Springtime pollen is sapping both our brains, but fortunately this podcast was never very serious to start with, and we’re hoping you won’t notice. We do “hoping you won’t notice a thing” by loudly and repeatedly talking about the thing. Our transparency is part of our charm, we dearly hope. This podcast, we’re chatting about some of the oldest and newest books we possess, and then Whiskey Jenny breaks her Helen Oyeyemi tie by falling in total love with Gingerbread. (Yay!) You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures if you want to skip around.
3:56 – What we’re reading
7:52 – What we’re making
12:08 – Shelf review!
30:07 – Gingerbread, by Helen Oyeyemi
48:26 – What we’re reading next time
What we talked about:
The Mighty Thor: Thunder in Her Veins, Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman
The Weather Machine, Andrew Blum
Geostorm
Big Dead Place, Nicholas Johnson
Signs Preceding the End of the World, Yuri Herrera
Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney
Everfair, Nisi Shawl
Hell or High Water, Joy Castro
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles
The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fagles
The Odyssey, translated by Emily Wilson
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
Matilda, Roald Dahl
Betsy-Tacy, Maud Hart Lovelace
Half Magic, Edward Eager
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
Star Wars Meets the Eras of Feminism: Weighing All the Galaxy’s Women Great and Small, Valerie Estelle Frankel
Gingerbread, Helen Oyeyemi
Practical Magic (the movie!)
Fangirl Happy Hour
our SFF starter pack episode
Zoo City, Lauren Beukes
Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads. If you like what we do, support us on Patreon. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).
Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry
Transcript
THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
GIN JENNY: Welcome back to the Reading the End bookcast with the Demographically Similar Jennys. I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And we are here again to talk about books and literary happenings. On today’s podcast we’re going to chat about what we’re reading and what we’re making. We are going to talk about our oldest and newest books. And then we will review Helen Oyeyemi’s latest novel, Gingerbread.
But before we get into all that, just a note, I am not on top of my game today. I have done everything stupid today that you can imagine, including most recently putting my hand over the top of an open bottle of carbonated beverage and shaking it vigorously. So I apologize in advance to you, Whiskey Jenny, and also to our listeners, for anything stupid that I’m going to say on today’s podcast.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry that you’ve had such a day. But can I tell you two things?
GIN JENNY: Yes.
WHISKEY JENNY: I also had an incredibly dumb moment today.
GIN JENNY: I think today is cursed.
WHISKEY JENNY: Eagle-eyed listeners will notice that Gin Jenny did not say that we’ll be talking about Lord of the Rings. [LAUGHTER] Which we won’t, because I just totally forgot to finish it. [LAUGHTER] I was puttering around my house, waiting for podcast recording time to start, being like, great. I’m ready on time for once. And I was like, oh my God! [LAUGHTER] It was terrible. I’m so sorry.
And then on Saturday I made a pie. It turned out great. I’m very pleased with it. Except at one point during the making of the pie I forgot things were hot and just grabbed the pie pan out of the oven with my hand. [LAUGHTER] I just grabbed it! I think what has happened is—so we have what’s called an Ove Glove that Snapple Alex’s lovely mother bought him.
GIN JENNY: Sure. I’m familiar.
WHISKEY JENNY: That I get to reap the benefits of. It says it’s made partly of—what’s that material that bulletproof vests are made out of? Kevlar. It says it’s partly made from Kevlar, so it’s really cool, basically. [LAUGHTER] So I was wearing that in my right hand and holding it. And I think like I’ve gotten used to having a glove and like feeling like I can grip things with my hand and just grabbed the pan with my left hand, too, as it was coming out of the oven. And it was like, oh no! That was a terrible idea.
GIN JENNY: Did you drop it?
WHISKEY JENNY: I didn’t drop it. So I still got to eat the pie, so that was good. But I had a lovely line running down my palm. It was OK. I slept with an ice pack and then it stopped hurting in the morning.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. When I’ve done that in the past it has usually led to me dropping the hot thing. And then not only do I have a burn on the hand in question, but I also have burns—
WHISKEY JENNY: On your feet. Mm-hm. Oh dear. And then the thing is gone maybe.
GIN JENNY: Right. All that effort. This is why I don’t cook. I’m jumping the gun a little bit, but can I ask what kind of pie it was?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, you can. It was a lemon olive oil tart.
GIN JENNY: Ooh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which was in the newest Cook’s Illustrated magazine that I get. No butter, just olive oil.
GIN JENNY: Wow.
WHISKEY JENNY: I really enjoyed it. I thought I was delicious. I was like, I’m going to be crazy and put sage in the crust.
GIN JENNY: [GASP] Oh my GOSH.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which I did, and it had zero effect. I can’t taste it at all. [LAUGHTER] So as Alex pointed out, though, no harm done.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: This is like me putting bay leaves in things.
WHISKEY JENNY: What? Oh, no. Bay leaves are the best.
GIN JENNY: Well, I know, but I’m never really sure if they’ve had an effect or not. I keep doing it out of superstition.
WHISKEY JENNY: You would miss them if they were gone. [LAUGHTER] I feel sure.
GIN JENNY: OK. I trust you. [LAUGHTER] OK, well now that we’ve thoroughly rehearsed our failings, what are you reading, Whiskey Jenny?
WHISKEY JENNY: We’re recording these kind of back to back, so I haven’t actually started anything since after we last talked and finishing Gingerbread. But I will talk about what I’m going to read next.
GIN JENNY: Oh boy.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I have not read a graphic novel in a while, so I went into my little arsenal of ones that I own that I haven’t read yet and pulled out The Mighty Thor: Thunder in her Veins.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I read that when I was last staying with you.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I think I either stuck it on your nightside table or we bought it together at the comic book store we went to together. So I have not read it yet, and I’m excited to read Lady Thor.
GIN JENNY: That sounds great. Yeah, it was good. As I recall, it was quite good, so I’m excited for you to read it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I think this is one of the ones that got recommended when I was like, I liked Hawkeye and specifically the bit about the normal life of a superhero, so anything else about that. So we’ll see. What are you reading right now?
GIN JENNY: I am now a non-fiction reviewer for Booklist, which is a library review magazine that tells libraries what books to buy or not buy. So for them—
WHISKEY JENNY: Excuse me! Congratulations!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Thank you.
