Best New Classics--Books

So, there's been knitting for babies, including a frantic, still-blocking-it-on-my-desk, sorry-its-still-wet dress for poor ole Michael's first born. But I'll get to those probably (possibly?) tomorrow. See, people, I'm beat. I'm mentally and physically exhausted. This year has broken me down. I did get all my contracts in though, which means that in this time of financial strife, I'm still going to be eligible to collect a tidy little bonus. Is it enough to pay for the renewal of my soul? Most definitely not. But it will certainly take the edge off. But I'll address that later too. I'm going to do some digging into possible alternate career paths in the coming weeks.

What I'm here to talk about is reading, which has also staged a late-inning resurgence in my life. Maybe it is the fact that a lot of the knitting podcasts aren't updated as frequently anymore. Maybe it is that list that Entertainment Weekly so handily put together for me. Whatever the case, I'm blowing through the books. And one thing that the grand jury duty has allowed me to do is make regular visits to the Five Points branch of the JC public library, which is TINY, and yet has as good a selection of material as the shitty main branch. Anyway, here's how the list (of new 'classic' books from the last 20 years)stands:

1. The Road, by Cormac McCarthy: bought at the local bookstore, finished, and reported on.

2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling: already read--the first codicil to the rule of having to read the list in order was that I didn't have to reread anything I'd already read. Plus, I didn't want to buy this one, because I'm waiting for the day they put the entire set of seven out as a PB set. Someday, my lovelies, you will be mine...

3. Beloved, by Toni Morrison--out of order. I had the hardest time finding this. The bookstore didn't have it. The LIBRARY didn't have it. I have such a hard time believing that a library that serves this particular urban, predominantly African American community does not have at least one copy of this prize-winning novel, but sadly, that was the case. Spanky just came back with a copy that she borrowed for me from one of her friends yesterday, so starting this book is on my agenda for the holidays. I read a little bit of it this morning while eating my cereal, and it was good.

4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr. At this point, I've had no luck locating it around here. But that's ok, because I still have to finish Beloved anyway.

Here's where it gets good. The next two books on the list are 5. American Pastoral by Philip Roth, and 6. Mystic River, by Dennis Lehane. And I found both of them at the library. I don't know how many of you have read either of these two writers. I would certainly never have picked up either one of them if I hadn't been doing this experiment or was somehow stuck in a place where they were the only novels available. Anyway, they go very well together.

Mystic River is a story about a Boston neighborhood and what happens to a particular group of grown-up boys when one of them loses a daughter in a violent way. It was suspenseful and broad-brush, and the women were mere sketches, but there were a few passages where the author's language resonated with me. One of them is when one of the wives is explaining how being in a relationship is hard:

"...life isn't happily ever after and golden sunsets and shit like that. It's work. The person you love is rarely worthy of how big your love is. Because NO ONE is worthy of that and maybe no one deserves the burden of it, either. You'll be let down. You'll be disappointed and have your trust broken and have a lot of real sucky days. You lose more than you win. You hate the person you love as much as you love them. But, shit, you roll up your sleeves and work--at everything--because that's what growing older is."

And I find this to be the case.

On the other hand, there is Philip Roth. I almost put down American Pastoral because of the first 80-100 pages. OMG it is SO BORING. Sooo boring. The first part of the book is this frame for everything else, and it is totally ridiculous. The story is about this guy, who my friend John explained is Roth's 'alter ego', and he's old, and gets this phone call from a guy who he really admired in high school called 'the Swede', wanting to meet up. So he goes, but nothing really happens at the meeting, so he's confused about why the Swede wanted to meet up with him. And then he goes to his 50th high school reunion, where he runs into the Swede's little brother, who was his friend in school, and the brother tells him that the Swede's daughter was a radical bomber in the 60s and killed a man in NJ. And of course, he's like OH That's why he wanted to talk to me! But of course, it's too late, and he spends the rest of the time imagining what the Swede was really like, which is what the rest of the book is--the story of the Swede and what happened to his family. And THAT PART is amazing. It still has some of the same tendencies of the first part of the book to go ON and ON and ON ABOUT EVERYTHING. But it is much more engaging.

Dennis Lehane basically gets right to the point in his writing. He is mostly concerned with the relationships between the characters and the things left unsaid. Most of the time his characters are operating with a limited sense of self. In the Roth book, which is written for the most part from the Swede's point of view, the characters over-analyze everything. And can hold forth for PAGES about what Newark was like when it was all Jewish, or how to make gloves, or what happened one summer between the Swede and his daughter. On and On and On. And somehow, this is very compelling, sort of the way reality tv is compelling. You're just along for the ride, so to speak. Most of the action is internal. I want to smack every single one of these characters too. They're all blind, and I guess that's part of the point. Americans perhaps are oblivious to anything outside of themselves.

By the way, I thought the movie adaptation of Mystic River was horrible. It was basically a straightforward adaptation of the text, with hammy overacting, terribly fake accents, and completely miscast actresses. If you have the choice, read the book.

I probably won't go on to read more of either one of these writers, but I'm glad I at least sampled them. I feel smarter and more with it already, and we're only at #6! I'd never read any Cormac McCarthy though either, and now I want to read everything else he's written. These two though--eh. Not so much, although I don't regret plowing through them. Next up, Beloved, and then tracking down the Mary Karr book somewhere... I wonder if the Strand has a copy... I have high hopes for The Liars' Club; I think it is a memoir. I already know I'm going to love Beloved. I loved The Bluest Eye when I had to read it in college, and I'm sure Beloved will be better than that.

After those two, #7 is Maus, which I've of course already read, and #8 is Selected Stories by Alice Munro. The library had her one novel, but I decided if she was really most well-known for her stories, I should hold out for the story collection (or a story collection if there are more than one...). I've had to add a second codicil to my rules--if the book listed is not there, but the library has another one of that author's books, I can sub in that one instead, on a case by case basis, since the whole point of this is to gain exposure to authors I've never read but should, rather than reading particular titles. Obviously this won't work all the time, but I did use it once already...

Anyway, kids, I'm going in now for a nice sleep. Then tomorrow, I need to finish packing, wash the dog, vacuum and change litter boxes, and figure out what knitting I'm taking to Florida.

PS: I just got the new Interweave Crochet and it is AWESOME. The cover sweater is AMAZING, and there are so many projects in there that are completely exciting. I wish I knew how to crochet better and had unlimited yarn resources.