From Nostalgia to Now: Election Connection

When Election came out in 1999, I wanted to see it.  A twisty tale about the evils of high school politics starring Reese Witherspoon?  Yes, please.  After all, I was a high school senior myself and could relate.  Not because I ever ran for office or wanted to, but because the social maze of schooldays were a struggle.  Then again, maybe that's why I ended up not seeing it.

Fast forward to 2020 and the pandemic, which meant that I was catching up on old movies.  One night I was scrolling through my options when Election came up.  Twenty-two years later, and it was finally time.  It was so good!  Witherspoon made the perfect Tracy Flick, an overbearing overachiever intent on becoming student government president no matter what.  And Chris Klein was her ideal foil as Paul, the affable, big-man-on-campus puppet primed to defeat her.  I enjoyed it so much that I ordered the book, by Tom Perrotta, whom I'd heard of but never read.  Not surprisingly, it was even better than the movie, a rich character study of suburbia told baldly from multiple points of view.  So last fall when I heard that there was a sequel to Election called Tracy Flick Can't Win, I was pumped.       

In this installment, Perrotta introduces us to a forty-something version of the high school anti-hero (cue the Taylor Swift).  Tracy's not a senator or even a lawyer like she planned, but a single mom and assistant principal.  For all her scheming and dreaming, she's right back where she started, a big fish in a small pond campaigning to be, not president, but principal.  Still, Perrotta gives us a more vulnerable and nuanced look at her, especially as she comes to terms with sleeping with her English teacher.  Indeed, the novel is full of wronged women, their stories woven like faded rainbows in Perrotta's crazy quilt of suburban satire.  His skill in describing women is impressive, especially when writing about them dealing with -- and falling for -- men who are their superiors.  As they blame themselves for what happened to them, it's all too clear how the patriarchy sets up women to fail.  Yet Perrotta reminds us that, in many ways, it sets up men to fail too.  No character is all good or bad, and that's what makes Perrotta's storytelling so realistic.  Regardless of the obstacles these troubled souls face, they do the best with what they've got.      

And that's always worth voting for.

One for the Books: Christmas Cowls Just be Claus

Scarf: Target; Coat: Jou Jou, Macy's; Jeans: Vanilla Star, Target

Scarf: Zulily; Bag: Macy's; Shoes: Katy Perry Collection, Zulily

Dress: Planet Gold, Macy's

Okay, these neck nuzzlers are more scarves than cowls.  But whatever you call them, on New Year's Eve Eve, Santa style's headed back to the North Pole.  I wore the first outfit to run errands (long live holiday leopard!) and the second to last night's family Christmas party.  That's when I got these three lovely books (among others!), Hello, Molly! by Molly Shannon, Tracy Flick Can't Win by Tom Perrotta, and Dreamland by Nicholas Sparks.  Books are my favorite gifts to give and get.  

Luckily for me, Santa's as scholarly as he is stylish. 

Little Boy Blue and a Grown Man Too: Empathy Never Gets Old

Thirty-six-year-old Will.  Twelve-year-old Marcus.  They seem to have nothing in common and meet only because Will joins SPAT (Single Parents Alone Together) to pick up chicks.  But a traumatic event in Marcus's life bonds and changes them forever.  Can a twelve-year-old outcast with a weird mother and an absentee father ever find peace?  And can a grown man who's never had a job or a real relationship find something to fill his life other than cool clothes, music, and TV?  Nick Hornby's About a Boy intends to find out.  Now, I know what you may be thinking.  Tote Trove Lady, didn't you already blog about this when you reviewed Hornby's High Fidelity and Juliet, Naked and also the non-Hornby but hauntingly similar The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta?  Well, yeah.  But the whole arrested development theme is one that's near and dear to my heart.  Furthermore, this book's about more than a manchild; it's also about a boy.  It says so in the title.

When we meet Will, he's disgusted by parenthood.  He hates the way colorful toys litter the once-hip home of his best mate and the way a squalling infant can turn otherwise intelligent people into idiots.  And perhaps, most importantly, he hates the way children chip away at one's individuality and freedom, usurping every ounce of time and energy until even listening to a favorite record becomes an act of sedition.  And so, at thirty-six, he's contentedly childless and single, living off the royalties from his father's smash hit "Santa's Super Sleigh."  Unlike everyone else he knows, he has no complications and feels like he's got the secret to life figured out.  If you're having trouble picturing such a man, then I invite you to envision Hugh Grant, who played Will in the 2002 movie.  You know, charming and hangdog and harmless.  Unlike the real Hugh Grant, i.e., the horndog who got caught with that prostitute. 