WHISKEY JENNY: This feels huge. This feels right up your alley.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I thought I had told you this already. I guess not?
WHISKEY JENNY: I forgot if so, and I’m so sorry. But congratulations!
GIN JENNY: Thank you. Yeah, it’s fun! So I told them I wanted to review pop science books, because I like learning a small amount about scientific matters, but not too much. Not too technical, because I’m not smart enough for that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Interesting. I didn’t see this coming.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I gave them several topics, but the one that they’re running with is pop science. So it’s cool, I’ll learn a lot about many different things. So for them right now, I’m reading The Weather Machine: A Journey Inside the Forecast, by Andrew Blum, which is about the history and present of how weather forecasting works. And what I’ve learned is that—
WHISKEY JENNY: It doesn’t. [LAUGHTER] That’s what it feels like sometimes. Not to crap all over meteorologists.
GIN JENNY: It’s pretty complicated, Whiskey Jenny. They work really hard. There’s a lot of—
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sure. I’m so sure.
GIN JENNY: There was a chapter I just read where NASA was launching a really ginormous satellite that was going to measure soil moisture amounts in the earth, but they were going to do it from space.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Sure, sure. As you do.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, and apparently this is quite important and it’s going to improve our weather forecasts.
WHISKEY JENNY: If you say so.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Have you seen the film—the art film Geostorm? [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I have not, no. I never see films, so.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m joking. It’s not an art film.
GIN JENNY: Oh, I’m sorry. I’m embarrassed for myself.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: It’s a great, silly movie with the Gerard Butler and some other people. And basically they create a satellite network that can control the weather, but then things start going wrong.
GIN JENNY: Oh, who could have predicted? Human hubris.
WHISKEY JENNY: Gerard Butler has to get pulled in for one last job by his estranged brother. [LAUGHTER] And it’s so great. They call the system of satellites Dutch Boy, after the well-known folktale of when the little Dutch boy had to plug a dam with his finger.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Mm-hm. Naturally, naturally.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: I think you should maybe watch that as a pairing with this book.
GIN JENNY: OK, I’ll let Booklist know. I’ll be like, this is a good pairing with a nice Chardonnay and—
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. [LAUGHTER] A nice Chilean Chardonnay and Geostorm.
GIN JENNY: Right as I finish describing the book, there was a ginormous clap of thunder outside my window, and I really hope the microphone picks it up. Because I did not schedule it. It’s just the weather.
WHISKEY JENNY: What! Weather! Live weather happening right now.
GIN JENNY: Well, so here’s an interesting fact that I learned from this book. Apparently, decade over decade, we’ve gotten one day better at predicting the weather. So a six-day forecast now is as accurate as a two-day forecast in the ‘70s. And I thought that was a nice little marker of progress.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ah. All right, cool. All right.
GIN JENNY: You’ll allow it?
WHISKEY JENNY: I’ll allow it, yeah.
GIN JENNY: OK, our Patreon supporters voted for us talk about—actually, they overwhelmingly voted for us talk in this month about what we can’t shut up about. But since we’ve already done that, the second runner up—a far distant second runner up—was what we’re making. [LAUGHTER] So that’s what we’re going to talk about now. Because, Whiskey Jenny, you were actually making something quite awesome.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did! I just finished a baby blanket for a dear friend who just had a baby. Or dear friends, who just had a baby. I’m not a very perfect knitter, and also I’m a very loose and relaxed knitter, so it’s very loopy, I suppose. But it’s real cute. It’s this very soft yarn, and it’s a pretty pale green. They’ll have received it by the time this airs, so just in case they happen to be listeners, we can talk with impunity.
But it’s in a very pretty pale green and a really soft yarn. And it’s got a little hood on it. And the hood is not baby sized. I don’t know what this pattern was thinking. But [LAUGHTER] it’s a hood, and then the hood has little ears on it. In my version the ears are very floppy, so sorry about that. But I’m mailing it anyway.
GIN JENNY: You absolutely should. Also, if you had to identify a breed of dog that this hood would fit, what breed of dog would it be?
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Like a Saint Bernard. It’s huge.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: That’s not what I expected you to say. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s really big. I made it and was like, that’s awfully big for a baby. And then I looked at the pattern, and the hood itself is not that far off the pattern. So I don’t know what the pattern makers were expecting. But yeah. The knit pattern is cool; it looks like a basket weave.
GIN JENNY: Cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: But it is baby blanket size. So it’s definitely for babies. [LAUGHTER] But I guess large-headed babies.
GIN JENNY: I’m actually a little, now that I’m thinking about it, a little miffed that they don’t make hooded blankets for grownups.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m sure they do.
GIN JENNY: OK, you’re right. They probably do.
WHISKEY JENNY: Right? Isn’t that what onesies are, basically?
GIN JENNY: No, those are much more constricting than a hooded blanket.
WHISKEY JENNY: That’s true.
GIN JENNY: It’s almost like a cape, a hooded blanket.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Do you really want a hooded blanket? Because I feel like blankets go in the front. It would have to be on the back. So you’d have to be lying on your stomach.
GIN JENNY: No, I would wrap it around myself.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, I see. Yup. That makes more sense. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: This is the aforementioned brain rot that has set in.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know what’s with today. Yeah. [LAUGHTER] So sorry.
GIN JENNY: Well, so I don’t make things very often. So when listeners vote for what we’re making, I have to be a little bit conceptual about it. So I’m making, I hope, a tidier home. My Lenten resolution is that I was going to do five minutes of tidying up per day. And I would say I have not been massively consistent about it, but I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, because all I want this Lenten resolution to accomplish is for me to slightly develop a habit of cleaning up a little bit each day. And I think I can gradually get better at it over the course of Lent. There’s still almost an entire month to go.
WHISKEY JENNY: Phew. Lent is long. Good lord.
GIN JENNY: Lent is long, yeah. 40 days in the desert. I know.
WHISKEY JENNY: My goodness.
GIN JENNY: I’ve mostly stuck to small, easy tasks like washing dishes. I know that shouldn’t count, but I’ve been counting it.
WHISKEY JENNY: It totally counts.
GIN JENNY: Thank you. Oh, thank you. I appreciate your support.
WHISKEY JENNY: Of course it does.
GIN JENNY: But I’ve also done some scrubbing the bathtub really intensely. I was planning on cleaning my stovetop, which is a very unpleasant task that I really, really hate, but my mom came over when I was at work and did it for me.
