In my time back home, I’ve tried to read during the lulls. My in-flight book’s back cover boasted something about containing the “female David Sedaris,” which is quite the accolade. And it wasn’t by Sarah Vowell…or any author I’d even heard of, for that matter. I read Susan Jane Gilman’s Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress, a memoir of a woman growing up in my neighborhood in the sixties and seventies. NYC was much rougher and grittier then. People could afford their apartments, but worried about walking the streets too late at night. I enjoyed Gilman’s book, but am glad to report it was not laugh out loud funny. She is not the female David Sedaris, especially because she grew up in New York and hung out with Mick Jagger. Only women from terribly boring small towns with such ludicrous, short-lived obsessions as pantomime could be the next David Sedaris. Or could aspire to. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the book and could read it for sustained periods of air travel.
My second read of the vacation was a re-read of Paula Vogel’s “How I Learned To Drive.” It’s amazing how much I read in high school that I can’t even remember. These were the days before the intense over-analysis that would get me more A’s than a can of alphabet soup as an English major in college. I read these books before I had much life experience (read: before I was as jaded as I am now). “How I Learned To Drive” is a brilliant, brilliant play about a girl’s driving lessons from her pedophilic uncle. Driving is an extended metaphor and film strips are used to label the scenes. I’d love to see the play on stage. It won the Pulitzer in 1998, but I’m unaware of it’s production history. It’s a disturbing look at sexualization, cycles of abuse, and family. Incidentally, Paula Vogel is married to Anne Fausto-Sterling, the sex theorist who suggested that “man” and “woman” are not sufficient sex markers for the population. Hmmm…
Yesterday, I re-read another adolescent pick: Stephen Chbosky’s The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I remember my good friend, Les, telling everyone to read it. He was - and I’m sure, still is - a very groovy guy. He once talked the sample guy at Bath and Body Works into letting us help him squeeze out holiday lotion for strangers. “Excuse me, sir! You NEED this,” Les would proclaim to the least feminine guy in the crowd. Or he’d dangle a bottle over my head. “It’s mistletoe mist, fellas! Come and get it!” I don’t remember The Perks of Being a Wallflower being so good when I was younger. I know it’s because I was sheltered from anything deviant or particularly traumatic. It wasn’t until college that I ever had my heart broken, trust beaten within an inch of its life and then left to scar. And even now I’m exaggerating. Teenage life was pretty peachy, especially once my braces came off.
But I’ve grown up and things have gotten worse. Nothing so bad as Charlie’s friend committing suicide or his discovery about Aunt Helen, but enough to make me cry and pray for more moments of feeling infinite. These allusions are designed to make you read or re-read the book. So are these excerpts:
“Then, I turned around and walked to my room and closed my door and put my head under my pillow and let the quiet put things where they are supposed to be.”
“It’s like he would take a photograph of Sam, and the photograph would be beautiful. And he would think that the reason the photograph was beautiful was because of how he took it. If I took it, I would know that the only reason it’s beautiful is because of Sam. I just think it’s bad when a boy looks at a girl and thinks that the way he sees the girl is better than the girl actually is… It’s very hard for me to see Sam feel better about herself just because an older boy sees her that way.”
“Maybe these are my glory days, and I’m not even realizing it because they don’t involve a ball.”
“He looked like all old pictures look. Old pictures look very rugged and young, and the people in the photographs always seem a lot happier than you are.”
“Do you enjoy holidays with your family? I don’t mean your mom and dad family, but your uncle and aunt and cousin family? Personally, I do. There are several reasons for this. First, I am interested and fascinated by how everyone loves each other, but no one really likes each other.”
“I guess what I’m saying is that this all feels very familiar. But it’s not mine to be familiar about. I just know that another kid has felt this.”
“And all the books you’ve read have been read by other people. And all the songs you’ve loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that’s pretty to you is pretty to other people. And you know that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing ‘unity.’”
“Maybe it’s good to put things in perspective, but sometimes, I think that the only perspective is to really be there. Like Sam said. Because it’s okay to feel things. And be who you are about them.”
I’m amazed. Maybe I’m just underestimating the popularity?
I used to read this book back to front, front to back in middle school. I still do, but not nearly as often. I had no idea Charlie has been around for this long! Its surprising how adolescent “issues” from one generation can become just as familiar as the next. Clearly, the Perks of Being a Wallflower is the bridge.
Anyway, I’ll probably check out “How I Learned To Drive”. It sounds like a fairly uncomfortable read (due to the material) but intriguing nonetheless.
Thank you for blogging. It means a lot.