"We Build Our Identities From That Detritus of Regret. Every Relationship Worth Keeping Sustains, at the Very Least, Splintered Glazes, Hairline Fractures, Cracks. And Aren't These Flaws the Prerequisites of Intimacy?"

There is nothing I would rather do on vacation than wake up, have a cup of coffee, preferably outside with a cool early morning sun, and read a book for hours. And fortunately for me, that's exactly what I did for the last week. During that time, I flew through a casual, non-list book that I've had on my bookshelf for a while, Broken for You, by Stephanie Kallos.

The story is about an elderly recluse with an extensive antique porcelain collection who finds out she has a brain tumor and decides to take in boarders in her Seattle mansion. One of these boarders, Wanda, is a stage manager from New York on a mission to find her ex-boyfriend who she believes is in the city (kind of in a manic, stalking kinda way). The story initially seemed a bit slow and straightforward, but then morphed into a much more compelling story about how the antiques were obtained (stolen from Jews during WWII), and Wanda's painful transformation into a mosaic artist, using the shattered antiques as her tesserae (the 50 cent word I learned while reading this book) and also tells the stories of many of the unique boarders and their attempts of connect with something and assemble the pieces of their own lives (mosaic pun fully intended).

Overall, I liked the book. It was a pleasant, quick summer read. What I liked the most, were some of the breaks in prose for some sweeping statements. Ones that made me smile. That made me dog ear the page.

"Be true to what attracts you had become her motto. Keep it near. Its voice may be far away and faint, unformed and obfuscated, but that's no reason to shutter it in darkness."

"Look then at the faces and bodies of people you love. The explicit beauty that comes not from smoothness of skin or neutrality of expression, but from the web of experience that has left its mark. Each face, each body is its own living fossilized record. A record of cats, combatants, difficult births; of accidents, cruelties, blessings. Reminders of folly, greed, indiscretion, impatience. A moment of time, of memory, preserved, internalized, and enshrined within and upon the body. You need not be told that these records are what render your beloved beautiful. If God exists, He is there, in the small, cast-off pieces, rough and random and no two alike."

Moving on, next up the docket is Kim, by Rudyard Kipling. It should be an interesting read after having read Heart of Darkness not that long ago. One with a very negative portrayal of Belgian imperialism, one favoring British imperialism (or so the introduction seems to indicate). Hopefully the lazy days of summer will allow me to continue lovely mornings of coffee and reading!

"His Whole Future Seemed Suddenly to be Unrolled Before Him; and Passing Down its Endless Emptiness He Saw the Dwindling Figure of a Man to Whom Nothing Was Ever to Happen"

Well, I've been a busy little reader, although I haven't gotten around to writing posts just yet.

I have emerged from high society of the 1870s New York by finishing the Age of Innocence. And I was utterly fascinated by the portrait that Edith Wharton painted. With lavish descriptions of the luxurious food, furniture, and clothing  of the time, you certainly get a very detailed visual picture of the wealthy, high class society that the characters exist in.

She also provides a clear idea of the almost inbred quality of who was deemed acceptable to be admitted into the small circle of society. And while many of the characters display a wide spectrum of their role in this tight-knit world (from isolating themselves from it to being the busy-body at the center of it), none of the characters, in the end, will fight it. They are all so very bound to the customs and codes that have been followed for generations. So as much as the main character, Newland, is conflicted by wanting to be free from the expectations and trappings of his upbringing and class, he concurrently defends it and is as much of a snob as the rest of the characters (although this is certainly debatable).

And in fact, many of the characters display so much hypocrisy, except perhaps Ellen Olenska. So I found it kind of difficult to really like or root for any of the characters. I certainly had hoped for a different ending, but I know that was the ending that needed to be written. And while the last chapter, set 26 years after the previous chapter, provides some indication that acceptable behavior certainly had evolved in their society, it almost seemed like a consolation prize for how I had hoped the story would end.

The main thing, though, that I could not stop thinking about throughout this book, more so than any other book I've probably ever read, was how much I wanted to watch the  movie. I made the mistake of looking up the movie before I read the book, and all I could picture the entire time was Michelle Pfeiffer, Winona Ryder, and Daniel Day Lewis (although he seemed more like a Christian Bale in my head) as the main characters. I don't really know why I'm so jonesing to see it...I think it's just to put it all together visually. Plus it was directed by Martin Scorcese (surprising right?) so it intrigues me all the more. Alas, it isn't available on my cable movies, so I'll just have to figure something else out (damn you Comcast!!).

