Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Patricia Wood’s Lottery

I’ve recently joined a book discussion on Patricia Wood’s novel Lottery.   It was both a good book, and a good discussion.  Ms. Wood stopped in to participate in the discussion, and I thought that added a lot.  


Lottery is the tale of  Perry, who is not retarded.  His “number” (IQ) is 76, and you have to be below 75 to be retarded.  Perry is clearly above that number.  

Perry is a lucky man.  (Lucky is his middle name.)  He wins the lottery, $12 million worth of lottery.  The tale that unfolds around this is beautifully done.  Family members turn up out of the woodwork, all eager to help Perry manage his money.  Strange how they show up now, when none were particularly eager to help before.  

The story centers around issues of family, money, trust, intelligence, discrimination, and cheating.  It’s a great read, weaving all of these wonderful threads together.  The story is told by Perry, and Wood does a masterful job of capturing his voice.   Not only does she seem to understand the life of a person with a number somewhere around 76, but she has a good knowledge of sailing (the setting of the story) and lottery winnings (her dad was a lottery winner).  The knowledge she brings to the narrative creates a very rich tale indeed.

If you decide to read the book, make sure and stop in at the blog discussion after you’ve done so.  It will always be up, so it doesn’t matter that you stop in “late.”

If you get a chance, pop by and cast a vote for the next book we’ll use in our book club discussion
Posted by poetically challenged in 16:40:18 | Permalink | Comments (3)

Monday, August 6, 2007

Marx and Chrestomanci

One of the things Marxist critics have helped point out is the fact that literature is often confined to the perspective of a certain socio-economic class, the wealthy.  The events of a novel most often center around the events of those in positions of power.  Wouldn’t you rather, for instance, read about the home owner than his servants?


That’s part of what I liked about the latest installment of the Chrestomanci series that I’ve read, Conrad’s Fate (Pinhoe Egg is on its way).   The story is told from the perspective of the household servants (much like Happily N’ever After.  I liked how Christopher, the Chrestomanci-to-be (though that comes later in his history… earlier in the series, though), puzzled through this whole question of servants and masters.  I don’t mean to say that he solves the puzzle for himself, but I do like how he deals with it. I don’t want to say too much about the ending, but I will say that I don’t think it spoils the perspective offered throughout the story.

Children’s lit critics have often said that there are three taboos for children’s literature:  money, sex, and death (I will have to get some quotations from said critics at a later date).  I like that Chrestomanci burst through the money taboo.  It’s an interesting series for that.  I haven’t read much in the way of response to this issue, but it is one I would love to see explored more by people who specialize in children’s literature, whether they are teachers of kids or academics more interested in the texts themselves.  It would be interested to see the responses to the way the question of money is handled in this series.

Diana Wynne Jones has become one of my favorite authors over the years, partly just because she is clever and writes well.  But in addition to that, she has a real way of making the reader face some ideas and thoughts that can be sticky.  And it’s all just part of the story.  That’s good stuff.

Posted by poetically challenged in 02:59:27 | Permalink | Comments (1) »