WHISKEY JENNY: What? That’s so nice!
GIN JENNY: I know. Yeah, so my house is a little more spick and span than it has been wont to be, and I’m hoping that I can get better at maintaining it that way.
WHISKEY JENNY: That sounds very cozy.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that’s my goal. Listeners, I don’t know if you can hear it, but it is raining quite hard where I’m at. And I never feel as cozy in my house, and I’m never as happy for my house to be tidy, as when it’s raining outside and I want to feel cozy inside.
WHISKEY JENNY: God, I miss rain.
GIN JENNY: Oh, it’s so good. It’s so good and blessed. This is the first good rain that we’ve had in a while.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. And thundering. With thundering.
GIN JENNY: It was thundering pretty hard a minute ago, but now it’s kind of leveled off. All right, so Whiskey Jenny, you actually came up with the topic for today. So do you want to introduce it to the listeners?
WHISKEY JENNY: I did. Well, I thought we could do a little bookshelf review. And the questions that we are answering with books are the oldest publication date book or books that you own, the oldest print date book or books that you own, and your most recent acquisitions that you have purchased. After I came up with this topic, I feel like I have great answers for two out of the three questions. [LAUGHTER] I was like, why did I do this to myself?
Oh, and sorry, we have one late edition that you proposed, which is oldest book that we have continuously owned.
GIN JENNY: Yes. I insisted on adding this at the very last minute, because I wanted to talk about some of my kids books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, great. So I’ll just get it out of the way. The one that I was like, wait, I don’t really have a good answer for this, is what you last bought at a bookstore. And it’s because we’ve mostly already talked about all the books that I last purchased at a bookstore. It was at The Strand, and I purchased Big Dead Place, which we read last time for podcast.
GIN JENNY: Oh, sure, sure.
WHISKEY JENNY: A used copy, so that was good. I purchased Signs Preceding the End of the World, which I loved.
GIN JENNY: For book club, right?
WHISKEY JENNY: For book club, yup. A new copy of that. And it was out on a little table of small presses, so that was interesting. And then I bought a copy of Conversations with Friends, which I did not read and will be foisting off, hopefully, into a different used bookstore. Because it was for a book club that I ended up not being able to attend, and so I did not read it. I heard that noted Friend of the Podcast Ashley did not enjoy it, so I am not going to bother with it. Farewell to thee, book.
[LAUGHTER]It could have turned around, but I didn’t have high hopes when I purchased it.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Apparently it did not turn around for Ashley, so off it goes to find a loving owner.
GIN JENNY: Absolutely. That sounds wonderful.
WHISKEY JENNY: So yeah. I feel like all of those we’ve already talked about. And it was a very focused trip to The Strand. I had goals in mind, and I didn’t do a whole lot of browsing because I get very claustrophobic in The Strand.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. The Strand is not the best.
WHISKEY JENNY: The shelves are so high and tight, and it’s so crowded, and you can’t go anywhere. And you ask for help and they’re like, what are you talking about? We don’t have a section on explorers. And they definitely do! That’s where I found the Big Dead Place book. It was downstairs in the Explorers and Oceans section or whatever.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Those bastards.
WHISKEY JENNY: That gal did help me find a used copy of something else, so I can’t get too mad at her.
GIN JENNY: OK. All right.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was nice to find used copies. But I just wish that it wasn’t so claustrophobic. So what was your last bookstore foray?
GIN JENNY: So my most recent bookstore purchase was Gingerbread, which we’re reading for podcast, so more about that anon. So instead of talking about that, I decided to talk about the newest book arrival in my house, was a gift
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh! I could have done that!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, it’s not too late. [LAUGHTER] I mean, you can still do that. After I get done, we can just—
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Go ahead.
GIN JENNY: OK. Friend of the Podcast Julia sent me a lovely hardback copy of Everfair, by Nisi Shawl. I think I’ve talked about this book on the podcast before, but basically it’s a steampunk, anti-colonialist alternate history where the Congolese people developed steampunk technology in the 1800s and they use it to repel the Belgian colonizers. And it follows these characters through a long stretch of alterna-Congolese history. It’s just very fascinatingly imagined, and I really liked it a lot.
But also my favorite thing about it is it’s signed by the author to a particular person. Which I sometimes find a bit sad, even though neither the author nor the book buyer probably feels that sad about it, because authors sign books all the time, and that’s just, you know. But even so, I find it a little melancholy. But in this case the inscription says, “To Tuesday, seize the light. Nisi Shawl.”
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So in my imagination—
WHISKEY JENNY: To Tuesday!
GIN JENNY: In my imagination she’s just signing it to the day Tuesday, which is kind of a middling day people don’t care about. It’s like, Tuesday! Seize the light!
WHISKEY JENNY: You got it. You can do it, Tuesday.
GIN JENNY: So I’m really excited about it. It was unexpected; I did not know that Julia was going to be sending me anything. So it was a real treat to find it in the mailbox.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, that’s so kind.
GIN JENNY: Since you evidently could have talked about— [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Well actually, I’m so sorry. In re-pondering, I don’t think it actually counts.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, this has really been a roller coaster.
WHISKEY JENNY: I know. I made such a huge deal of it. But I received the book that you mailed.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right.
WHISKEY JENNY: But one of them is for Ashley and two of them are for my father, so none of them are actually mine. I’m just a keeper right now.
GIN JENNY: You’re a conduit.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m merely a conduit. So, but thank you.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, of course, no problem.
WHISKEY JENNY: I forget what it is for Ashley, but my dad is getting two mysteries set in New Orleans.
GIN JENNY: By Joy Castro.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Yeah, these were two mysteries that I read and enjoyed, but I didn’t think I was going to reread them. So passing them along is the correct path.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right, great. So which do you want to talk about next? Longest continuously owned, oldest book, or oldest property?
GIN JENNY: I think oldest, like copyright oldest. What did you call it? Print date oldest?
WHISKEY JENNY: Print date oldest. OK. Well, my print date oldest is The Epic of Gilgamesh.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It was, in fact, before either print or copyright.
WHISKEY JENNY: Which is pretty damn old. [LAUGHTER] I forget what BC it is, but sometime BC. I read it in high school and I really loved it, so I held onto it. So I’ve had it since then.
GIN JENNY: I’ve still never read it.
