Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

I read Telegraph Avenue for one of the first books in a local book club I joined, affectionally referring it to Al's Basement Book Club. I'd never read a Chabon book, although I'd heard of plenty without knowing it. I admit to not remembering a whole lot, but bits and pieces of the conflicts and relationships in the book. It was good, sad, and funny. I liked it especially because of the random references to things I love, like Star Wars, James Bond, and cheese. Plus there's the way he said things, like the quotes on pages 8 and 267. It's so conversational, it was fun to read.

Baby Rolando had a nice, solid feel to him, a bunch of rolled socks stuffed inside one big sock, dense and sleepy, not one of those scrawny flapping-chicken babies one ran across from time to time. 8

Ninety-seven percent was more of less the degree to which Gwen disbelieved in everything that people represented, attested to, or tried to put over on you. 47

He reached up and out with both arms to shoot his cuffs, and for an instant he might have served to illustrate the crucial step in a manual on the seizing of days. He had already seized this particular day once, but he was prepared, if need be, to go ahead and seize the motherfucker all over again. 69

…there being, of course, as Archy often explained to Nat, a profound spiritual analogy, hole and all, between donuts and vinyl records. 116

…adopted the surprising identity of a soul-jazz Zorro, fingertips fencing with the drawbars and keys. 129

she fell into his lap, panicking the chair. 157

When, to the contrary, Luther Stallings at one time had stood in full possession of a definite article, not to mention two capital letters. Was most definitely The Shit. 267

With Blofeldian alacrity, a steel door rolled down behind him. 304

I’m going to start stocking up on files for the cakes. 311

They had the charm of cement and the elegance of cinderblocks, but they held her feet without pain or structural failure, and it seemed to her that the librarian-nun vibe they exuded was also not incompatible with the kicking of ass. 320

Fuck you, music! Music is Satan. We serve its hidden agenda. It’s like a virus from space, the Andromeda strain, propagating itself. We’re just vectors for the contagion. Music is the secret puppet master. 363

Music actually has us to the point, we’re walking around with fucking pods, with buds in our ears. Nah, I’m out. I think I’m going to get into, like, I don’t know, cheesemongering. I’m going to monger cheese. You can help me. Forget birthing babies. Christ, we already have enough babies in the world. What we need more of is really good cheese. … Wait no, fuck cheese. Cheese is all about spores and, and, molds and all that shit. Maybe cheese is trying to colonize our brains, too. Cheese and music duking it out for control of the human nervous system. 363

They were like the kids in that newspaper comic, white nerd, black nerd, pretending at the bus stop on this fine Sunday morning that they were Jedi knights, samurais. Lost so deep in the dream, they didn’t have the sense to be embarrassed. 385

Not even God could hold onto the love of Israel in the desert without the jewelry getting melted down, now and then, to make a calf. 409

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I read this in 2013. I don't remember why, but I think it was because Out of Print was doing a book club on it. There was some reason, because until I started listening to audiobooks, I wasn't prone to picking these types of reads.

What I remember about the book is little, except there's some decline of a character or two, some medical time in Switzerland, some relapsing, a doctor, some weird groupings of people, an American starlet, her mom? It's not much, but when my family started booking a Viking River Cruise that starts in Switzerland, I remembered having notes on "a book" that I probably hadn't blogged yet. That book was Tender is the Night. 

It's Fitzgerald. He captures feelings, moments, thoughts with his words that are so clear to you, and yet things that you don't realize (like the ticking of the clock, or the space you take in people's lives). He reveals people, unearths characters that quite possibly exist in your own life, even if this fictional world is so far from your own.

Below are the passages I flagged when reading the book.

Some of the quotes I noted fall under the "sexual innuendo that's not quite sexual innuendo" category, given the fact the guy's name is Dick.

Most of us have a favorite, a heroic period, in our lives and that was Dick Driver’s. For one thing he had no idea that he was charming, that the affection he gave and inspired was anything unusual among healthy people. In his last year at New Haven some one referred to him as “lucky Dick”—the name lingered in his head.
“Lucky Dick, you big stiff,” he would whisper to himself, walking around the last sticks of flame in his room. 116

“I never did go in for making love to dry loins,” said Dick. 310

Other things I noted were related to gender. Men seemed to be more typical, but women seemed a bit more liberal--perhaps more self aware in relation to their gender.   