So I dug it and would highly recommend the book. I almost kind of wish there were more than just 2 other books by Edith Wharton on my lists (Ethan Frome and House of Mirth). She is certainly an author whose works I plan to read much more of.

247 books left to go.

And one last total random note: the phrase "keeping up with the Joneses" supposedly refers to Edith Wharton's father's family. File that away for random trivia night too!

"I Took a Deep Breath and Listened to the Old Brag of My Heart. I am, I am, I am"

I think like most people, I truly learned to love reading when I was in high school. I'm sure it was a combination of being old enough to pick up a certain novel and have it reach down into your gut and pull out something that you never even suspected was there in the first place. Or that one character who you were certain mirrored YOU, and that you were certain YOU connected to the way that no one else ever had (and I'm guessing at least half of you are thinking to yourself, "Holden Caulfield WAS me"). And I admit to being equally as much of a cliche by quoting Sylvia Plath, because when I read The Bell Jar, she knocked me right off my seat, certain that I WAS Esther Greenwood. You know, minus all those kooky psychiatric issues and and that whole suicide attempt thing. But certainly was Esther Greenwod in the regard of wanting to forge my own path and identity regardless of what society felt that should be.

So in high school when I took my first real literature class, it certainly changed my life. To read Catcher in the Rye. And One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. And 1984. And A Farewell to Arms. To discover the world contained in these books was like nothing I've ever known before. Books that told a story so moving and complex, with words that were intentional, and elaborate, and remarkable, truly changed what I thought reading could be. I was fortunate enough to have a teacher to allowed us to discover the books on our own, but to also prod us enough to really think about what was there. What could be there. What was there that we may not even be paying attention to.

And I never really forgot that. So every time I start something new, there is always a joy in knowing that what is contained between the covers in 300 pages or so is something so wonderful, or thought-provoking, or reaction-inciting, or terrifying, or exquisite. And I'm the fortunate enought to able to experience it all and create all that it could be up in my own little noggin.

So I am grateful for something as simple as a beginner's lit class in high school (thanks Mrs. ED!) for the places that it has taken me. Regardless of where that ends up being in the long run, the act of opening up a book and reading will always contain a prospect of joy and anticipation, in the dorkiest, book-nerdiest way possible.

And thus concludes my cheezy, "stay in school", "books are cool", "I heart reading" PSA for the day.

Pg 34/293 in The Age of Innocence. Not for lack of trying. Or lack of liking. Just lack of time. I have long flight this week during which I plan to do nothing but read (and maybe then have a panic attack when I get off the plane for losing 5 whole hours of work work time). 1870s NY, here I come!

BTW, did you know that Edith Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for Age of Innocence? If you retain nothing from this post (or this blog for that matter), file that little tidbit of trivia away. I'm sure it'll come in good use one day at bar trivia night.

"A Prince, Therefore, Must Have No Other Object or Thought, or Take Up Anything As His Profession, Except War and Its Rules and Discipline, For That Is The Only Art That Befits One Who Commands"

Confession: I am never in a million years going to remember all of the different historical "princes" that Machiavelli outlines as examples in The Prince. The only ones that I knew any amount about were Emperor Commodus (not gonna lie, I only know about him because of Gladiator, and Hollywood-creative-license-news-flash: Commodus did not kill his father. His father died from plague) and King Ferdinand of Spain (mostly because of his commission of Christopher Columbus to travel west in search of a trade route to Asia...and well, you know how that ended up. Plus, there was a Bugs Bunny cartoon that we used to watch when we were little, where he sings a song about Ferdinand. And "his good queen Isabella, gave the jewels to her fella..."). Similar to reading The Divine Comedy, I'm just not going to end up being a buff on ancient Italian history. Maybe some of it will stick, I hope.

So as background, Machiavelli described the contents of The Prince as "being an unembellished summary of his knowledge about the nature of princes and the actions of great men based not only on reading but real experience." Each chapter discusses different qualities or concepts for princes to follow and then uses historical examples to support.    

