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.