Is there an author that you find yourself drawn to in times of over-angst?

Yesterday was one of those times for me when pressures and stress kept getting fed into me via a one-way valve until my psyche was bloated and taut. A minor situation involving a waylaid text message regarding a wedding shower and a problem with the voicemail on my mobile phone while sitting in calculus frustrated by a concept, realizing my midterm would require epic studying, irritated by a classmate and feeling ill…oh, in retrospect, that does seem like a bunch of petty but grating crap.

By the time I got home after class I hadn’t eaten for much of the day, the dog was sneezing on me, AT&T Mobile’s customer support had closed ten minute earlier, I had an overdue water bill I can’t pay due to an ongoing problem with 1st Tech Credit Union’s online banking site.

These things are petty and typical of our culture, yet they were etching a gully of grief into my soul.

Instead of booze, I reached for Willa Cather. There is something about her clean, scenic style that blasts the scum out of me. My Ántonia was something I picked up off a bookshelf once because I knew it was a classic–but it was such a sweet, joyous read. I read O, Pioneers! last year and it left me feeling the same soulful peace.

I have not yet read Death Comes for the Archbishop, mostly because I was holding out for a nicer edition than the one I bought at some garage sale for a quarter, but had realized that there, curiously enough, aren’t really any “nice” editions of this book–well, actually, Virago has released a tolerable one but I haven’t seen it in any local shops. The edition I have has a rendering of the bishop, effeminately, as if done in colored pencil by a twelve-year-old.

Just I had hoped, Cather’s landscapes and understanding (and love) of core of the American continent pre-settlers eased me into a calmed state that no large glass of cheap box wine can. The wonderful contrast of the Roman Catholic politic against the Mexican-and-Native-American southwest in the mid-19th century is fabulous. Just the description of a midday meal in a hidden pueblo village: frijoles with chili, goat milk, fresh cheese, fresh apples–that was enough to calm me in its immediate sensuality.

Cather’s biography has always sounded difficult to me, and I would love to travel back in time and comfort her; or perhaps I will be so fortunate as to meet her on the fields of asphodel after I too am a shade.

Tags: reading

This book nearly ruined me for all other books. Not from joy. Not from marvel. But sheer exhaustion. Its scope is so immense and foreign (to me, an ingoramus of Indian mid-century politics), its symbolism so constant and deep that instead of the thrill of discovery I turned furtive and avoided its clutches. I could only pound through a dozen pages in a sitting. Every sentence so dripping with meaning, every setting and object multi-dimensionally important. I have nothing bad to say about this book–it is a seminal masterwork–but did I enjoy it? Sadly, no.

Rushdie has done this to me before. Tempted me with such completeness of vision, led me into a labyrinthine tome that then wracked me for a fortnight. It happened in 2001 with “The Ground Beneath her Feet.” I thought this would be different. And now, as then, I feel that I am the failure. Why did the genius of this book beat me down?

Perhaps I feel I gave it short shrift, even though it took me more than two weeks to read–a veritable lifetime in my normal reading pace. This book deserves a seminar series, a dissertation, not just a dilletante’s shallow perusal. I hammered on my brain trying to put all of the symoblic pieces together, but I know, know, know I have fallen far, far short.

The book’s early settings in mountainous Kashmir were evocative and easy-reading enough to lull me into thinking I could deal with the rest of the book. But then: enter the fracas of Bombay, and then politics: my academic Achilles heel (OK, along with biz/economics) and one of the few things in the world that bores me to seizures.

In all, reading this book seemed like an artistic duty. An offering up to the shrine of Rushdie’s import and brilliance, but one of guilt, not joy.

LibraryThing Tags:

As always, see all of my reviews on LibraryThing.

Tags: Books, reading, review

Confession time.

When I was a child, I loved children’s fantasy, especially mid-century British stuff. Couldn’t get enough of C.S. Lewis and other writers that are less trendy these days.

But the more popular kids’ books become with the near-menopausal, the more movies and spin-offs and mania there is, the less I can stand them now that I am a nominal grownup.

I cannot figure out whether this is:
a) An honest growing out of the genre. Perhaps children’s books are not coy enough for me, or
b) My own condescending need to disdain anything popular.

Thoughts? (Be gentle here if you’re voting for choice B…I may have an affectation, but I’m still sensitive).

Tags: children, kids, reading, young adult

Sunday was Aileen’s birthday, so when she asked me to bring a copy of Tana French’s In the Woods to her in the hospital, how could I refuse? Even if my husband was halfway through my copy?

Snip from e-mail to Aileen:

The book story has become kind of epic. I actually did give you my copy (but you are welcome to keep it). David was halfway through reading it. I was like “Oh, I’ll go grab a copy at B&N on my way to hospital.” But they were closed and I didn’t want to spend the time required to go to Powell’s so I was like, sorry, David, yoink.

So I went to Powell’s yesterday with the express point of buying a new copy so David could finish it. After spending about 90 minutes shopping in other parts of the store (and amassing quite a pile), I went to grab In the Woods. However, it wasn’t under the “F”s in the literature section. So I went to find a self-serve look-it-up computer only to find it occupied.

So I waited for that person to finish, and when they did, some guy cut in front of me and then started looking up a LIST THIS LONG of crap and taking notes ‘n shit and was the most oblivious human being ever, dafter than a newborn infant. After several minutes of waiting I finally asked a store clerk to look it up FOR me and he said it would be in the gold room, mystery section but when I went up there nothing doing so I found ANOTHER self-serve look-it-up computer and found that they only had an audiobook copy and was like WTF powell’s always has every book?

Moral of the story? Amazon.com and you’re done. I guess. Especially if you’ve got Amazon Prime. The UPS guy this morning says I must be on some special list at Amazon, I get so many packages. I wouldn’t mind a customer appreciation gift, that’s for sure.

By the way, In the Woods comes highly recommended by me.

Tags: Books, reading

Last night, I was sitting with a group of friends (full disclosure: watching Lost) and there was some wine. Also good cheese and a cornucopia of rice crackers–like four years’ supply of the little cheesy kind–but that’s a story for another day.

Somehow the topic of “grimmest book ever” came up. Sean asserted that the grimmest book he’d ever read was The Kite Runner. I tend to disagree, but realize that I can’t come up with a good alternative for the prize.

The first book that leaps to my mind is Blindness by Jose Saramago. It involves humans getting eaten by dogs. Squalor and rape. Et cetera. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road is not exactly sweetness and light, either. But both of those books are so good that they have their own sort of redemption.

Come to think of it, I had some potent misery and quivering nights reading Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. In fact, I’m going to stop here: that was the harshest book I read in the past year or so. Oh, wait, Andres Dubus’ House of Sand and Fog. That, too. But different.

You?

Tags: Books, depressing, reading, sad