The Virgin Suicides

Totally good and Gothic. Teenage woes at their most electrifying! You'll scream with woe.

Slick but detailed, this one's hard to put down - or at least easy to pick up. Way better than Middlesex. Thanks for asking.

Middlesex. Book report by Chris Yarrison. Thank you.

Great book, if you're a sexual pervert. Highlights: incongruous genitals; incest.

Actually very good. Unique, except for the chatty narrative, which sometimes wanders out into crisp, beautiful prose. And I'm not a fan of the epic multi-generational family saga thing, to be honest. No one investigates a murder. No cowboys have an adventure in Mexico.

A young girl finds out she's a boy. There. That's it.

Still I'm compelled to explore Eugenides' slimmer debut, The Virgin Suicides, before moving along with my promised reading list.

Broken Prhombus

Oops! Everyone, I forgot I promised the famous online director of the hippest wedding magazine, The Knot, that I'd read Middlesex at some point, so that's what I'm going to do before getting to your borrowed books. It'll give me an excuse to call him and harass him.

Books a-borrowed

I have stacks of books that belong to other people, some abandoned, some still on loan, I think. Ben, you know what I'm talking about. Unfortunately, most of your books are back at my parents' house, safe in a box under the bed.

The point is, I'm going to read them, the ones I brought to NM with me. Then I'll let everyone know if they're any damn good:

Ben, I've already read The Thin Man, a rad detective novel - with about 100 movie spinoffs starring William Powell and Myrna Loy, all good - and The Marx Family Saga, which had, um, interesting punctuation.

City of Light, City of Dark, from Margaret Fleming. She lent this "comic-book novel" to me about 100 years ago, for some reason, and I think I'll go ahead and read it.

Two from Annie, who couldn't help but one-up her sister:

The Brooklyn Follies - more Auster, which is always good;

and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a thriller by deceased Swedish Trotskyist Stieg Larsson. Pretty psyched.

The Known World. This one's from Danny, recommended to him by Eric. Did you even know I had this, Danny? I'll give it back to you if you give me back my Cuentos espanoles / Spanish stories Dover dual language book that you let Monica steal, goddamn you. Or my shitty little Oscar Wilde book, which I know you still have.

Lastly, The Orchard Keeper, actually a gift (I think?) from Sterling. The perfect thing to get me going back into some Cormac McCarthy I haven't read or want to reread.

First I have to finish my jaunt over F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's been a fruitful jaunt: The Great Gatsby still takes first, but Tender is the Night is coming up on it. And of course his short stories are witty and poetic.

Feel free to send me more of your books, or maybe just make recommendations. I promise to be a better book borrower from now on! So do your worst!

Child of God

by Cormac (born Charles) McCarthy. One of the best books I've ever picked up and put down. A gift from Sterling no less. What I did was I threw something at my stack of books and it hit Child of God so I read it. He's so nonchalant when he reveals the horrible things that have been going on throughout the book that you basically just take it in stride and even laugh at some of them. An experience.

Fine, snow

Today's weather: wintry with a chance of blogging.

It's been a month. What have I been doing? Very important things. Did I miss anything? Nope. Howard Zinn died. Haiti something something. Book club proceeds apace. Each in its turn.

Very important things

The restaurant whose dishes I tend to closed for most of January, so I slept a good deal, drank some, helped Beth move to New Mexico, went broke, and went back to work where my dishes were waiting. Eric told me about a book by Robert Heinlein in which a fellow named Job travels between universes getting work washing dishes. An inspiration to me.

Let me clarify that generally when you wash dishes you are washing dirty dishes. Rarely do you wash clean dishes.

Howard Zinn died

He was definitely really old. I suspect the government had to kill him when they realized he was going to reveal how it used secret geo-weaponry to cause the earthquake in Haiti.

Haiti something something

Not that I believe that. As with most conspiracy theories, the truth is all the more horrid. 200,000 are dead in Haiti and the US has decided that's a good excuse to occupy the country. Hey guys, you're monsters.

Book club

Not done yet! I guess it's only been two months since we started reading The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. That's fine. Nobel award winner, mustachioed adulterer, cranky old man.

I've been reading his letters to the editor, essays, and the like. On the one hand, he seems to hate cars and fear that racial violence will reflect poorly on his beloved Mississippi. On the other, he supports the civil rights movement and went on the record opposing Franco during the Spanish Civil War. And his stories are pretty neat.

Dirty dishes, don't despair

Oh dirty dishes, don't despair,
I love you with my heart and hair.
If I may inquire,
What is your desire:
A wash and scrub?
Some bleach, some love?
How it's ever so rare
to find a platter that cares,
Oh no dirty dishes, don't despair.

Sound, y Fury

Finished this famous novel. Once I was in a book club that met regularly to discuss this work but internal strife and intrigue tore it apart. If the bickering and backstabbing - literal backstabbing - hadn't brought about its downfall, it would have collapsed on its own contradictions. No I don't mourn the passing of the book club. I don't mourn Elizabeth's untimely passing, even though I held her in my arms as the blood left her heart through the stab wound in her back and watched the light leave her eyes. Did she whisper my name as she died? I like to think that she did but actually she said, "I feel jes like a squinch owl inside." It sure was a weird book club.

Sound, Fury, etc., Part I

Just finished Part I of this famous novel.

It follows the adventures of a time traveling retard through the marshes and pastures of a distant planet full of "bright shapes" and "dead flowers."

Don't worry Annie I'm bringing my A game to our next (first) Book Club meeting. And some tequila.

to be continued

Quote of the day

"Hemingway makes Rory look like a tame little mouse..." Billy

There's been some very penetrating literary discussion around the blogs recently. I haven't been keeping up on my reading, partly because I'm illiterate, partly because I'm often too drunk to read (or am asleep).

Annie and I are in a Book Club now and will be reading the Sound and the Fury, not necessarily in that order. I can't wait! I hope it doesn't have too much sex in it!