WHISKEY JENNY: I really liked it. I thought there was some beautiful, beautiful language in it.
GIN JENNY: Well, that’s cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s also a lot of dragging battles, and you’re like yeah, come on. Let’s get through the battle. We can do it. But yeah, just some really beautiful language. I haven’t read it in a while. I should go back to it. But I think it’s cool to read such an incredibly old tale talking about humans being humans. Humans gonna human.
GIN JENNY: It’s so true. Yeah, mine is unsurprisingly quite similar. So mine, I think mine has to be the Iliad and the Odyssey. And I wasn’t sure if this counted because they’re translated. So I wasn’t sure if, because the translation is of more recent—
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, so is Gilgamesh. I’m not reading it in the original Sumerian, or whatever it is.
GIN JENNY: So if that’s the case, then the oldest book I own is—I have some Ovid in Latin. But I think translated Iliad and Odyssey count.
WHISKEY JENNY: I agree.
GIN JENNY: So I have two translations of the Odyssey. One is by Robert Fagles and one is by Emily Wilson, and I recommend them both very much. Fagles is more poetical, and Emily Wilson is very—I don’t want to say unpoetical, because that would be doing an injustice to her translation, which is excellent. But it’s very straightforward and very easy to read and approachable. And the book itself is very physically beautiful, also.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, those are always exciting. When did you first read the Iliad and/or the Odyssey?
GIN JENNY: That’s a great question. I read parts of the Odyssey when I was 13 or 14. I read parts of the Iliad when I was in college, for Western Civ type class. But I don’t think I read—gosh, I’m trying to remember. I think I read the Odyssey in full when I was a teenager. And I read parts of the Iliad when I was in college. But I don’t think I read the Iliad in full until I bought the Fagles translation. Or rather until the Fagles translation was given to me. And I think that’s when I first read it all the way through. How about you? Have you read both of them?
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I did in high school, but that’s about it.
GIN JENNY: Did you like them?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: I did not fall in love with them. But I think, as with many things that I read in high school, I think they could bear a revisit as an adult.
GIN JENNY: Plus you probably had the Lattimore translation, and that one’s just OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. With different new translations, too. So yeah, so it’s sort of been on my list as maybe I should give it another try. They were fine. I didn’t connect terribly or dislike them terribly.
GIN JENNY: Well, maybe we should add those to our mental docket of potential readalong books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, that’s a good point, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Or Gilgamesh.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, yeah. That’d be cool. I do like the connection to folktales aspect of it. Yeah, let’s put those on the list, for sure.
GIN JENNY: OK. All right. I’m adding them mentally, and I will add them physically once we get off the line.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great.
GIN JENNY: So what’s the oldest book that you have owned continuously?
WHISKEY JENNY: So I’m not totally sure, because I think a lot of my books from youth are still in North Carolina. But of the ones that I have here with me, I think it’s got to be The Secret Garden.
GIN JENNY: Aw.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I still have the paperback. It’s got a very colorful little drawing of them on the cover. I wrote my name in the inside cover in childish handwriting.
GIN JENNY: Aw.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was published in 1991. And I think it’s the oldest like novel I can remember reading—certainly one of them—myself.
GIN JENNY: Right.
WHISKEY JENNY: Not be read to. So yeah. I’m sure that there are earlier Hardy Boys and stuff.
GIN JENNY: Picture books.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, picture books, but also, if we’re excluding picture books, then I think there’s Hardy Boys and stuff in North Carolina as chapter books. And I know some of those are quite old. But yeah, from what I have here, it’s The Secret Garden, which, as you know, I still sometimes listen to a recording of to fall asleep.
GIN JENNY: Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: As strange as that story is, my love abides for it. Every time I think about it, like, what was this uncle’s plan to keep this son? Like, for how long was this charade going to go on, where he kept this other person living in the house a secret? And also, if their parents are siblings, how did she not know that she had a cousin? No one mentioned to her that they had kids, and that there was such a thing as a cousin?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I’m not surprised about that second part, because her parents are quite distant. So I can imagine them just really not communicating with her. Right? ‘Cause she was raised by her ayah. She was not really raised by her parents.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, that’s true. That’s true.
GIN JENNY: So I’ll allow that. I don’t really know what the uncle’s plan was for the sickly son.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I guess it’s partly the sickly son—Colin’s plan is also like, I don’t want anyone to see me. But the adults go along with it. And for how long were they going to do this? Like, years?
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: I mean, it’s already been years. So yeah, I don’t know what they were going to do when he hits puberty and needs to—
WHISKEY JENNY: Well I don’t think—I think it’s just a secret for Mary. I don’t think it’s a secret from the town, or the servants. I mean, I mostly listen to the abridged audiobook version, so maybe there’s more stuff in the actual book which I haven’t revisited in a while. But it seems like it’s just Mary.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, really, really, really weird plan.
WHISKEY JENNY: So strange. But anyway, I still love it. I think I probably fell in love with Dickon when I was younger, and that has not changed. [LAUGHTER] What about you? What is your oldest most continuously owned book?
GIN JENNY: So this one was tricky for me, too. I had three that I thought were possibilities, and I could not correctly date them in order that I received them.
WHISKEY JENNY: Let’s hear them.
GIN JENNY: One is Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I saw a small portion of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory when I was 4, and it scared me so badly that I refused to read anything by Roald Dahl for years. And then my older sister read Matilda and she was like, oh, you’d really like it. It’s about a girl who’s really smart and learns to read when she’s 3. And I had learned to read when I was 4, so I was like, oh, she learns to read when she’s 3? Doesn’t sound real. [LAUGHTER] So I spite read it. But it turns out it’s really good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, it’s so sweet, isn’t it?
GIN JENNY: It really is, yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, no less terrifying, but still great.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. No, it’s really good. Also the kindly teacher’s first name is Jenny, so I was pretty into that.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw. Miss Honey.
GIN JENNY: So that’s one of the possibilities. One of them is Betsy-Tacy, by Maud Hart Lovelace, which is a really sweet story about two little girls who are friends in turn of the century Milwaukee. And then there’s a whole series about them growing up and their changing social circle. Did you read those books?
WHISKEY JENNY: Nuh-uh.
