Alright. So I was about to write a long post about using literature as a romantic litmus test, pegged to a press release I received earlier this week about the launch of the UK's Penguin Dating, powered by match.com. More on that later, perhaps.

But I took a break to wander up to the Portland Public Library, and scored this treasure from the Free Books pile: Health and Hygiene for the Modern Woman, by Leonard H. Biskind, MD, published in 1957.

Amazing; I love this stuff. Among the "22 Factual Chapters" are gems like: "Emotions and the Female Pelvis," "Little Girls' Problems," and "The Overweight Problem." Indeed! I must get to reading. Updates to come. For now, I'll leave you with this:

"The close relationship between emotions and so-called 'female trouble' has long been known, but its acceptance has been delayed for a variety of reasons. Now we speak not only of 'female trouble' but of 'troubled females.' There are a number of emotions which, when unrealistic, can cause symptoms of female trouble or aggravate obstetric and gynecologic conditions."

I can so picture Betty Draper reading this book.  

Even in her unbridled fantasies, happiness had been difficult to conjure. 

The Anna (Roitman) K. of Irina Reyn's new novel What Happened to Anna K. (Touchstone) is doomed from the start. Literature and movies have blurred her conception of reality. She wants Heathcliff and Darcy, romance, Dostoyevsky-esque intensity combined with fairytale endings. But she recognizes that even in her romantic imaginings, there's always a tinge of sadness, of unresolved conflict, of stormy situation. It's as though she needs to exist at the apex of every story, unable to move toward the denouement. And in this modern re-imagining of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina that takes place within New York City's Russian immigrant community, Anna's intellectual depressiveness is her fatal downfall.

Here is Reyn describing Anna's inability to reconcile reality with fantasy: "...Anna rejected the facts before her in favor of characters and situations and myths operating more vibrantly inside her own mind. That she lived most fully not in her life, but on the page."

Reyn (a Russian immigrant herself) has written a beautiful debut novel, especially because (or despite the fact that?) it's inspired, at some points very explicitly, by the original AK. I wondered, as I was reading it, whether a reader uninitiated to the wonders of AK would appreciate Reyn's book as much (or more?). Please, if you've never read Tolstoy's book and you read Reyn's, let me know what you think.

However, the sections in which Reyn focuses on Anna's struggles as an immigrant -- and her suggestion that Anna's depression is in fact because she's an immigrant, a Russian immigrant especially -- seem weak, for a few reasons. First, they seem a bit heavy-handed -- a bit more about telling than showing. Secondly, because they take away from the discussion of how Anna's intellectual life colors her unhappiness. And third, because the original Anna Karenina had no such struggle (true, the section on Levin's farming addressed questions of class and Russian hierarchy, but in a more abstract way). For a book that relies so heavily on the plot structure and themes of Tolstoy's work, the addition of this social commentary in What Happened is jarring. 

Overall, though, it's a gripping read. B+. 

The folks over at The Millions have posted their responses to the question: What was the book that started it all for you? They've encouraged lurkers to post responses either in the comments or on their own blogs; I'm taking the second route. 

Blogger Edan and I have a lot in common. Here's her entry:

"According to my mother, I could read novels before I was potty trained. I'm not contesting that mythology, but the first time I remember being totally enamored with a book was later than that, at about age 8, when my mother bought me Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. I'd read and liked other books - The Babysitters Club series, of course, and nearly everything by Judy Blume - but Anne of Green Gables felt more magical, and more mature. It took me to a faraway world, specifically, to Prince Edward Island in the early 20th century, and used big, unfamiliar words (I remember asking my mom what the word "abundance" meant on the ride home from the bookstore - I had a small tingling of fear - or was it excitement? - that this book would be difficult). I loved that the story's protagonist had carrot red hair, and, even better, freckles like mine! I took to calling people "kindred spirits" and wondering if I could pull of puffed sleeves. I spent the next couple of years reading Montgomery's entire oeuvre, and I started taping the following warning into my inside book covers:

This book is one thing
My fist is another
You take this
And you'll get the other"

I never threatened physical violence on book theives, but everything else she writes is accurate -- I'd gorged on Judy Blume, Little House on the Prairie, the Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew, and even Sweet Valley High, but nothing touched my imagination like Anne, Gilbert, Marilla, and the rest of the Prince Edward Island gang. I plowed through all eight books (through Rilla of Ingleside, about Anne's daughter), as well as the spin-offs about Avonlea. They were magical. 

Other seminal books in my early literary life include Louise Fitzhugh's Harriet the Spy (note my earlier post about literary tattoos; this book convinved me that being a weird weirdo was okay), Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights (which instilled an unnatural belief that every romantic relationship is passionate, fiery, and depressing), and Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond (which made me run around my backyard pretending to be a spunky Colonial girl accused of witchcraft). Throw in The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin for entertainment value. And of course, To Kill A Mockingbird, by Harper Lee, and that other Bronte's Jane Eyre (although I hate the anti-feminist ending). And Roald Dahl's Matilda (a clever girl who reads a lot -- what better role model?!), and My Side of the Mountain (I find that young men generally prefer Hatchet, but MSOTM is inexplicably more gender-neutrally inspiring -- also, Jean Craighead George lives in my hometown). 

But this isn't supposed to be a list of "the best books I read when I was young," it's supposed to be an identification of "the book that started it all" -- and I interpret that as: the book that opened up the world of words and made me love reading. And for that I have to go back to Beverly Cleary's Ramona the Pest, which I vividly recall reading in bed with my mother at a very young age. Ramona was a champ.

Yesterday, Maureen Dowd compared Barack Obama to Jane Austen's prideful Mr. Darcy, and took the metaphor farther by claiming that we Americans are collectively his Elizabeth Bennet. Fine. Dowd also casts John McCain as Wickham, the manipulative lying cad who somehow pulls the wool over even an intelligent person's eyes.

I've spent some part of the last 24 hours brainstorming how I would fill out the cast...But found it more difficult than I'd anticipated. Any help? 

Mr. Collins (the gross and annoying cousin who fawns over Elizabeth, only to be spurned): I wanted to say Mitt Romney, but he's simply too handsome to play a simpering fool. Guiliani is too strong-willed, and Kucinich didn't fawn either (though they are both slightly troll-like). 

Jane (Elizabeth's kind, beautiful, and rather dull older sister): The America of four years ago (the one that let G-Dubs get re-elected). 

Bingley (Jane's kind, handsome, and rather dull suitor): I would say Karl Rove, but he's not very handsome...Or very kind. Or even very dull. But he did help woo America, four years ago. Here's a better idea: John Kerry or John Edwards -- they're both handsome, kind, whatever, and did, in fact, "win over" the America described above, by virtue of pushing more than half of the electorate away. 

Mrs. Bennet (the overbearing, abrasive matriarch that often ruins everything): Dick Cheney

Mr. Bennet (the intelligent, bemused, somewhat detached father who puts up with everyone else's crap): Sweden? Canada? 

At some point I ceased caring if these make sense in a political context; I just like thinking of Dick Cheney as Mrs. Bennet.