Fool-ish

Well, I’m back and thoroughly rested and relaxed. Christopher Moore was the perfect summer entertainment: just enough going on to keep the little gray cells humming, but not so much that they say “bugger this for a lark” and piss off.

Thus far, I’ve read Fool, Lamb, Fluke and A Dirty Job all by Moore. Fluke and A Dirty Job were both Audible books, but I do not distinguish between those and print. I learned to read a long time ago and I think I’ve established the fact that I’m literate. Besides with books on tape (I still think of them that way), I can knit at the same time—a big bonus.

Mr. RTL has also been has also been consuming the Moore books voraciously; indeed, he is the one who introduced them to the household. (I wonder if this is like inviting a vampire into your home. . .) This includes versions on his Kindle as well as hard copies and Audible.  When neither of us has the patience to wait for the ending, it helps to have multiple versions of the books. The only down side is fending off Mr. RTL’s offers to reveal key plot points. I’m perfectly happy to find out what happens when it happens (most of the time). I am not one of those weird-Os who reads the ending of her mystery novels first (I’m looking at you, Mom). Moore’s adventurous plots feel like mysteries.

Moore’s books fall into two categories. He defines them, as described here on NPR’s Talk of the Nation on April 7, 2010, as big books and little books, the primary distinctions being research and thematic ambition.  The books I’ve read are all in the “big book” category and have tackled themes like Love and Power (Fool), Religion (Lamb), Life (Fluke), and Death (A Dirty Job). Trifling affairs like that. The little books, the vampire series, are also highly enjoyable says Mr. RTL. I started reading Bite Me and couldn’t quite get into it.  Perhaps I’ll have the opportunity to go back and start at the beginning of the trilogy. This might be more engaging. Still, I've found that I really enjoy his stand-alone books. After a break to finish a couple of A.S. Byatt books, Possession and The Djinn in the Nightengale's Eye, I may go back to his first novel, Practical Demon Keeping.

Until then I plan to proselytize about the books I have enjoyed thoroughly. I’ve already turned my sister on to Fluke and A Dirty Job, and on July 24 Mr. RTL and I are going with some friends to a reading of Fool sponsored by Litquake and ATC – should be tragically fun.

Summer Reading?

I loved Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections, but he has a really strange idea of summer reading. I'm planning a well-deserved vaca, if I do say so myself: A few days on the coast with nothing to do but take walks, knit, and read. With the added benefit of a great kitchen (Viking stove!) for Mr. RTL to keep me well fed, I can’t think of anything better in this time zone. I thought as part of my planning, I’d check out the summer reading suggestions on the New York Times Books page. Their engaging picnic graphic (see above) drew me in and made me believe in long, warm days and lazy, wine-soaked evenings. O-M-G, was I in for it. My idea of summer reading leans to the, if not trashy, certainly the light and even silly. In a word: fun. I think summer reading should steer clear of angst and pain. Maybe it’s just me. . .Franzen clearly disagrees.

So, I’m rocking out to some FYC (The Raw and The Cooked), perusing the NYT and I see an essay by Franzen on the novel, The Man Who Loved Children, by Christina Stead. Hmm, this looks promising. Even with the summary,  “Christina Stead’s masterly 1940 novel of extreme family dysfunction deserves a permanent place in the canon,” I was not deterred.  Turns out that the key word in that summary is not “masterly;" it’s “extreme.” Oh, my.

Franzen's essay begins with a coy attempt to put off would-be readers with reasons like novels, especially great novels, are careening over the brink of extinction. But, I love novels! What could be more exciting that finding a heretofore-unknown “great novel”?  Franzen teases that this is not a weighty, historical or grand story. Fine with me, who needs all that? He then goes ahead and acknowledges that “the book operates at a pitch of psychological violence that makes “Revolutionary Road” look like “Everybody Loves Raymond.” Bother. We’re talking incest, mind control, and the kind of total, cruel misogyny that I can only describe as sickening. And, mind you, I’ve not actually read it. This is just from the descriptions in a four-page essay. Yikes! 

Even with the horror show, my interest was piqued. As a testament to Franzen’s engaging essay, I may seek out a copy of the 1965 issue he reviews because of the description of the introduction written by poet Randall Jarrell. Hmm. . .Perhaps this winter. . .