GIN JENNY: Oh, they’re real sweet. I don’t know if they would be fun to read as an adult, but having read them for the first time as a kid, they’re great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: And then the last one I thought of—gosh, I’m not sure about this. But the last one that I thought of is Edward Eager’s book Half Magic, which is really, I think, very underappreciated. It’s about a family of four kids who discover a charm that grants their wishes, but it only ever grants half of what they wish for.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oof.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So if I was like, oh, I wish Whiskey Jenny were here, you would be halfway between where you are now and where I am.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So they just have to wish for double the thing that they want.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh. How would you—you would wish that I was—
GIN JENNY: Twice as far as here in my house.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. [LAUGHTER] Oof, all right.
GIN JENNY: The book is really fun, but also the year that I discovered it, I bought it, I think, at the Scholastic book fair. And then for Christmas that year, my grandmother and grandfather bought me all six of the other books by Edward Eagar.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw!
GIN JENNY: Yeah and it was a really—it remains one of the greatest, most exciting Christmas presents I ever got. Because I did not get six books all at once.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Amazing.
GIN JENNY: It turns out some of the books are pretty racist on a reread. They’re quite old.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh dear.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. I don’t really know what to say about that. It’s unfortunate. But still, some of them have still good things about them, even though I wouldn’t necessarily propagate them to a new generation forever and ever.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure.
GIN JENNY: So those are my three.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. Well, now we are on to oldest print date.
GIN JENNY: Yes. Oldest physical book.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I have two for this.
GIN JENNY: Oh boy.
WHISKEY JENNY: I have a copy of Alice in Wonderland: Through the Looking Glass, illustrated.
GIN JENNY: Aw!
WHISKEY JENNY: It was given to my mother for Christmas in 1957 by her babysitter. And it’s got the loveliest note in it.
GIN JENNY: Aw!
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it’s really sweet. This babysitter was actually a student of my grandfather’s when he taught high school, which I just learned today when I called my mom to be like, remind me about this book again? She was like, actually she was in your grandfather’s class. And I knew that my grandfather had been an administrator in high school, and he taught shop, but I didn’t know that he taught other courses. And apparently he did. So I learn something new about my family—
GIN JENNY: Oh, that’s really nice.
WHISKEY JENNY: —through this podcast. So that was really nice. Yeah, and she’s a professor now.
GIN JENNY: Cool. Good for her.
WHISKEY JENNY: So it’s got a nice long history to it, and the prettiest handwriting for the inscription, obviously. And then the other one is, I have a copy—it doesn’t have a date in it, but when I googled the things about it and saw other copies of it with a similar cover, it was from 1923.
GIN JENNY: Wow.
WHISKEY JENNY: And it’s a collection of Sherlock Holmes detective stories.
GIN JENNY: Cool.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. It’s got a cute little red cover. It’s got five stories in it. It’s sort of little. The Alice in Wonderland is sort of a big, large book, and this is a short book, the size of a trade paperback but it’s a hardback. I’m sure I read this earlier. I tore my way through Sherlock Holmes when I was in my salad days. [LAUGHTER] So yeah, it doesn’t have an inscription, and so no one can quite remember where it came from. But my grandfather loved mysteries, so it was probably his. And 1923, he was born in the teens, so it would line up with that. And if it is his, then it probably came from his mom, because she was the one who gave him the books. And her name was—or she went by Fanny Bell, which I think is very sweet.
GIN JENNY: Oh, that’s wonderful.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. What about you?
GIN JENNY: So my oldest book is also a copy of Alice in Wonderland.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw!
GIN JENNY: Yeah. But it’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, so it’s the first half, not the second half. And it is from 1935, and my great-grandfather gave it to my grandmother on her eighth birthday.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And he wrote in it, “For my daughter, love Daddy, on her eighth birthday. May she always be the happy little girl she is today.” So it’s really sweet.
WHISKEY JENNY: Aw.
GIN JENNY: I know. My great-grandfather—so my mom and her mom and her mom’s dad were all huge readers. So I kind of feel like I’m in a long readerly tradition, and this is the great-grandfather who was the big reader. He died before I was born, so I never knew him. But I feel connected with him through this book, and it is one of the things that my grandmother gave me that I really, really, really treasure. Like, would save in a fire.
What are your views, by the way, on Alice in Wonderland, first and second halves?
WHISKEY JENNY: Gosh, it’s been a while since I have read them, and so I kind of forget what happened in first and second halves. But I had a blast reading it the first time. It’s so much fun playfulness with language that I had a really good time. It’s weird, though.
GIN JENNY: It sure is weird, yeah.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: But yeah. I found it like a fun little puzzle. What about you?
GIN JENNY: I like them. When I was a kid, I remember being in the bathroom brushing my teeth, and my mom—there was a copy of Alice in Wonderland in the bathroom for some reason. And I asked my mom about it, and she was like, oh, you wouldn’t like it. And I was like, oh, I wouldn’t like it, would I? [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Quickest way to get you to like it. [LAUGHTER] Maybe that was her plan all along.
GIN JENNY: Maybe. But I did read it and I did like it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Was it a teeth brushing book?
GIN JENNY: It was in part—it was initially a teeth brushing book, yeah, but I liked it so much I kept reading it. I did not stop at the two minutes it takes to brush teeth.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wow. It graduated.
GIN JENNY: It did. It leveled up.
WHISKEY JENNY: Not to—you know, that’s not fair to your current tooth brush book.
GIN JENNY: My current tooth brush book is about Star Wars and feminism.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, sure. It’s great.
GIN JENNY: Really strong. I would say I like the second half better than the first half. So I like Through the Looking Glass better than Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but they’re both great. I think Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has more of the classic stories that you think about when you think about Alice in Wonderland. But there’s really quality stuff in both.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hmm.
GIN JENNY: Well, this was a fun shelf review. I feel like we should think of other shelf reviews to do in the future.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. This was fun. I enjoyed all the family history we got out of it.
GIN JENNY: Oh, yeah. Me too. Well, that will not persist, because I have very few heirloom books.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, sure. But we’ll get other fun stories.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, definitely. What a great idea. So do you want to talk about Gingerbread?
WHISKEY JENNY: I sure do.
GIN JENNY: OK. So for this podcast, we read Gingerbread, by Helen Oyeyemi. I am a longtime fan of Helen Oyeyemi, and Whiskey Jenny really loved one of her books and was mixed on another of her books. And GINGERBREAD is the latest.
It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s about a mother and daughter who make gingerbread. It’s pretty weird. It’s got a lot of fairy tale stuff in it, and magic realism.
