“When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today.”

Just wrote that enormous rant about Lewis Carroll.

But I've actually read a lot more than just that one book recently.

I can't actually remember most of the books I've read, which is quite sad.
Besides the Lewis Carroll biography I know I've read:

How to Be a Woman (really can't figure out which parts of that need capitalisation.
I am very tired.)

Caitlin Moran is a brilliant writer. Her writing style is entertaining (though the flashbacks in present tense were just plain annoying) and she chooses her topics cleverly, like a the editor of Dolly magazine or something. (I am really very tired!)

How to be a Woman is basically just a book about her personal experience of growing up as a member of the female gender and her opinions about it, expressed colloquially and intimately. OK, so she spends most of the book talking about female body parts and what we should call them, with a little bit of chat about motherhood and porn and other interelated things. Of course Moran is waaaaaay over on the left, (for the interested, I like to think of myself as apolitical, which is a lazy way of saying I think both sides of the political scope are morons) saying things like 'porn is not bad if it objectifies men and women equally' which is, in my personal and colloquial opinion, absolute rubbish, but hey, she says it pretty entertainingly.

I don't want to come down on people who drink or anything, even if they do it regularly, (alcoholism is not OK, though) but I just find it difficult to take seriously that new brand of comedy that some women seem to be espousing recently - the kind in which every paragraph contains a humourous reference to drugs and alcohol. Seriously? Can you have any sort of fun whilst sober? Do you have to be off your face in order to be funny? I don't drink much - mostly coz my crowd ain't a drinking crowd and I don't really like the taste anyway. So I don't get all this 'being a liberated woman means being allowed to abandon diginity in a slobby drunken mess on the floor all the time' stuff. I don't think that's a good thing for persons of any gender to be doing. And if you need alcohol in order to have a good time I think you might be the one with the inhibition problem. Jokes centred around drugs and alcohol, whether the comedy issues from men or from women, just aren't what I find funny. It's like listening to junior high schoolers make jokes about sex. It just seems immature and unfunny to me.
And that's what this whole book felt like, after I had finished it. When I was reading it I didn't agree with much but enjoyed myself rather. At the end I was left with a pervading sense of bitterness and emptiness that bothered me in a special way. Probably because of the abortion chapter, in which the author tries to approach abortion from a thoroughly pro-choice viewpoint and ends up just sounding wretched about the whole thing, despite, or perhaps because of her repeated disclaimers that her personal experience didn't haunt her at all. I couldn't take lightly the death of her baby, and when she tried to it just felt sick and more than a little tired and sad.

I'd love to read more of Moran's writing, because she is quite funny, and sometimes insightful, but I won't be recommending this book to anyone who feels any confusion over 'how to be a woman'.

Be like a duck. Calm on the surface, but always paddling like the dickens underneath.

Hello, hello, hello, it has been far too long, hasn't it?

I only just noticed that I am unintentionally working my way through British actors of the later part of the last century. I've already read the autobiographies of Michael Crawford, Dawn French and Michael Caine, and I'm almost finished Stephen Fry's one. I wonder if John Cleese and Rowan Atkinson have written any memoirs yet? Hmmm, according to wikipedia Cleese has and Atkinson hasn't. Guess what I'll be looking up at the library next time? :-P

I've decided to review these two books together because, well, just because I want to. It's been ages since I last posted something here, so it is certainly quite a while since I read either of these books. I had to take them back to the library a while ago, so there's a few things I planned to quote and compare that I can't now. Not ideal.

I loved The Elephant to Hollywood. It was one of those books I read aloud to irritated family members and quoted anecdotes from in conversations. Michael Caine's writing is not particularly stylish or writerly, but his method of going chronologically through his life and picking out interesting stories to tell is engaging. Throughout the book he exudes affection for the people and incidents described and his awe at meeting great actors is actually endearing rather than annoying. Even when Michael Caine talks about hard times he does it in a brief and interesting way - like sitting about in a cafe waiting for an agent's call - with Peter O'Toole and Sean Connery! Or, after shortly describing being neglected and abused by the family who took him in during the war, talking about how he loves to do work for children's charities now because of that. I really adored this book.

My reaction to The Fry Chronicles was more... complex. There's no doubt that Stephen Fry has a positive gifting when it comes to word choice and style. He's a born writer, to be sure, but I was more than a little bothered by the content of his book. I think that one could open The Fry Chronicles at any page and learn that Mr Fry has a self esteem issue. Which is incredibly frustrating for any reader; being told about his multiple achievements, positive traits and accomplishments in a self deprecatory tone very quickly grows aggravating. And even more aggravating is his awareness of the reader's aggravation and the apologetic tone he takes. Why can't the man forgive himself for being successful? He constantly deviates into long passages describing a personal trait of his own that he doesn't like or a reason that people might dislike him. I just felt so, so sorry for him after reading the book. And more than a little irritated. I know that Stephen Fry suffers from bipolar disorder, but the book left me feeling rather depressed - not a pleasant sensation for a book to leave for a reader! I didn't not appreciate the book for what it was, but I am somewhat conflicted about my overall response. Mr Stephen Fry, dear, please look into some sort of therapy.

