Wednesday Reading Meme

[osprey_archer]

What I’ve Just Finished Reading

“Active friendships require active maintenance. You don’t get to sit back, do nothing, and enjoy the benefits of a meaningful relationship - any relationship.”

I needed a break from my Vietnam book, and Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman’s Big Friendship: How We Keep Each Other Close was just the pick-me-up I needed. It reminded me of Kayleen Schaeffer’s Text Me When You Get Home (not coincidentally, Text Me When You Get Home was where I first read about Sow and Friedman), and it was so uplifting and refreshing to read a book by people who take friendship seriously as a relationship worth investing time in, and attempting to fix if it goes off the rails.

(I’ve been reading a lot of Slate advice columns recently, and I really soured on them after realizing how much of their friendship advice is built on the idea that friendship is basically disposable and should be jettisoned if it ever gets uncomfy. In fact, in general I’ve come to feel that the Slate advice columns are monuments to everything wrong with the modern approach to relationships of all kinds… Consider this entry a resolution to stop putting myself through this aggravation. They’re just so darn readable, though!)

The children’s librarian Jess and I fell to discussing the Caldecott awards, and she broke out a couple of picture books that are getting award buzz for this year. I fell in love with Corey R. Tabor’s Mel Fell: it’s about a baby kingfisher who jumps from the nest, intending to fly, and then falls - falls - falls (you’ve got the book turned on its side, so the bird is falling two whole pages each time) - right into the water!

And then, in the water, you turn the book so it’s open like a normal book, as the baby bird scoots through the water, catches a fish, and then starts to fly back up - and now the book is turned on its side the other direction, as the she flies up - up - up! As Jess said, “It should feel gimmicky, but it works perfectly for the story.”

The other book, Muon Thi Van’s Wishes, chronicles her family’s escape from Vietnam as refugees. There’s an almost Good Night Moon quality to the simplicity and quietness of the text, which contrasts with and therefore highlights the family’s treacherous journey in the pictures.

What I’m Reading Now

More of Max Hastings’ Vietnam, of course. Nixon has just been elected, and just about everyone with any power has concluded that the war in Vietnam is unwinnable, but the US is nonetheless going to keep fighting for another seven years because no one wants to be the one who calls it. My GOD.

What I Plan to Read Next

Once I've finished Vietnam (and Fire from Heaven... and Glory Road...) I want to take a break from war books for a while. I have been struggling to get through all three of those books and I think I just need to read some stuff where no one slaughters anyone AT ALL.

Fortunately, I’ve got a couple of books left on my list from last December’s Christmas book binge: Betty MacDonald’s Nancy and Plum and Rosamunde Pilcher’s Winter Solstice. (I’ve long meant to read a Rosamunde Pilcher book, as she’s one of my mom’s favorite authors.)

Comments

[asakiyume]

I'm noticing that I have a tendency to reduce things too far (remember our brass tacks discussion?), but I'm thinking that the mistake people make if they think they can, or ought, to be able to just coast through friendships effortlessly could be corrected if they remembered that *life* just can't be coasted through effortlessly. If you just laze around in the sun, eventually you get hungry (or hot... or the sun moves and you get cold). Even if you're the emperor of China and people cater to your every need, you still have to articulate your desire if they happen to bring out the persimmon porcelain when you were in the mood for the plum porcelain, etc. Basically, LIVING requires EFFORT. But to pull it back in again, yeah! It's great to see people taking friendship seriously as a thing that's worth tending to and nurturing.

I just need to read some stuff where no one slaughters anyone AT ALL. -- FAIR

[osprey_archer]

It's true! All good things require effort.

Contrariwise, and contradicting my plaint in the entry, I read something recently decrying the phrase "relationships are work," because it has just enough truth (relationships are work because everything is work!) to obscure the fact that there's work and there's WORK and if a relationship feels like a job that you drag yourself to because you've gotta pay the bills, that's the wrong kind of work.

[asakiyume]

Yes, that's true too! I feel like that's part of there being truth all along the spectrum (e.g., it's both true that you should be patient with people and that you shouldn't be patient with everything). There's definitely work and work! If all a relationship is is a bone-wearying slog, then it's not functioning as a friendship.

[troisoiseaux]

They’re just so darn readable, though!

Are Slate advice columns really about the advice, or are they about someone describing a completely bananas situation and/or convinced they are in the right when they are absolutely not? (The guy who felt ~betrayed~ that his wife wrote a book on her lunch breaks, oh my goddddddd.)

(I don't know if you know of the DW community agonyaunt, but if you want Slate - and other - advice columns with a more critical eye towards the actual advice part, would recommend.)

[osprey_archer]

Sometimes the situations ARE bananas enough to be worth the price of admission, it's true. And, to be fair, sometimes - indeed, perhaps often! - the advice is fine. It's just that when it feels off there is nothing to do but go, "God, I hope the letter-writer did not take this horrible advice that you are sending from Mars, advice columnist."

[philomytha]

Ooh, that Mel Fell book sounds like just what I want for a present for my nephew!

[osprey_archer]

Yes! It's SO cute, I think almost any child would like it.

[lokifan]

Those picture books sound wonderful! And oh man, I agree 100% on Slate advice - so readable, but also, putting in a bit of effort for the right person is worth it!

[osprey_archer]

And sometimes that bit of effort is not "How do I fix this relationship?" effort, but "This relationship was important enough that I owe this person the kindness of telling them why it's ending." Many of the Slate columnists seem to think that unless you were practically life partners, it's fine to fade out of someone's life, protesting all the time "I'd love to hang out! I'm just so busy!" when, in fact, you don't want to hang out at all.

In some of these situations, if the letter writer told the truth, maybe things could be worked out! Or maybe they couldn't, but it's still cruel to straight-up lie to someone who has noticed the friendship has cooled and reaches out about it. People know in their hearts when "I'm too busy" means "I can't be arsed to make time." And it's just such bad advice to tell someone "Yeah, straight-up lie to your friends!"

[copperfyre]

Those picture books sound delightful!

I too appreciate relationship advice from people who actually take friendships seriously.

[osprey_archer]

I feel like there's a real need out there for serious friendship advice, both for how to repair a friendship that is breaking down - and how to recognize that a friendship truly has broken down and can't be repaired, and how to end it without causing unnecessary suffering. I think people often muff friendship breakups because, unlike romantic breakups, there really is no script (although people are often horrible at romantic breakups, too!), and that really seems to paralyze people.

[copperfyre]

There really is! I personally need advice on the 'so I haven't spoken to you in weeks/months/years but I still think about you a lot and would like to communicate again, but it was very much me that failed on the communication last time and I'm sorry about that, and also it's been so long now it's really awkward' friendship front because I'm unfortunately good at ending up in that situation.

[osprey_archer]

That really depends on the ground rules of each individual friendship, I'm afraid. There are friendships where people are just sort of expected to drift in and out of touch (a lot of fandom friendships are like this, I've found) and friendships where falling out of touch is a friendship-ending offense. If someone spent a lot of time trying to keep in touch with you and you didn't reciprocate back then, they may have no desire to rekindle the friendship now.

Are you sorry in a "I have an action place to do better in the future" way, or in a "I'm bummed that this happened but let's be real, it will probably happen again" kind of way? That's really going to shape how you approach people and also which people to approach.

[copperfyre]

Honestly a little of both, alas, I think. So, hmmm. Definitely things to mull over, and thank you for your advice on the matter!

Edit: as a result of this I went off and contacted an old friend where we’d mutually stopped responding to each other, and now we are texting and I am reassured that they’re doing okay! So thank you <3

[osprey_archer]

Oh, yay! I'm glad you reconnected!