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m nodding along. You’re doing great. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I’ve seen many reviews of it, and nobody seems to know how to describe the plot of this book. And so I would just like to add myself to the many, many people who don’t know how to describe this book. But Whiskey Jenny, what did you think of it?
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I would just add, in terms of plot, a lot of it is—
GIN JENNY: Oh, it’s a story within a story. Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. A lot of it is the mother telling the story of her childhood and how they came to England from their former country. I adored it so much.
GIN JENNY: Oh, that’s so great!
WHISKEY JENNY: I’m not totally sure I understood it.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh, gosh, me neither.
WHISKEY JENNY: I had that rare feeling that I feel like gets talked about a lot but that I so rarely experience, but as soon as I ended it, I wanted to start it again.
GIN JENNY: Aw!
WHISKEY JENNY: I just wanted to go right back to the beginning. A, because I enjoyed it so much. It was just such a combination of creepiness and sheer joy and happiness that I haven’t read in a long time that really worked for me. And I wanted to experience that feeling again.
But also, because it’s so hard to describe, I had no idea what was happening, or what the story—like, it took me 20 pages, I think, to figure out what even the story was going to be that we were going to get told.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. And I’m not convinced I have figured it out yet.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, so I want to read again and be like, now that I sort of know what the story is, to pay closer attention to other things. So I’m really excited to reread it, which is not something I say very often. But yeah, no. I had such a great time with this book. What a great pick. What did you think?
GIN JENNY: Oh my gosh, that makes me so happy. Well, so I was actually really worried that you wouldn’t like it, because when I brought it up you seemed a little, well, not super excited about it. And I felt like I was just forcing my personal reading tastes on you.
WHISKEY JENNY: No, I wanted to read it. But you accurately described my former experiences with Helen Oyeyemi, which is that one was a raging success, and one not so much. So I was apprehensive, because this would tip the balance one way or the other, you know?
GIN JENNY: But it tipped it in the good direction.
WHISKEY JENNY: It did. It absolutely did.
GIN JENNY: Oh, man, so now you can read my fave, White is for Witching.
WHISKEY JENNY: I certainly can. And the other one.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: There’s actually three other ones, but one is short stories.
WHISKEY JENNY: The purple one, and then there’s What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, right?
GIN JENNY: What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours is the short story collection. And it has a story called “Sorry Won’t Sweeten Her Tea,” which is one of my favorite short story titles of all time. And then she has two books before White Is For Witching, which are The Opposite House and The Icarus Girl.
WHISKEY JENNY: So what did—so you overall—
GIN JENNY: Yes, so I overall liked it. I would say that I did not really love the story within a story.
WHISKEY JENNY: God, I loved that. OK, yeah.
GIN JENNY: It was a little bit too twee for me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Twee?! I thought it was horrifying!
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: It was not weird enough. I wanted it to be weirder. And I understand that that’s crazy, because it was pretty weird.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was so weird and creepy! OK, I did love the structure of it, though. Because you get that sort of Princess Bride feel, where occasionally—so Harriet, the mom, is telling it to Perdita, her daughter, and Perdita’s four sentient plant dolls. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Loved those. Loved those. Could have read a whole book about those.
WHISKEY JENNY: Those dolls were amazing. [LAUGHTER] Absolutely. I want more doll content. And so Perdita and the dolls will kind of interject every once in awhile as Harriet’s telling the story.
GIN JENNY: They have a lot of opinions.
WHISKEY JENNY: And every single one of their interjections is amazing.
GIN JENNY: It is. I would agree. The parts with the dolls were the highlight of the story within a story sections, because I loved the talking dolls. Let me not ever cast shade at the talking dolls. They were great.
WHISKEY JENNY: So I just want to make sure that we’re clear on the structure. I can see how—OK, so I did think that was horrifying and creepy. But I could see how one would want it to be weirder. Because there were some points in which this strange country in which Harriet is growing up, and that doesn’t appear on current maps that people not from this country draw, felt totally otherworldly. And there are other times where people are calling people on phones—cell phones—and computers are mentioned. And it didn’t feel strange enough. It didn’t bother me, but I can see how that would be a complaint.
GIN JENNY: I simultaneously wanted it to be more anchored in the real world and more weird.
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t think I wanted it to be more anchored in the real world. I think I wanted it to be just straight up more weird, more magical.
GIN JENNY: So that’s a big chunk of the book, and so as I was reading it I was like, gosh, I don’t think I’m going to like this. I really expected to, but I don’t think it’s going to be for me. But then when Harriet finishes telling her story and Perdita starts telling her story, and you start getting some stuff in the present day, I was so charmed after all. I loved the whole ending.
WHISKEY JENNY: My God, me too.
GIN JENNY: It was just so weird and great. I loved all the jokes about the estate agent who was finding them houses that were definitely not haunted.
WHISKEY JENNY: Definitely not haunted. [LAUGHTER] And I love that she has to make the one call at the end because the house has gone out to sea. [LAUGHTER] God, it was it was so funny, too. I think overall this book was a lot funnier than I was expecting.
GIN JENNY: Yes, it was very funny. It had a lot of those extremely dry Helen Oyeyemi jokes that are kind of funny but also kind of terrifying.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. But I would say for me it landed on the funny side.
GIN JENNY: Me too. Me too. But when I got to the end and I loved it so much, I was like, whoa, wait. Was the rest of the book this great and I just didn’t appreciate it enough? And I think that’s a possibility. So I do want to reread it and see if on a reread, once I have the whole picture, if things come together for me a little more.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think I was too horrified and creeped out—so part of Harriet’s tale is in—I don’t know how to say it.
GIN JENNY: Druhástrana?
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. Druhástrana.
GIN JENNY: Which is, it turns out, a Czech word that means the other side.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. I googled it, because I was like, is this a place? Am I just ignorant? When it first comes up, someone mentions that word, and I was like, I’ve never heard of that. What is that? And I googled it and couldn’t find anything, so good job for you.
And then part of it is after she and her mother come to England and live with this family, and I enjoyed those parts, too.
GIN JENNY: Yes, I liked that more. Again, because it was more rooted in the real world, I felt more—it just worked better for me. There were lots of funny parts of that. There’s a part where she’s describing how comprehensible each of the Kercheval family members are to Harriet and her mother Margot.
