She's right, you know.
If this book could be summarized in one sentence . . .
"I laughed again and dust rose from the books with the force of my laugh, and then I could see the titles better, the authors, the files where I kept . . ."
Maybe it doesn't work out of context but this seemed poetic to me when I read it. Sometimes we need an outside force to break up the dust and stagnation and let us see things better.
bailedIt's so hard for me to give up a book, especially one I've heard great things about, but I'm just not even enjoying this. I know it's experimental but I'm on pg 110 and none of it, almost literally none of it, makes sense. I read pages and have no idea what happened, whether it was real, if the characters are real people, if some of them are actually multiple people, if things 20 years apart are happening at the same time . . . It's so confusing.
"But then, through the icy lakes of my eyes (the wrong metaphor, since it was sweltering inside Priapo's, but I can't think of any better way to say that I was about to cry and at the exact moment of "about to" had changed my mind, backpedaling, but that a distorting layer of liquid still glazed my pupils)."
pickJust read my sixth of David Mitchell's books and loved it. I listened to the audio and the British narrator's American accents made me laugh, but it was otherwise well done. Creepier than his other books, but otherwise very similar, so any David Mitchell fans should be pleased.
1. Dallas area
2. So hard, but I think fiction: Human Acts by Han Kang, and nonfiction: Why I Am Not a Christian by Bertrand Russell
3. Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
4. The Phantom Tollbooth, A Wrinkle in Time, and the Prydain Chronicles
5. Chocolat by Joanne Harris, The Hours by Michael Cunningham, and The Nightmare Before Christmas
6. Jane Unlimited by Kristin Cashore
#letstalkaboutbooksbaby
How are people doing #LitsyAtoZ? I've seen that some are going by author's name, and some by book title. Do you read a new book for each letter, or go through books you've read to find one for each letter? Or a combination of the two?
pickI decided to start #LitsyAtoZ and it happens that my most recent read gives me the letter #A!
I have a few minor differences with Jacoby, but clearly, her premise is valid. Nothing in American life operates based on reason; as a group we make decisions not according to logic, but to religious faith or political ideology. Her examination of the way this cultural attitude developed over the past 50 years is fascinating, depressing, and relevant.
