B, Betsy.

I was such a Tepper fan. I still love her earlier stuff. But then I started not to like her, and, as is my usual bent, assumed I'd slipped a couple IQ points down the scale, missed a meeting, in other words, that it was me not getting it that was the problem. Thanks for shoring up my self-image.

Note to self: work on that better perspective.

I read the Tepper Sleeping Beauty Book but so long ago I can't remember it.

I also read the book with the conjoined twins where the parents, wanting both a boy and a girl, get a sex change operation for one child.

FREAKY book.

Betsy, i think A

Oooh, people who share my opinion of Tepper. I loved Grass, thought it was marvelous and bizarre and so creative. And I liked a few others, but Beauty squicked me something awful, I couldn't make heads or tails out of it, and almost everything else has been too anvilly to be believed. So I don't read her anymore.

Although there was one that I thought had a good point to make, which was about the concept that western culture has about women and motherhood, that fallacy that all women are naturally good mothers, that the mere fact of bearing a child would make one love their child and look after them properly. She kind of tore that one down into little bits and stomped on it, and I was happy for that. Because we're biologically encoded to bear, but I don't think we're biologically coded to rear. That's culture and personality. t /rant

I gave up on her around the sleeping beauty rework that explained that anybody who read horror novels was complicit in child abuse, rape, and all the horrors of the culture.

WHAAAAAA?!

No, I can't make any sense of that.

I haven't read anything by Tepper, and now I don't think I want to.

But you do. You want to read the Marianne novels. You want to read Grass.

I want to go to a meeting now. Really I do.

I gave up on her around the sleeping beauty rework that explained that anybody who read horror novels was complicit in child abuse, rape, and all the horrors of the culture.

I didn't get this from Beauty. I actually was kind of amused by bits and pieces of that book (like Snow White being such a git), but not my favorite Tepper. Oddly, my husband likes that one but can't explain why. I think I've read maybe 8 or 9 of her books, and went from loving the language and ideas in Grass to ducking reflexively as I read, in an attempt to avoid the falling anvils.

I did like much of The Family Tree ...I think that's the one where the chef keeps looking up and saying "Grummel grummel." Won't give more than that away, but "grummelling" has been added to my vocab.

Has anyone read Lost by Gregory Maguire? I finished it last night. I thought it was a really interesting idea/concept, extrememly poorly executed. Curious what anyone else thinks.

I read it a couple of years ago, Jess, and I thought pretty much the same things. I really liked the idea, but I didn't get much of the Scrooge connection that was supposed to be there. And while I felt bad for main character (Winnie?), I mostly wanted her to just get a grip. I wish I remembered more details at the moment, but I only just remember feeling sad about the situation and annoyed by the characters' way of dealing with it.

Yeah, the literary backstory that is Maguire's thing (that's my technical word for it) was tenuous.