Charming echoes, books that require hip boots and gloves, books by mail

I was definitely having more fun 30 years ago this week!

January 30, 1976 to February 6, 1976, I read:

Hollywood, Garson Kanin
Online I found a comment about a scene in this book Kanin witnessed where a young Lawrence Olivier chatted with Greta Garbo at a party and then reenacted the conversation on the drive home for a suspicious Vivien Leigh. That really was memorable and charming, and it stuck in my memory also.

A Purple Place for Dying, John D. MacDonald
The Mystery Writer's Art, Nevin, Ed
The Worlds of Frank Herbert (surprisingly good anthology)
The Deep Blue Goodbye, John D. MacDonald


January 30 to February 6, 2006

Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World, Greg Critser

I had meant to look this book up when I researched books with the three letter F-word in the title for my web page essay
http://www.maadwomen.com/lynnemurray/essays/fword.html

The book turned out to be quite insulting to fat people. Malarial mosquitoes probe more deeply and with less of an agenda than this so-called objective reporter uses in this book. I ranted on a bit on that at the end of this post, but feel free to skip if you're not in the mood.

First, on a positive note. Because it was borrowed, I didn't pay money to be insulted by Fat Land! I borrowed this book from a service called http://www.booksfree.com/ (this is a spontaneous, unpaid endorsement!) Booksfree.com does for paperback book lovers what Netflix does for DVD lovers—a real find for those of us who can't easily get to a library.

Optional Rant mode activated—

I was hoping that Fat Land would provide some useful information about some of the ingredients in highly processed foods such as trans fats and high fructose corn syrup—which seem to be to be health-damaging additives. [As it happens that information is much more objectively covered in Fat Politics, The Real Story Behind America's Obesity Epidemic, by J. Eric Oliver—a book I am reading with care so as to review on my web page.]

Alas, Critser begins by discussing his recent "successful" diet! I have two things to say about that:

First, I am saddened by our current cultural climate where anything expressed by a thinner person is somehow more valid and valuable than anything expressed by that same person 40 pounds heavier. This is prejudice. Pure and simple.

Second, I am angered by the contempt that infects Critser's every paragraph. His is not an unusual attitude but I experience rage afresh each time I see a "formerly fat person" who feels entitled to beat up on fat people "for our own good."

One Amazon.com reviewer pointed out that this author seemed to think he could shame people into losing weight. Sadly a whole raft of others chimed in about how the "refreshing slap in the face" this book delivered will help them lose weight. As this is a future, and uncertain event, these testimonials only point up the sad state of self-abasement that flourishes around issues of body size.

Nothing the book has to offer would alleviate the stress, or compensate me for the time wasted in reading it. However, I toyed with the thought of going through it to compare some of Critser's more superficial conclusions with those drawn by Paul Campos in The Obesity Epidemic or the aforementioned J. Eric Oliver's Fat Politics. But that would mean spending more time with the book, and even stopping early on, it took some effort to clear off the sticky coating of hatred from anything it might have touched while the book was still in my hands.

And yeah, I guess this rant was part of that process, and I say anyone who has read this far, as I say to the accommodating white page in front of me--thanks for listening.