That said, here are some of my favorite parts:      

This is a Will thought that's funny and (although I have a job) relatable:

". . . he had reached a stage where he wondered how his friends could juggle life and a job.  Life took up so much time, so how could one work and, say, take a bath on the same day?  He suspected that one or two people he knew were making some pretty unsavory shortcuts." (81)

Then again, Will also thinks this:

"That was the point of fashion, as far as Will was concerned; it meant that you were with the cool and the powerful, and against the alienated and the weak, just where Will wanted to be, and he'd successfully avoided being bullied by bullying furiously and enthusiastically." (141)  

It seems that Will isn't so harmless after all.  As an ex-bully and emotional drifter, not to mention a clotheshorse for all the wrong reasons, he's unequivocally part of the problem.  That's why he needs to learn from Marcus, a boy bullied so mercilessly that he gets a crush on his older protector, Ellie.  It's Ellie who introduces Marcus to Nirvana; she wears a Kurt Cobain sweatshirt every day.  (Did I mention that this book takes place in 1993 and 1994?).  At first, Will finds any correlation between Cobain and Marcus odd (he too is a Nirvana fan) but later realizes that it makes a strange sort of sense.  When Cobain's suicide spurs Ellie and Marcus on an ill-advised adventure, Will makes this observation:

"It was hard to imagine two less kindred spirits than Marcus and Kurt Cobain, and yet they had both managed to pull off the same trick: Marcus forced unlikely connections in cars and police stations and Kurt Cobain did the same thing on international television." (287)

Marcus and Cobain make people feel, even people who don't know them -- or themselves.  And that's just what Will needs in his life.  Just as Marcus needs Will's confidence, however misguided. 

So, what happens to Will at the end of this heart-warming if offbeat and sometimes sad story?  For once I'm not going to tell you.  I'll just say that About a Boy isn't about having a kid or being a kid or even growing up, but learning to look at things differently.

While still making time for clothes and TV and, of course, communing with Kurt.

Top Forty, Top Five, Prepare for the Dive: Growing Up is Hard to Do

I've always wanted to read Nick Hornby's novel High Fidelity, and last week I finally did.  Although I saw the movie first, I ended up preferring the book.  Truth be told, I couldn't get through the movie, which is rare for me.  I fell asleep and woke up thinking, oh, John Cusack's still whining.  Time to switch to Curb Your Enthusiasm!  You know.  For an entirely different kind of, albeit more entertaining, whining. 

High Fidelity, for those who don't know, is the first-person account of a newly-dumped, music-obsessed, thirty-five-year-old manchild named Rob who owns a struggling record store in the '90s.  Rob spends most of his time with his two Championship Vinyl employees, dudes who are even more hopeless than he is, making fun of people who like bubblegum pop and creating top five lists of their favorite songs, albums, and Cheers episodes.  So in an effort to pinpoint how and when his love life went wrong, Rob describes his top five failed relationships in excruciating detail, casting his exes as the villains.  If this whole commitmentphobe-guy-in-his-thirties-who-loves-music-more-than-he-loves-love thing sounds like Tom Perrotta's The Wishbones, then that's because it is.  Only British and broodier -- and, to be fair, published three years earlier.  

As the story unravels, Hornby hints that Rob is an unreliable narrator, slowly acquainting us with all the reasons why these breakups may actually be his fault.  Getting to know Rob and his problems requires going on a journey with not only this one very specific and very self-absorbed man, but with men in general.  According to Rob, men don't expect women to look perfect or even to deliver mind-blowing sex.  It's just that they can't shake the thrill of meeting (and yes, sleeping with) a new woman every so often.  In other words, Rob is exasperating -- but he's also human.  And through Hornby's satiric yet sensitive eyes, he sometimes becomes sympathetic.  

It should come as no surprise, then, that despite my distaste for Rob's misogynistic behavior, there's a part of me that still kind of gets him.  Not the thing about wanting to play the field, but the thing about not wanting to lose his independence.  Because for him, independence is music.  It's the language that helps him understand the world, and I respect what it means to him:  

 " . . . sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time." 63

So true, Rob/Hornby, so true.  The best songs defy space and time, transporting us to a place where everything's possible.  And that, in a nutshell, describes Rob's dilemma: he's a guy who, like most of us, wants it all.  So he gives up what he's got for what he might get.  But it doesn't make him happy.  Will he ever be able to sacrifice the possibility of the polygamous past for the certainty of a monogamous future? 

Probably (no spoiler here; you know how these stories go).  Because music will always sound sweeter coming from a record player than a computer -- but you're never too old to grow up.  