WHISKEY JENNY: In order.
GIN JENNY: In order. That was incredible. Those family relationships were very pleasing to me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I really loved the family relationships. I loved—up until one moment, I loved the mother-daughter relationship portrayal, also. Because I think it’s portrayed as complex but not fraught in these books, as it is so often, and I really appreciated that. And I also loved Harriet’s mom Margot.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God, Margot was incredible.
WHISKEY JENNY: She was the shit. I loved her. [LAUGHTER] And knew I was going to love her right from the beginning, because there’s this part where, when Perdita was younger, Harriet kept giving her gingerbread, because Perdita kept asking for gingerbread and was obsessed with eating gingerbread, and was getting sicker and sicker and sicker. And Margot just took her to the doctor, and she’s allergic to gluten. And Margot was just like, stop feeding her gingerbread. The end. [LAUGHTER] We fixed it. It’s not a weird, creepy thing happening. Which, it still kind of is, but also it could just be celiac disease, so don’t feed her bread. [LAUGHTER] I just loved the straightforward, like, I’ll just go to the doctor and take her. We can fix this. We don’t need to be tied and this never-ending struggle for more gingerbread. [LAUGHTER] And I loved her.
But there was just this one moment where Harriet’s telling her story, and she’s recounting a moving thing that Margot said about her, about how Harriet makes Margot feel extremely loved. And it was so strange, because Harriet’s recounting it as if this is a revelation for her that Margot loved her. And I felt throughout the rest of the book that Margot loved her, and I thought that Harriet knew that. And it was very confusing, and I am not sure what I was supposed to do with that little bit.
GIN JENNY: Oh, interesting. That made total sense to me, because Margot is not super demonstrative. She’s quite stern in her demeanor, I guess. So even though her actions speak of love, I can see how Harriet, being quite young, wouldn’t really recognize it as fully articulated, that that was something that Margot felt and was able to articulate.
WHISKEY JENNY: But if that’s the case, I never got that sense from Harriet. Harriet never before had been like, gosh, I wish my mother would say more or do more about how much she loved me.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, I guess. It worked for me. I thought it was—it did not surprise me. I thought it worked.
WHISKEY JENNY: It did not work for me.
GIN JENNY: All right. Fair enough.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: We can agree to disagree. And I did have a bit of a moment at the beginning when I was, there’s a lot of just character setup in the beginning. And I was just like—
GIN JENNY: Yes!
WHISKEY JENNY: —who—what are we doing here? It’s just Harriet backstory, and then eventually you get to the bit where Harriet is recounting her story. And I just felt that that bit went on for maybe a touch too long before you get to what we’re doing.
GIN JENNY: I agree. I thought there was overall more scene setting in this book than I maybe wanted. But like I said, at the end of the book I think it paid off for me, because I felt really satisfied with the relationships and all the strangeness, and it felt earned by the rest the book. so maybe I’m just mistaken.
WHISKEY JENNY: I just feel like it went in a really beautiful and happy ending. Maybe I’m totally misread it, but—
GIN JENNY: No, totally! It ended up being really hopeful and nice.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was really sweet. So you kind of think at first that this Kercheval family, it’s mentioned in kind of an ominous tone. I guess we’re into spoilers now. But it ends up that they reunite and they become a beautiful family.
GIN JENNY: Not only do they become a beautiful family, but they start doing this thing where they bring found/created families together in houses that Margot decorates flawlessly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Because Margot’s superpower is, not decorating, but making spaces feel cozy. And I love—what an amazing magic ability that would be. [LAUGHTER] And also Harriet actually does start making real friends, and people in the PTA like her. I was so happy about the PTA parents finally accepting her. Or her realizing finally that she had been accepted all along, I don’t know.
GIN JENNY: I forgot about the all the setup of the PTA parents at the beginning. But God, you were right. That went on for so long.
WHISKEY JENNY: But it did have an amazing payoff at the end.
GIN JENNY: It definitely did. I clasped my hands to my heart at the end when Harriet realizes that the PTA parents like her and are invested in her life.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah! It was so great.
GIN JENNY: It really was.
WHISKEY JENNY: I get that exact same feeling at the end of Practical Magic when Sandra Bullock activates the PTA phone tree to gather a coven to expel ER doctor guy.
GIN JENNY: Yup. Yup.
WHISKEY JENNY: So it turns out I just really love it when PTAs come together. [LAUGHTER] If anyone else has stories like that, let me know.
GIN JENNY: A really, really specific taste that we’ve uncovered.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, but gosh, I just love it.
GIN JENNY: I thought overall for a book as whimsical and random as this one sometimes feels, there were kernels of real emotional truth.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, so many, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Like there’s a part where Harriet is pregnant, and she’s considering having an abortion. And the father wants her to have the abortion, and she keeps missing her appointments. And the father says, I would never, ever hurt you. And a voice in Harriet’s mind says, hurting you has occurred to him as an idea. And I was like, oh my God.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh my God, that was so terrifying!
GIN JENNY: That really got me.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, really complex human emotions, too. I thought Margot and Harriet’s father, her husband back in Druhástrana, they fell in love, and then fell out of love. I guess, but had just a warfare of a relationship, maybe, where they still sort of loved each other, and they loved their daughter, but they engaged in both silent and unsilent fighting, and had all of the years and years of grudges that they could refer back to. They blamed each other for various things. And it just felt like a very real relationship gone wrong.
GIN JENNY: Yes it definitely did.
WHISKEY JENNY: And there were no villains. It was just like, these people were just unhappy together. And somehow, she managed to write that couple and I wasn’t like, oh, so suburbia’s so bad, huh?
GIN JENNY: Well, it’s Druhástranian suburbia, so it’s different.
WHISKEY JENNY: And it’s on a farm, so it’s not so much.
GIN JENNY: Right, it’s rural.
WHISKEY JENNY: It’s rural. Yeah, I don’t think that being weird or whimsical precludes you from having those sort of revelations.
GIN JENNY: Oh, no, definitely. But oftentimes I think books lean too heavily on one side or the other.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, that’s true. It’s an excellent mix.
GIN JENNY: Yes, it’s a really good mix. I found that very pleasing.
WHISKEY JENNY: I feel like I need to talk more about how creeped out I was by the gingerbread girls and the gingerbread house.
GIN JENNY: OK. That bothered me not at all, so yeah. Please.