Here’s what I am taking with me on my summer vacation: Lamb by Christopher Moore.

Flotsam

How will you go?

How will you go?

Drive through the wind and the rain

Cover it up

Cover it up

I'll find you a shelter to sleep in

And you know I'll be fine

Just don't ask me how it's going

Gimme time, gimme time

Cos I want you to see

Round the world, round the world

Is a tangled up necklace of pearls

-Crowded House

After putting books into paper bags for the used book store and sorting through the shelves, I found myself singing this song out of nowhere. Then I remembered the bookmarks I'd pulled out before setting books aside for sale. 

I love finding the random notes and bits of life that I end up using to mark my place. I don't like to dog-ear books and there's usually some scrap or note hanging about waiting to be useful. This photograph is of a few bits: an old Starbucks napkin, an ancient bank deposit envelope, and the 1996 receipt for the Crowded House CD that this song is on, Woodface. I love this track! 

Past is Prologue

Today is book organization day, a fine opportunity to take up this long-neglected blog project as well. An organizational endeavor feels auspicious. Occasionally I will probably write here about other interests (knitting, photography, my town) if for no other reason than to include pictures, which will keep things from getting too deadly dull.

I’ve fiddled with the title a bit. I recognize that Reduced to Literature (RTL) may be odd and obscure, but I think it suits me and it’s from one of my favorite books. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. A Room with a View is a book I’ve only read as an adult, yet it possesses qualities that fired my love of reading in the first place: humor and a love of language. I watched the movie when I was in high school, but for some reason only read A Passage to India in college even though I was a Lit major. Go figure.

My small apartment is covered, as much as possible, with bookshelves. It’s taken some time but finally all the books are up—all 20+ boxes worth, from college texts (e.g. Unthinking Eurocentrism) to Harry Potter (Why are they're only three four? What happened to the others? This is disturbing.) to knitting books (My goodness, they don’t even fill one shelf. What restraint!).

I find looking up and seeing the colorful spines and bold authoritative or dramatic titles (Noble House, World Cinema, In Cold Blood) satisfying. Right now, however, there are too many and they are up there in any ol’ fashion sans rhyme or reason. They mock my latent OCD tendencies (very latent). While there may be a certain resonance from having Hitchen’s Letters to a Young Contrarian next to Palahnuk’s Fight Club and Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book next to Campbell’s The Power of Myth, they don’t belong there. I’m all for inclusion, just not on my bookshelves.

Speaking of too many, today is also book-culling day. *Sigh* I don't like the thought of letting books go. Whether they represent fallen aspirations or just younger days, I connect with them, and they shape how I connect with my world. On the up side: sending some away means making room for others. This is always a good thing. A new book is a new direction, a new lease on life—I”ll be smarter, I’ll be happier. Oy, perhaps I need to start working my way through our books on Buddhism.

Of course the books aren't just mine. I live with my husband (Mr. RTL) and while several will go out the door, many will return over that same threshold as one or both of us get caught up in a new passion or a lark. We do own a kindle and have long enjoyed books on tape/audible, but I know something happens to me when I'm near a bookstore. I'm drawn in and captivated by the covers, the titles, the enticing descriptions: the possibilities. God help me if there's a sale table. Mr. RTL isn’t much better—perhaps more focused, certainly not more restrained. Amazon is my pusher.

Now my task is to categorize, to bring reason and structure to colorful chaos. This is the fun part. I’ll devise the categories, the sort-of structure that will march the books into place and, hopefully, answer the perennial question, “Now, where did I put that book?”

Categories:

• Fiction (with some probably sub-categories)
• Philosophy and Religion
• Law
• Reference
• Plays and Poetry
• Criticism
• Cultural Studies
• Art
• Writing
• Travel
• History
• San Francisco
• War and International Affairs
• Humor
• Science
• Biography and Memoir
• Household
• Non-Fiction

With the final catchall category of “non-fiction,” I think I’ve got everything just about covered. Of course, this doesn’t even include the books on cooking, blacksmithing and knitting. Those are other matters entirely.

Back to knitting. . .