Media Consumption

In response to Anne's question on my last post (thanks for the well wishes, Anne!), why, yes, I have read some interesting books lately.   It's amazing how many books you can read on days when you can't do much of anything else.  According to Goodreads, I've read 15 books so far this year.  Not that these have been terribly rigorous choices, on the whole - not quite up for that, either.  But, the highlights:

I re-read all of Susan Cooper's The Dark is Rising series (British, children's fantasy, c. early 1970s).  Doesn't hold up exceptionally well, but still entertaining and remeniscent fun.  I think the first time I read them all was during a Eurrailling trip around age 12.

The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag.  Follow-up to The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and second installment of the adventures of Flavia DeLuce.  Flavia is endearing - a precocious, postwar 11-year-old chemistry fanatic (principle interest: poisons), she lives in a country manor house outside the village of Bishops Lacey, with her distracted, philatelist, widower father and two haughty teenaged sisters, and investigates suspicious deaths with the help of her trusty bicycle, Gladys.  Surprisingly, the "weed" of the title is, in fact, er, weed.

The Clothes They Stood Up In, by Alan Bennett, author also of The Uncommon Reader.   (Attention SCB: If you haven't read The Uncommon Reader, you should go do that as soon as possible.)  Mr. and Mrs. Ransome, a middle-aged London couple, return home from a mediocre production of Cosi Fan Tutte to find that their flat has been burgled.  Everything is missing - not just the jewelry and electronics, but every stick of furniture, every stitch of cothing, every square of toilet paper, even the wall-to-wall carpet and the stove with the casserole baking inside it.  Confusion and personal exploration ensue.

 

Abel's Island, William Steig.  This is a children's book from the '70's that my sister brought home, but that I don't recall from childhood.  Abel is a society mouse picnicing with his new bride in the summer of 1907, when he's swept downstream by a sudden hurricane and stranded on an island in the middle of the river.  Poor Abel spends the next year scavenging seeds and berries, hiding from the owl who seems to be the only creature who knows his whereabouts, and trying to find ways to cross the river and get back to his beloved Amanda.

A Movable Feast - should require no introduction: Hemingway's memoir of 1920's literary expat Paris.  If nothing else, read the chapter about his disasterous accidental road trip with F. Scott Fitzgerald. 

The Custom of the Country.  Library book group is doing Edith Wharton this year.  This is one I hadn't read before, and it was an oddly emotional read.  The main character is a vile creature named Undine Spragg, lately of New York, formerly big fish in the little midwestern pond of "Apex" (think Sinclair Lewis's Zenith).  She's a self-absorbed social climber who only thinks she has a clue about society.  Basically, if someone were to study my psyche and fashion the personality I would most completely despise, the result would be Undine.  And, to make it worse, Wharton marries her off to a character equally fashioned to by my ideal man.  So it was really, really annoying, at least until about 15 chapters in when the other characters finally had her number.  After that point, I actually quite enjoyed reading it.  Apparently, this was the only book of Wharton's that her best pal, Henry James, actually liked, which is amusing, because it reads a lot like one of his.  The ending is pretty genious.

 The Dud Avocado, by Elaine Dundy.  I picked this up out of a felt need for something very funny, and  since one of the cover endorsements is from Groucho Marx, it was pretty much a sure thing.  It's hard to adequately describe with a plot summary, though Newsweek's blurb comes closer than I could: "Take one zippy, curious, 21-year-old American named Sally Jay, just out of college.  Drop her in the middle of Paris's Left Bank.  Add an Italian diplomat, an American theatrical director, a couple of painters and a white slave trader.  Mix until all bubbles."   Set and published in the '50's, but I think this is one of those books that gets rediscovered every 20 years or so.  

 

 How I Became Stupid, by Martin Page.  Poor Antoine; he's just too smart to be happy.  Or, at least, that's how he interprets his perpetual hyper-awareness and overthinking of just about everything.  Example: not only will he not purchase sweatshop-produced products, but he can't even enjoy a french fry, due to a too-thorough knowledge of Irish history and the great suffering caused worldwide by potatoes.  (Note: I don't think that's exactly a problem of intelligence, either, but indulge - the author is French.) Desperate for an escape, and after exploring and rejecting the options of alcoholism and suicide, he figures his only option is to find a way to be dumb.  So, empowered by his new prescription for "Happyzac," he buys a pair of Nikes, gets a job as a stock trader, and starts watching television.  Will his frinds be able to draw him back from the brink of idiocy?  Also by Page, and in the same vein, is The Discreet Pleasures of Rejection, the adventures of a neurotic ad writer who comes home one night to a Dear John message from a woman he can't remember ever dating.

 

And in the queue:

The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell.  Highly recommended by many sources.  Best described as "Jesuits in Space."  I had to put this aside half way through - from the very beginning, it's clear that, at a certain point in the story, things will start going very, very badly.  And when I got to the place where that was about to start happening, I just wan't up for it.  I'll probably finish it soon, though. 

 My sister gave me a copy of The Mysterious Benedict Society for Valentine's Day.  It made my day. :-)

Whew.  So, since I'll probably be at this for a while, does anybody have any recommendations for reading material?  I'm at no loss for options, but theoretically up for anything.