"The Cookbook Collector"--Modern Jane Austen?

The Cookbook Collector was a title too good for this book collector pass up. In spite of the fact that I don't have a strong affinity for cookbooks or cooking, I love food and books, so it seemed like a natural. Add to that great reviews on NPR and in magazines that mentioned the similarities between Allegra Goodman's newest novel and Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and I couldn't possibly resist!

Emily and Jessamine Bach are sisters living in Berkeley, California, and they are nothing alike. Emily is the "sense," and Jessamine is the "sensibility." Emily is a dot com executive during the Silicon bubble, and Jess is a tree-saving, philosophy-loving vegan who is also attracted to Jewish mysticism. Emily is engaged to Jonathan, a bookend match to her executive life, while Jess moves from relationship to relationship. While there are similarities to Austen's novel, this book only borrows a few structures. Goodman's story is her own.

Jess, pursuing yet another degree, works at an antiquarian bookstore. The owner, George, is doing everything in his power to win a collection of cookbooks from a mysterious seller. Emily is all responsibility, running her high-powered business, putting off her marriage until just the right moment, whenever that will be.

There are many things I like about this novel. For instance, there are many allusions to poetry. How many contemporary novelists allude to T.S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"? (Though I suppose the question could be asked, how many people care? Well, I do.) The cookbook collection itself is intriguing--I want to run my hand over the spines of these books and explore the color plates and tissue pages inside. And George, the bookstore owner, has a house I'm dying to tour.

In my last blog entry, I said that A Reliable Wife was like a classic gothic novel, HBO style. Well, The Cookbook Collector is Jane Austen, "Modern Family" style. Rather than love and lust repressed under 19th century maiden facades and respectability, the characters of the book move toward consummation long before any actual commitments have been made. After reading so much, well, sex in A Reliable Wife, and then moving on to this novel, where characters don't bother to leave the one they are living with to start up new liaisons, I'm ready for a book with less of a moral void. I could really use another Peace Like a River right now. But that's beside the point, sort of.

The rise and fall of the dot coms is an interesting enough subject, and 9/11 figures into the story as well, though not nearly as powerfully as in my recent read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. In the end, Jessamine is my favorite character, and the portion of the book where she and George explore the cookbooks is the best. Still and all, I prefer the original--I'll stick with Jane Austen.

Getting Graphic

Have you read a graphic novel yet? I'm not talking about the old romance novels my sister used to keep under her bed. I think Shanna got passed around to all of us over the years--even my brother read it. They were pretty graphic. But I digress.

Graphic novels are sort of like comic books, only not so comic. They are a long way from my old stash of Archie, Richie Rich, and Casper and Wendy comics. They cover deeper subjects and are generally longer and less episodic. The story arc is larger. Take a look in the children's, young adult and even the adult sections at the library. The graphic novel shelves are growing and filling, and the books are getting a lot of use!

I'm a bit careful with them, because to me a visual image leaves a much stronger footprint on my mind, and I want to know what my kids are looking at. Like any other books, there are some better choices and some not-so-great choices. However, graphic novels are great for reluctant readers, because they get to move along in a story with a higher level of sophistication, and with a diverse vocabulary, without being bogged down in long paragraphs. This can be a great step into reading. Author Sue Stauffacher collaborated on a series of graphic novels called Wireman, with just this purpose in mind--to catch the imagination of older readers who needed encouragement to read.

Graphic novels have served another purpose in my household. When assigned reading takes up a lot of the spare reading time for my school-age kids, graphic novels can provide a nice side reading project. My son thoroughly enjoyed the Bone series by Jeff Smith, and he has been introduced to many classics--Frankenstein, Treasure Island, even a Bible story, to name a few--in graphic or manga formats (manga is the Japanese version of graphic novels). He usually hauls home several new choices when we go to the library. My daughter and I had a good time reading Rapunzel's Revenge, a wild west take on the fairy tale, and its sequel, Calamity Jack, both by popular young adult author Shannon Hale. She also enjoyed a book called Korgi by Christian Slade that involved a cute little dog, always a winning topic with her.

But these books can also be deeply-felt novels for adult readers. Today (yes, one day--another bonus of graphic novels for slow readers!) I read Stitches by David Small. He is a Caldecott-winning illustrator of children's books. This book is not fiction--it is Small's memoir. He grew up in Detroit, and he suffered many traumas in his childhood, including losing his voice when he undergoes surgery for cancer. No one told him he had cancer, no one told him he was losing a vocal chord, and no one seemed to care about his loss.

Stitches recounts many horrifying experiences, yet somehow it is bearable because of Small's ability to remember the details of looking at things through a child's eyes. Which is also what makes it so sad. The strange thing about reading this story in a graphic format is that you move through it all so quickly. You hardly have time to recover from one thing, and there he is moving on to the next. That may be precisely what it is like for a child in his situation. Yet it's a strange way to read about a tragic childhood, if you are accustomed to wordy recollections and pontifications in memoir.

It's a fascinating read--partly because of his story, and partly because of the format. It's the first graphic book I've actually sat and read from cover to cover, on my own, to myself. It gives you an intimacy with the mind and heart of the author that mere words could not conjure. I'm looking forward to trying another soon.

Added Note: About 15 minutes after I posted this, I realized that I had lied, but I was too tired to bother fixing it! I have read another graphic novel, and it might be one that interests many of you. It's a gorgeous, glossy, colorfully illustrated version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, adapted by Nancy Butler and Hugo Petrus. The front cover is made to look like a women's magazine, but the words inside are directly from the novel. It's the perfect gift for P & P diehard fans.