stretch could find me spending most of it awake.

I decided awhile ago to just go with it most nights (unless life's demands demand that I take a pill), instead of fighting it with over-the-counter drugs that make me feel lousy in the morning, and that (this is totally unsubstantiated) I suspect of making my dreams more unpleasant.

Insomnia advice often agrees with this.  If you can't sleep, just quit lying there in frustrated knots and do something till you're sleepy.

Reading is one of the best things for occupying a sleepless mind without pumping me up and making the mental hamster-wheel worse.

But I'm finding that not every book that I generally enjoy is right for this time of the night.

Your feelings may differ, but I would call craft and project idea books a no-no.  They are more likely to get me pumped up to take an idea get started on a project, than to lull me to sleep.  But if your mind works differently and finds that an idea to implement tomorrow helps you sleep, they might work for you.

I love mysteries, but they tend to gear my brain up.  I love historical novels, but some are depictions of the worst of human history.  Those will aggravate the hell out of me when I'm already restless, with wishing people hadn't been so violent, so power-mad, so shortsighted and that we'd show more signs of learning from the past.

What works, then?

It will be different for everyone, but here's what I've discovered:

1.  A booklight. I read in the dark with a booklight, EVEN if I don't need to - even if I'm out in the living room and a lamp would not disturb my husband.  The surrounding dark keeps me from shifting into daytime mode and I'm more likely to get drowsy after awhile.

2.   Vintage children's books that soothed me as a kid.  The Secret Garden (that's my childhood copy, above), despite its tragic beginning, is about finding that serene place and letting it heal you, and it makes a great book to revisit in a small circle of reading light in the dark. That's just one example - there are lots of them, from Little House to Daddy-Long-Legs.

3.  Gentle, nostalgic humor.   The Peanuts  comic strips that I read and re-read as a kid return me to that safe happy time in my life.  BUT I stay away from biting, dysfunctional humor like Dilbert (which I love as a daytime read), and from anything political.  Dilbert takes me back to the total frustration of the workplace I used to inhabit, and even politics I agree with send me into that stressed feeling about the state of the world.

4.  Comfort Classics.  This will really vary from person to person, but here's what calms me down, and why:

       Jane Austen.  Emma is a delightful book, but takes concentration.  That's good.  In the middle of the night, I have the quiet around me to let me apply my mind to it.  I avoided this novel for years, until I made it an insomnia book, and found that the whole process of concentrating on it stopped the noise in my mind, and the novel was funny and warm while it did so.

      Robinson Crusoe.  One of my favorite books of all time.  Adventure is generally a bad idea, when it comes to sleep-aid books.  But most of Robinson Crusoe is a quiet journey of solitude and slow building.  Like being alone in the dark, Crusoe spends his time learning what matters and what he values, learning how to best use resources, and, most importantly, learning that the long hours alone are NOT useless time, but time when seeds are growing, and the future is building itself between human plantings and prunings and harvestings.  It's OK for nothing to seem to be happening.  It's OK to be alone with one's thoughts.  And it's OK for a store of grains and goods to grow at a natural pace, not all at once.  Crusoe's life is about making that happen over many years, not about having it in place all at once and then sitting and wondering  Now what do I do with my life?

5.  Poetry.  This one is impossible to make suggestions for, since different poets and types of poetry will speak to different people.  Classic poetry anthologies are good for me.  So are Denise Levertov's The Stream and the Sapphire,  and Mary Oliver's prose and poems, which often bring me serenity.

6.  Certain psalms.  I like the psalms in general, but many are cries of terrible pain and might not help with sleeplessness.  This varies from person to person, and some people might find that the psalms of cries to God really help during difficult life issues.  They certainly help me feel less alone, like others have made it through their own hard times with honest surrender to their need for help.  I prefer peaceful ones like the 23rd, for insomnia help.  I bookmark favorites to turn right to, in the middle of the night.

7.  Nature and science.  Now here's a category that you've really gotta personalize.  If there's some aspect of science and nature that fills you with serenity, a sleepless night is a great time to visit it.  Pictures of mountains?  Herbs and flowers? The vastness of the cosmos?

I love glaciers.  Where ice takes on a life of its own, where time slows to a crawl.  The same photos that might make you feel cold and stressed, make me feel calm.   You may prefer volumes on landscape gardens or penguins or wildflowers.  Find what works!