WHISKEY JENNY: Seriously? [LAUGHTER] Wow. OK. I was so creeped out. These men pay to just watch these 16-year-old girls jump around and see their underwear.
GIN JENNY: I mean, yeah, no, it’s creepy. I guess I did not have the same visceral reaction to it that you did. And maybe because it felt so divorced from the real world, in terms of the Druhástrana setting. It felt very fairy tale-y, so maybe that’s why I didn’t—I don’t know. I don’t know. Obviously I failed to connect emotionally with the first two-thirds of the book, so it’s possible I just need to reread.
WHISKEY JENNY: Interesting. Well, I would be interested to hear what you think about it on a second reread.
GIN JENNY: OK, but say more about the gingerbread girls.
WHISKEY JENNY: I mean, I think I covered it. I was so creeped out by it. So Clio Kercheval brings pretty young farm girls to the city to work at this sort of replicated version of the rural countryside that people can come visit and have an “authentic,” air quotes, experience of the rural countryside. They’re so skinny, because it’s a terrible capitalist society and the workers don’t get any money, and we should all be socialists. [LAUGHTER] So they’re super skinny, and they fatten them up so they look healthy, and make them eat gruel. And the one girl can never keep it down, so she always has to eat two bowls to try and make up, but then she can ever keep those down. And she just gets more and more debt to the gruel bank, I don’t know.
There’s three different teams, I don’t remember what they all do. But at one point there’s a ball that adult men pay to come to and hang out with the girls, and make them jump around so they can see their underwear. And it was just the worst. Oh, it was awful. And they can’t write home, all of their letters to and from home get intercepted. And the threat is if they leave, all this money that they’re making will stop going to their families, and they’re the breadwinners for their families. But it turns out the money is fake, and, God, I was so creeped out by this situation. That’s why I was so ready to believe that all Kerchevals were evil, which was unfair on my part.
GIN JENNY: As you’re describing it, it does sound very creepy.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was so creepy, Gin Jenny! [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: I’m not sure why it didn’t strike me that way. You’re absolutely right, of course.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: My goodness, I hated it. And I guess that was the one little sour note for me, too, at the end. Like, I’m glad that she got out, but—
GIN JENNY: Yes, lot of girls still there.
WHISKEY JENNY: —I hope the rest of the gingerbread girls are OK! [LAUGHTER] OK, thank you for letting me process that on air.
GIN JENNY: No problem, no problem. We haven’t really mentioned Harriet’s friend Gretel, who’s a changeling slash a Kercheval.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: But I loved her, by the way. I just loved how bloody-minded she was. I loved her so much.
WHISKEY JENNY: I love that phrasing, bloody-minded, that gets applied to her a lot. I did not know what to do with her, and I feel like Gretel would appreciate that. So I guess we’re on good terms still. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Well, I loved that when Harriet leaves Druhástrana, she and Gretel make a deal that they’ll meet up three times in the future at three different spots. And then Harriet kind of forgets where the spots were, and I got really stressed about it. I was like, oh my God, but is she going to see Gretel again or not? And then the question of whether she’s going to see Gretel again becomes a major plot point towards the end of the book, and I enjoyed how that was resolved very much.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I think I did, too. [LAUGHTER] No, I think I did. Again, I got to the end and I was like, huh. Yeah, I had no idea what to take from the fact that this had been written by Gretel over six months, from October 2016 to April 2017. And she starts out in South Korea and ends up in Prague. [LAUGHTER] And I just didn’t know what to do with that information. And then the book just ended, and I was like, wait! Come back, please!
GIN JENNY: Classic Helen Oyeyemi experience.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: But yeah, that’s also one of the reasons I wanted to just reread it again, is because as soon as it was gone I missed it and I wanted it to come back to me.
GIN JENNY: Well if you liked this, I think you would really like What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours, because the things that I did not like about that collection were the same things that I didn’t like about Gingerbread. And since you loved Gingerbread, I bet you would love that collection as well. I really liked the final third so much that it has made me question everything.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, it is a great final third.
GIN JENNY: So I just don’t feel like I have a final opinion. I feel like I have a draft opinion.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. Maybe now that you know that’s coming—
GIN JENNY: Right. It’ll provide shape to the rest of the book. It’s hard to read the end of a Helen Oyeyemi book, because nothing that happens—
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Makes sense.
GIN JENNY: —makes sense.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I feel like even if reviewers had successfully described this book, you still wouldn’t know what to expect of it. So just go on the ride with her, I guess.
GIN JENNY: That’s what I like about her. She comes up with these ideas and it’s like, I’m just going to do this, and you’re going to stay with me, and you’re going to like it. And I do. It really work for me almost always.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. So there’s all this scene setup in the beginning, and then we’re doing this story within a story. And I was like, OK, cool, we’re during the story within a story. And then the story within the story ended with, as you said, a whole other third to go, and I was like, well now what are we going to do? [LAUGHTER] And then it gets really crazy.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Well, I am immensely satisfied that if nothing else, this book has tipped you in a more positive direction on Helen Oyeyemi.
WHISKEY JENNY: It definitely has, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Hooray.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yay, Gingerbread.
GIN JENNY: Well do you want to tell the listeners what we’re doing next?
WHISKEY JENNY: So for next time, we are having back lovely very special guest Renay of Fangirl Happy Hour, who previously made us a science fiction/fantasy starter pack. So she’s coming back. We’re very excited. We’re going to read Zoo City, by Lauren Beukes, which is one of the few books remaining that neither Gin Jenny nor I have read from that starter pack. And we’re excited to all talk about it together.
GIN JENNY: Yeah. So tune in! And we are also going to bring you more Lord of the Rings in bonus episodes coming up.
WHISKEY JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Once I remember to read it. When will that be? Who can say? The future.
Well, thanks for listening. This has been the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow Gin Jenny on Twitter and she’ll pass along messages to me, like a wonderful carrier pigeon, @readingtheend. We’re both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. Because this book has pigeons in it.
GIN JENNY: Oh, right. So it does.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was topical. And you can email us—please do; we love hearing from you—at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you like what we do, you can become a podcast patron at patreon.com/readingtheend. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review.
And until next time, a quote from The Epic of Gilgamesh. “He looked at the walls, awed at the heights his people had achieved, and for a moment, just a moment, all that lay behind him passed from view.”
[CLINK]THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.