Having a great intellect is no path to being happy.
Stephen Fry

Give thy mind to books and libraries, and the literature and lore of the ages will give thee the wisdom of sage and seer.

Library trip this morning - well, sort of. For some reason I asked for that the books I put on hold at Rockdale library be pick-up-able from Bexley North library. Which was stupid because Bexley North library, even though it is quite the closest to my house, closes at six on weekdays (making it impossible for me to race there from work in time). Forgot about this and yesterday went to Rockdale for the books in response to the customary email. They told me that the books were at Bexley North, and that the latter library shuts at one on a Saturday. Couldn't go this morning until ridiculously late, because I had to wait at my parents' house (ironically, I appear to be the only one of my siblings who has a house key). Got to the library at 12.50. Got my books from a very grumpy librarian, who obviously couldn't wait to go do whatever it is librarians do on a Saturday afternoon.

But I now have my mitts on Michael Caine's The Elephant To Hollywood and The Fry Chronicles by (naturally) Stephen Fry. Delightful :-) As well as a Terry Pratchett (Unseen Academicals), the soundtrack to Moulin Rouge, and a DVD of Agatha Christie's Appointment With Death.

Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.

Hello again.

I'm back already because I have finished my books. Already. I finished Dear Fatty last night because I got two thirds of the way through it and realised that if I didn't finish it in one sitting I never would finish it at all. Dawn French has lived an interesting life and she knows how to talk about it in an interesting way. But I found the 'series of letters to friends and relatives' thing didn't really work for me. I kept forgetting who it was that she was addressing in any given letter and feeling annoyed because I felt unincluded. It simply felt like a bizarre love match between prying into someone's personal correspondence and reading a proper book of memoirs. Parts of it were boring; most of it was warm and interesting. Buuuut - I wanted more about Vicar of Dibley! I know, I know, it's such a cliche - the one role that will follow the poor actor about forever, haunting them inescapably... but I was interested. My curiosity and desire for Dibley anecdotes still remains unsated.


Alan Alda's memoirs read more like a normal autobiography. Which was refreshing - and he managed to hit that balance between human honesty and storytelling, without becoming impersonal or spending too much time despondently navel gazing a la Sean Astin. I enjoyed his sense of humour and the personality that infused the pages - he involves the reader in his story very effectively. Aaand he talked about being in M*A*S*H*! So he beats Dawn French a little bit.


It's odd - reading people's autobiographical stuff - it's the things they're reticent about that keep you wondering afterward. Both of these actors mentioned a sort of breaking down in their personal faith in God (or the church at least) but (even though Alan Alda spent some time talking about it) neither really seemed to come to any personal conclusions. Which baffles and perplexes me. How can you lose your faith and just leave the whole existential question to gather dust at the back of your mind? I know that if I didn't have an actual relationship with my Father in Heaven I'd be a horrible gibbering wreck most of the time, worrying about how nothing at all makes sense, but I guess life might make a good distraction if you're good at being distracted.

The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover will be yourself.

Alan Alda

Many books require no thought from those who read them, and for a very simple reason; they made no such demand upon those who wrote them.

Second post! Whoot!

I visited the library today: borrowed Dawn French's Dear Fatty and Never Have Your Dog Stuffed by Alan Alda. Both are celebrity memoirs - I am unashamedly addicted to autobiographies. In generality they are 100% more entertaining than biographies - even the popular biographies which rely on scandal and rumour to keep readers' attention - though occasionally you come across a dud. I don't reccomend There and Back Again - An Actor's Tale by Sean Astin; which had scandal and rumour and STILL managed to be boring and unentertaining: if you want a good LOTR film book read Gollum: How We Made Movie Magic by Andy Serkis, who manages to keep it personal but still generate interest through a genuine talent for storytelling.

If you're interested (and who wouldn't be?) in more memoirs I also reccomend:

Parcel Arrived Safely: Tied With String by Michael Crawford

Surprised by Joy by C. S. Lewis (I've read a ton of biographies about him and none of them shapes up to be as interesting and gripping as his own perspective)

My Family And Other Animals by Gerald Durrell

Bono On Bono (which isn't really autobiographical in the strictest sense - it's really a series of interviews. Still a good read, though.)

Good stuff.