Reading Between the Lines

A word on the conclusion of my last blog post, with your permission, gentle reader, before I get started on the new one.  Many people mistakenly think that Horatio Alger, Jr. wrote about immigrants who worked hard and became successful, and I didn't want to promulgate that falsehood.  Immigrants were not his subject matter.  He wrote about American people (men or boys) who started out with nothing, and by sheer hard work, determination, intelligence and honesty, turned their lives around.  He wrote what amount to morality tales (see Ragged Dick, for example) about these simple values and how anyone who sticks to them can flourish and thrive.  My mother calls me "the eternal optimist," but I'd like to believe that these are among the only values required for success.  Of course, women like me know that it is nearly impossible for working mothers to reach their professional goals because of the time and financial burdens of childcare, but I would like to think that politics, "playing" people, and strategy are of lesser importance, or of no importance at all.  Hence I will never seek a position in public office!

And now, on to this post's subject.  Last month, I mentioned the fabulous new Broadway play, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time."  A friend told me that the (rather cumbersome) title of the original book came from a line in a Sherlock Holmes short story, "Silver Blaze."  This lead us to talk about Agatha Christie, and her indomitable hero, Hercule Poirot.  My friend posited that by the final Poirot novels, it was evident that Christie had tired of writing about him.  He said that you could tell by the writing.

I said, "I know exactly what you mean.  I feel as though Alexander McCall Smith was sorry that he had his heroine in The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, Precious Ramotswe, adopt two children, because he never has any idea what to do with them, and basically writes them out of nearly every story."  My friend was surprised that the author of these mystery novels is a man, because he writes women so well, and I would agree, with the exception of the subject of motherhood, which McCall Smith has no idea how to write about.

While I would definitely recommend any book or story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie or Alexander McCall Smith, especially to someone who enjoys mysteries, I am reminded of two books that I read (or rather "listened to") recently that I would not recommend.  My preference is generally for non-fiction, so I had high hopes for these two memoirs: Yes, Please by Amy Poehler, and Seriously, I'm Kidding by Ellen Degeneres, but, in "reading between the lines," I felt that in both cases, the authors were told by their agents, "Listen, you're at the height of your popularity.  Now is a time to write a book.  All your fans will buy it.  It's a new way to make money."  So, they were talked into it, and signed a contract with a publisher, and then, when they got down to the hard work, realized that they didn't want to do it after all.  Writing was too hard, too time-consuming, too lonely. So, they tried to get out of their contracts.  But they found that they couldn't - well, not without great expense.  So, they begrudgingly wrote their memoirs.  (This is pure conjecture, mind you.)  They filled the pages with anecdotes, musings, and remembrances.  There were a few interesting tid-bits in each of them.  But for the most part, both of these books just screamed at me, "I have to write this damn book, so I'm writing it just to write it." I could not really see past the greed.  I fear that even Alexander McCall Smith may have a contract to turn out a Precious Ramotswe book every summer, because I'm reading the newest one, and it's striking me as rather itinerant.  But maybe it's just that my eternal optimism is waning with age...