Coming of Age Takes Center Stage: The Best is Yet to Strum

I don't often read books by men or about men or for men, so when I do, I feel a little like an anthropologist.  Or at the very least, a gender studies minor at Vassar.  Maybe I avoid men's fiction because it lacks clothes commentary.  Unless you count descriptions of how some broad's ass looks in Levi's, which I do not.  Interestingly, you rarely hear about men reading women's books, or as they're often so disparagingly called, chick lit.  Maybe it's like how it's mainstream for women to wear pants but not for men to wear skirts.  Or maybe it's just that women are more open-minded.  

Anyway, I recently read The Wishbones by Tom Perrotta (yes, the man who brought us Election), and I really liked it.  It's about this guy, Dave, who plays guitar in a wedding band and is having second thoughts about marrying his high school sweetheart.  A manchild in his early thirties, Dave still lives with his parents in suburban North Jersey.  His girlfriend, Julie, still lives with her parents too, and she and Dave have been dating (on and off, as Dave is always quick to point out) for fifteen years.  Dave's whole world is his music.  He knows he's not good enough to make the big time, but that's (mostly) okay with him.  It's more about having the freedom to do what he loves.  And also, to goof off with his friends, one of whom is agoraphobic.  (If this were a movie, then it'd be firmly rooted in bromance territory.)  Dave's one of those angry young men fighting the man, even if he, as Perrotta tells us, is born to be more mild than wild.

". . .in general, marriage seemed to require that a man check his valuables at the door; his dreams, his freedom, all the wildness that had defined the secret part of his life, even if, like Dave, he wasn't all that wild in reality.  It was easier if you were a woman.  Women were supposed to want to get married, to go through life with a husband and children.  A man's job, as far as Dave could see, was simply to resist as long as possible without surrendering to the inevitable.  You didn't have to play guitar in a wedding band to know that there was something at least slightly pathetic about a bridegroom." (26)

Although I disagree with the sexist notion that it's only men who fear marriage and giving up their independence, I get what Dave is going through.  Probably because I can identify with him more than his alter-obsessed leading ladies (for yes, there turns out to be more than one).  Growing up is universal.  It's difficult and bittersweet for everyone.  For Dave, the tipping point (pun intended) is seeing the elderly front man from a rival band topple off the stage to his death.  That incident is the catalyst for everything that comes after, a situation, as the cliche goes, that gets worse before it gets better.  One stop on Dave's journey is a new "friendship" in New York City, where he works part time as a courier.  His New York alter ego ends up at an open mic night and tries to convince himself that he and real-life Dave aren't all that different.

"Some of the readers looked like poets and some of them looked like regular people.  A handful of them looked like nuts, but Dave found out pretty quickly that it was useless to try to judge sanity, or even talent, from the reader's appearance; all you could do was wait for the words.  It was like going to a big party and meeting lots of strangers in quick succession.  That was all the reading was as far as Dave could tell -- people standing up in front of other people, most of whom they didn't know, and saying, to the best of their ability, "Here I am.  This is what I'm all about." " (147)   

As Dave listens to the performers, he recognizes their need to be seen.  Because it's his need too, is, in fact, why he's in the city in the first place.  He reminisces about his missed chance to subsist on canned beans in a loft trying to become a rock star despite knowing it would've never worked out.  He tells himself that he could be a New Yorker, that he doesn't belong in the arrested development existence of his childhood bedroom.  Yet for all Dave's yearning to follow his star, he's more responsible -- and regular -- than he'd like to admit.  He's the wedding band manager's "rock" and the designated driver for his alcoholic buddy and band bassist Buzzy.  And for better or worse, Julie depends on him, even if she, as her parents imply, could do better.   

Dave learns a lot and goes through some stuff, most of which you can probably surmise without me being an out-and-out spoiler.  Still, for a while he -- and Perrotta -- kept me guessing, wondering about what both were trying to say about Dave's -- and our -- destiny.  This book is very realistic that way.  Dave could easily be your brother, best friend, or the kid who sat behind you in homeroom.  And that, as well as Perrotta's conversational yet lyrical writing, makes it poignant as well as entertaining.  The Wishbones suggests that not "making it" isn't about a dearth of heart or grit but about lacking the je ne sais quoi necessary for fame.  It tells us that facing the music doesn't always mean settling, that we should take the best parts of our past and future to weave a more melodious present.  

So, those are my research findings (for, as you may remember, I launched this rant beneath the guise of a scholarly study).  Men say that they don't want to grow up but secretly do want to and are better for it. 

Just as long as they can still sometimes pound beers and raise hell in the garage.