So in lieu of remembering the details of all of the historical leaders presented, it was easier for me to focus on the overall concepts presented in The Prince and the qualities that Machiavelli presented as being required for a prince's success. And even then, I think because most of the world doesn't live under a monarchy anymore with power being seized and overtaken, it was hard to connect with some of the concepts. For example, needing the prince to focus all of his energies on war seemed a bit antiquated to me. Maybe because our political make-up greatly differs from how it did in Italy 500 years ago, that not a lot about today's political system seemed to resemble that. And maybe, more than anything, I'm a little naive to think that it's not an issue, because I'm fortunate to live in a country where we do have strong armed forces and peace.

And in the end, I do now know what Machiavellian means from actually reading The Prince. The concept that the ends justify the means, even if immoral tactics are used to make that happen. And I can't say that I necessarily agree with the concept, because it seems as though it has been twisted as an excuse to forgive any manner of sins in selfish pursuits. I think someone who used that approach today and actually didn't think there was anything wrong with it would probably be considered a sociopath. Although it does sound a lot like Kwame...

So on I move to The Age of Innocence. I seriously need to have a movie day soon too. Most of the books I've read lately have movies that were made about them, and I just haven't gotten around to watching most of these yet. Today sounds like as good a day as any. 248 to go. Hoping my progress will speed up. Here's to making that happen.

"The Devil You Know is Better Than the Devil You Don't"

For a while during my morning commute, I used to listen to multiple different podcasts of short stories. There was This American Life, Selected Shorts through PRI, and my personal favorite, the New Yorker Fiction. In this podcast, authors are invited to select a story from the magazine's archives and read it. Then the author and host would have a discussion about the story after the reading was done.

What I learned from listening to these podcasts (and also as anyone who has written a short story has probably learned) is that, with much less real estate to convey a complete narrative, every word in a short story is deliberate and needs to pack a punch. Given that my free subscription to satellite radio just ran out last week, I suspect it's time for me to get back on board with listening to my short story podcasts. There's a lot to be appreciated about an excellently written short story. And holy crap does Flannery O'Connor do this masterfully.

The actual book of A Good Man is Hard to Find consists of 10 different short stories. And after having read through them all together, there is a vein of similarities across the stories. They're all set in the south (usually Georgia) in roughly the 1940's, and all tend to have 1 character who is strong-willed, a bit of a know-it-all, often smug, and usually also cynical about religion and belief in God. These characters don't usually meet a very good end. There is a very dark, sinister, and often tragic theme that permeates the stories; as innocuous as they start out, there is often a very disturbing turn the story takes, which startled me on many occassions. The title story, A Good Man is Hard to Find, is the first story presented in the book, and needless to say, I didn't expect the crotchety Grandma, bratty kids, and ambivalent parents to meet an unfortunate end at the hands of an escaped convict. Nor did I expect a small boy to drown himself in a river in the next story. I know, heavy duty right?

But the thing about these flawed characters is that they usually come to a realization about the misguided views they've held, usually as a result of very dramatic circumstances. Oft times it's too late for them to do anything about it, but each story has a sense of mercy, salvation, and redemption for those who turn themselves over to it. The idea that there is good in even the most evil is present in the stories, and very often those who appear to be good are evil and vice versa.

Overall, I LOVED each and every one of the stories. The remind me of what brilliant writing can and should be, particularly that for short stories. How each description can tell you so much more about what is really going on and where the story is headed. They had so much more to say without saying it out loud, but the concepts weren't so far out there that I would finish reading the story thinking, "Huh? WTF was that all about?"

So on I roll to The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli. I hope this won't torture me too much, but we'll see. I guess anticipating to not enjoy it sets me up to be pleasantly surprised, right?

Only 249 books to go. Happy Monday.

"...Extreme Poverty, Almost Always a Cruel Stepmother, is Sometimes a Mother; Privation Gives Birth to Power of Soul and Mind"

I read LesMisérables about 4 to 5 years ago, and, like Moby Dick, it took the good portion of the year for me to complete it. My problem with long books like that is that they become a burden. And Les Misérables is not named Les Misérables for nothin'. It's 829 pages of misery and poverty in 19th century France. I guess for me, that, while overall a brilliant read, it just wasn't a riveting page-turner.

