So I spent yesterday watching 12 episodes of The L Word after resisting it for years because I thought it was going to be trashy, but have now discovered it is the BEST. From my hours and hours of watching I have culled the best scene, namely when Tina and Bette -- who are having a baby -- have an intervention done for them because they're becoming too boring.
The show reminds me of Alison Bechdel's long-running comic Dykes to Watch Out For, which I am a billion percent positive it's been compared to. That's the comic that created the Bechdel Test and was generally ahead of its time. Or maybe current with its time. But at any rate, Alison Bechdel was one of the first people to do something like it. She's also the author of Fun Home, which you should all read because it is awesome and one of the only graphic novels/memoirs I've ever cared about. My copy is currently absent from my home because all the ladies at church have been passing it around.
It's Monday, so let's talk about Holocaust literature! There was a debate on Twitter last Friday about The Book Thief, which I'm currently reading. I like it, but some hate it. Then there was an argument about whether it counts as Holocaust literature since it's mostly about a non-Jewish German girl who (as far as I know) doesn't go to a concentration camp.
Hmmmmmm. Ok, Wikipedia says the Holocaust was "the mass murder or genocide of approximately six million European Jews during World War II." But I'm gonna go ahead and say that pretty much anything set in Germany during WWII can be counted as Holocaust literature, if only to save us from being bogged down with sub-genre upon sub-genre.
I'm liking The Book Thief because Zusak paints very clear pictures, and through either repetition (which I know drives some people crazy) or weird word choice, has made me remember things from childhood and connected me to the book. And I like the narrative style. I find it clean and simple. But everyone approaches books differently, and things in our past influence how we approach authors. So I get why someone would hate or at least dislike it. But I do not.
I don't know when schools started assigning Holocaust lit, but that coupled with a morbid fascination, especially as a child, means everyone from whatever decade on has read a fair amount of it. Here're mine:
Night, Elie Wiesel
Maus, Art Spiegelman
Sophie's Choice, William Styron
Diary of Anne Frank (ok look, I started this like twice and it was too boring and I never finished it. I am sorry.)
The Hiding Place, Corrie ten Boom
I don't know, Holocaust lit is so sticky because you know going in it's going to be sad, and it can be hard to psych yourself up for something like that. Sophie's Choice was enormously sad, but it's so. well. written. So that kind of makes up for it.
This is too much Holocausting for a Monday. Go watch that clip. It is funny. And here y'go:
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