Today has been a busy day dear readers, and not my usual definition of busy which roughly translates to How can I possibly manage to fit in reading an entire book, writing a blog entry, and catch up on all 3 soap operas that I watch? No, today I actually had legitimate things to do all day long - but, not to worry, I still managed to fit in frivolous things like doing a city wide search for Frozen Rice Dream followed by composing an angry letter to the makers of said Rice Dream to inform them that their "New and Improved" Chocolate flavor tastes like medicine. And then I went on a desperate Internet search for the picture of today's book before finding what is quite possibly the most boring book cover I've ever seen in my life. But, it has given me an idea for the last week of the year, in which I'm going to recap favorite and least favorite books. Perhaps I should throw in most attractive and least attractive book covers.
To give you a better idea of what the book cover should have looked like, I'm including the picture from the movie that was based on today's book.
Isn't that better dear readers? Doesn't that make you want to watch the movie . . . and working in an office back the 30s? Or maybe I'm the only one who watches old movies and things that being a secretary in the 30s looks like a lot of fun!I couldn't find a description of today's book either, so I'm going to use the description of the movie (cheating yes, but it's my blog and I'll cheat if I want to): "Kitty Foyle portrays a white-collar working girl who receives a warm and welcome marriage proposal from Mark, a kindly but humble doctor. As soon as she accepts, however, she receives a different proposition, this one from her former love, wealthy socialite Wyn, who plans to flee his life and his wife and asks Kitty to join him and live in unwedded bliss in South America. Kitty then recounts her life in flashback to help her choose which man to love."
Shallow (but retro) thoughts:
- Kitty Foyle turned out to be the perfect book to read today because I was so busy that I didn't even have time to watch the end of All My Children or any of Days of Our Lives (do you see the kind of difficulty I've been forced to endure?) - but, since today's book felt like a soap opera, I was able to bravely soldier on through my sad little soap opera-free day. Go ahead and say dear readers, I know what you're thinking, I don't know how she does it. Or more likely, you're thinking, What the hell is wrong with her? Why is she so freakin' dramatic all the time?
- And now it's warning time: since the book was written in 1939 there are those awful cringe worthy moments throughout the book where totally inappropriate racial comments are made. That's always the danger with old movies and books, I spend most of the time bracing myself for those appalling moments, as well as the inevitable sexist comments. I had hoped that today's book might be free of the usual sexist comments, I had even felt slightly triumphant that I had made it to page 24 with nary a remark (isn't it sad that I consider 24 pages a victory?) and then on page 25 there was this sentence, "So many females are dirty-minded by nature, and they dirty each other. They get clean if they have the good luck to meet a man who's really sensible and sweet and can take the body as it comes." - And now, let's all have a collective moment where we cringe.
- Since we have gotten the warning portion of the blog entry out of the way, I trust we can safely proceed to the portion of the entry where I complain about things that have practically nothing to do with the blog. And here's the sentence that I'm going to pretend somehow has something to do with what I'm about to tell you, "Aunt Hattie was annoyed finding me like that; the way she ordered Pat out gave me the idea she didn't think it was quite decent for me to be undressing with a male dog in the room." - I actually have two pointless and totally irrelevant things to say about that sentence: 1. Am I the only one who made their boy dolls avert their eyes while changing clothes? Or were the rest of you not born Midwestern prudes? 2. This sentence reminds me of that inevitable, and endlessly annoying, expression that was used throughout my childhood whenever I would admit that I don't enjoy undressing in dressing rooms (or going to the bathroom in groups, or hugging, or crying publicly, or sharing feelings, or any of the other hundred things I'm somehow supposed to enjoy doing in a group with other girls), "What's the big deal? We're all girls here." I swear I still hear the expression "We're all girls here" in my nightmares. Is there some reason why I am supposed to enjoy activities that would not be enjoyable in any other context simply because those things are happening in a group full of other girls? If there is, I just can't think of one.
- I'm deeply torn on whether I like today's book better than the movie. On the one hand, the book does have a certain sense of realism that the movie lacks, but on the other hand, the movie has Ginger Rogers in it. And I like Ginger Rogers so much that I will watch any movie, despite how thin (or non-existent) the plot may be, simply because she is in it. I guess in the end, I would have to call it a draw - both the book and the movie are the kind that I'm glad I experienced once, but I didn't love either enough to want to experience them over and over again. I'm not sure I would recommend either one (unless you love Ginger Rogers) but neither was terrible.
