Pop Culture Fiction

When Emily posted something about guilty pleasures, I remembered a post I had drafted about my guilty reading pleasures but didn't finish. As an English professor, I always feel the need to read the classics. Really, what kind of Victorian literature scholar am I if I haven't read every Charles Dickens novel (note to take Martin Chezzlewit off my bookshelf this week) but every now and then I like to delve into the popular fiction. My most recent guilty pleasure is the Girl with the Dragon Tatoo series by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish author. I've finished two of the three books so far and am anxious to start the third and final book. The story takes place in Sweden and switches between the perspectives between a journalist, who exposes economic scandals, and an alienated young computer hacker, Lisbeth Salander who is independent, brilliant, and strong but refuses to let anyone get close to her. The two work together on the case of a young woman who disappeared 40 years earlier. After working on that case together (note that I don't want to discuss that storyline too much), they go their separate ways but always seem to connect later on. While Larsson writes engaging an storyline, I'm troubled by his preoccupation of the mistreatment of women, mistreatment by their fathers, their brothers, their significant others, their guardians, the people that are supposed to keep them safe. In fact, there are not a lot of likable men in the series due to the graphic descriptions of abuses of women.  Which makes me wonder - why present such mistreatment in the novels? Is Larsson trying to expose the amount of abuse that does occur? Is he trying to articulate a way to solve the problems? I'm interested to see how he'll wrap up the trilogy. Will Salandar get revenge on the men who have harmed her? Will she change to allow people in her life? She'd lose the air of mystery and defiance that defines who she is. And what does that mean if she does change?

Refuge

I had mentioned that I would bring Refuge into class this week, but thought I'd give you all a little overview. The book is a combination of a memoir and a nature book. As Williams struggles with her mother dying of cancer, she reflects on the rising of the Great Salt Lake and its effects on the local bird sanctuary. Throughout, she tries to find reasons for the incredible loss that surrounds her. The bird sanctuary floods, and the birds have no where to go. The government has tested nuclear bombs in an uninhabited locale in Utah, which has severe consequences for the local communities. Williams has lost six aunts, her grandmother, and her mother. The descriptions of personal and environmental loss are heartbreaking.

Refuge is a creative non-fiction piece that is both personal, political, and historical, covering many of the purposes Fact and Artifact describes. She criticizes the government's choice for nuclear testings, the land developers that have eaten up and thus left no room for the birds. Everyone and everything is this book is looking for refuge, refuge from sickness, from grief over the loss of loved ones, from the loss of home and environment. Williams brilliantly connects all of that in her symbolic description of the natural surroundings. I unfortunately forgot the book in my office. I'll make sure to include an excerpt on here tomorrow.