Which I guess is why I shouldn't have been surprised that I felt almost exactly the same way about Les Misérables, the movie. As a side note, I had never seen the stage musical, so from frame 1 of the movie, I was thrown off by the fact that EVERYTHING was sang, all the way through. I am a mad lover of movie musicals - don't get me started, or you may find yourself suffering through my renditions of "Moses Supposes" or "Sisters" - but most movie musicals usually only have songs interspersed between dialogue. Whereas this was all singing! All the time! Which just wasn't my favorite. And this was probably just my naïveté of having not seen the stage version, but sing-songy talking just takes away a bit from the action for me.

But my main problem with the movie was, like the book, it was so friggin' long! Yes, I get that they're spanning ~17 years worth of time across like 10 main characters, so there's a wholelotta story to jam pack in there. Plus, I'd imagine when Hollywood is spending big bucks for a sweeping epic movie like this, they're going to make it worth your (their?) while. But I kept thinking during the movie, if I was at home, I would be fast-forwarding through many of the songs; I think because they were singing the whole time, when it came to a main character's solo song, it just wasn't that monumental to me. Also because I knew the story line, I probably had a bit of a "C'mon let's get on with it!" attitude about it.

So overall, mehhhhh, it was just ok. It's worth seeing it for Hugh Jackman's and Anne Hathaway's performances (seriously, when she finished singing "I Dreamed a Dream" I think I actually said "Fuckin' A" out loud in the definitely-not-empty theatre), but maybe save it for leisurely at-home fast forwarding.

In other news, I have 2 more short stories in A Good Man is Hard to Find. Which I'm planning on banging out today. So if you're lucky, you'll get 2 posts in one day. TTFN.

"I'll Get Bowled Over by a Dizzying Love for a Girl I've Only Glimpsed"

So I guess because I pre-identified Davy Rothbart as a writer in the same vein of the other Davids/Daves (Sedaris and Eggers, respectively), I kind of locked myself in to a certain expectation of the writing, tone and overall gist of My Heart is an Idiot. And in many cases, it was true (hey, there's a review from Eggers right on the back cover, so this wasn't just me lumping them together. So there). 

There were Sedaris' road-warrior hitchiking-esque stories of Rothbart's many encounters with strangers, which in my opinion, is the strength of the book. We all have had those one-off insane nights where the events as they pass could certainly feel impossibly uncanny, and straight out of a book or movie (for me, a road trip to Chicago during my senior year in college with Jenny, Parini, and Jenny comes to mind, where we chatted up our waiter at the ESPNZone restaurant and ended up spending the entire night at a house party of his friend's  and watching the sun come up over Lake Michigan, eating blowpops, in one of the parks somewhere along Lake Shore Drive. But really, who goes to Chicago to go eat at the ESPNZone restaurant??). But these stories are told very well, and again, some seem so hard to believe, that it makes them that much more compelling.

But many of the stories focus on the author's complete obsession with falling in love and an non-existant ideal woman that he has created. No really, the woman is fictional. An entire story in the book is devoted to trying to will a fictional movie character to life. The attitude about this is completely fascinating to me, particularly to read it coming from a man. I know many many women who get all crazy obsessive when they meet and start dating a guy (maybe not necessarily when they first lay eyes on him): that he's the one, that felt more right than any other relationship before, that this is what they've been waiting for all along, etc etc. Similar sentiments are prevalent throughout the book.

I fully acknowledge that I don't necessarily spend significant amounts of time digging into the emotional persona of my male friends and their inner-feelings about love and relationships, but it just seemed very abnormal to me, coming from a guy. But I applaud Mr. Rothbart's honesty and willingness to make himself that vulnerable to every reader who picks up the book. It's not often that you can find a guy with that kind of passionate desire for mad love and also a big pair of cajones.

Overall, I'd highly recommend. The writing is fun and witty, and maybe because I lived in Ann Arbor for a while and grew up in Michigan, I appreciated many of the anecdotes even more (although, I have not ever been to Brewskies...although I'm suspiciously wondering if Brewskies is actually Frasier's and the name was changed). It's a quick read, and I don't think many who read it will be disappointed.

So now I'm on to Flannery O'Connor's, A Good Man is Hard to Find. I was a bit torn about which book to read next; I've had Machiavelli's, The Prince sitting on my shelf for a good year, and I'm just not ready to delve into a book that might require me to have a poli sci professor handy to work out some of the themes. But on the upside, as Russ pointed out, it's short. I guess I'll have it on deck next time. Later.