If her person was property she could exercise whatever advantage was inherent in its ownership. 23

You were brought up to work—not especially to marry. Now you’ve found your first nut to crack and it’s a good nut—go ahead and put whatever happens down to experience. Wound yourself or him—whatever happens it can’t spoil you because economically you’re a boy, not a girl. 40

Rosemary had never done much thinking, save about the illimitability of her mother’s perfections, so this final severance of the umbilical cord disturbed her sleep. 40

She was laughing hilariously, unashamed, unafraid, unconcerned. 192

Of course, there's the obligatory collection of his generally fantastic writing: 

...the heterogeneous indistinguishable mass of college boys interested only in love at first sight...

I want to give a party where there’s a brawl and seductions and people going home with their feelings hurt and women passed out in the cabinet de toilette. 27

Nearby, some Americans were saying good-by in voices that mimicked the cadence of water running into a large old bathtub. 83

The best I can wish you, my child is a little misfortune.117 

There were other letters among whose helpless caesuras lurked darker rhythms. 123

It is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure and the memory so possessed him that for the moment there was nothing to do but to pretend. 168

He stayed in the big room a long time listening to the buzz of the electric clock, listening to time. 171

Well, you never knew exactly how much space you occupied in people’s lives. 207

Dick and Rosemary had luncheon at the Castelli dei Caesari, a splendid restaurant in a high-terraced villa overlooking the ruined form of an undetermined period of decadence. Rosemary took a cocktail and a little wine, and Dick took enough so that his feeling of dissatisfaction left him. 213

L&L: The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

After thoroughly enjoying Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth, I was glad to download the audiobook of The Age of Innocence.

- I spent the whole book thinking Newland Archer was being duped by the Countess Olenska. I actively distrusted her, and I was totally team Archer. Boy was I wrong.

-I thought a lot of Fitzgerald's "beautiful little fool" whenever we encountered May. I pitied her and judged her for being so blind. Yet again, I was super wrong. She ultimately controlled the story. Get it, girl. You keep yo' man. Also, her eyes, they have to be some kind of theme within the story.

-I loved the conclusion! There was something satisfying about seeing so far into the future, even if the actual ending was perhaps anticlimactic. Archer's son was a nice portrait of the new generation.

the real nancy drew

I'm a sucker for re-reading things from my youth. That's why I re-encountered The Cat Who series in 2014 and why I almost started reading my old Goosebumps books this year. (It could still happen.) But the series I was most into was Nancy Drew. I had a numbered list and I would write down each book as I read it. You know: The Haunted Bridge next to #15 or Silver Cobweb next to #71. [Side note, I hated the contemporary 80s/90s Nancy Drew covers when I was reading age. I always gravitated toward the oldest looking books. Not that I had a lot of choice in our small libraries, but I didn't realize it at the time. Now, perusing the interwebs, I definitely recognize the ones I felt most strongly about were all older or looked older. Huh!]

Here's the post that I originally wrote about re-reading my childhood obsession in 2009. 

In my happy fervor of not having a lot of work, I finished all but one of the books Kristin and I have on our book queue. I read The Clue in the Old Stagecoach first, followed by the very first Nancy Drew story, The Secret of the Old Clock. 

Naturally I poked fun at the language-- George's exclamations of "Hypers!" was too much like Velma's "Jinkies." But, hey, it's a childhood favorite I couldn't totally hate on it. Nancy's totally hot, all the guys dig her, and the girls want to be her friends. In fact, I see a lot of other famous characters in the Nancy Drew series. Nancy and Ned are pretty much Barbie and Ken, and Nancy, George, and Bess are human forms of Britney, Jeanette, and Eleanor (The Chipettes, duh). Personally, the most entertaining part of the book was when my roommate picked it up and pointed out that Nancy enjoyed "dating" Rick while they were on vacation. "What about Ned?!?" she had cried. And it's true. As I read, I wondered the same thing. But, I wasn't alone. When Ned and his two chums (one who dated George and the other who was "a special friend" to Bess) wrote to say they were coming to visit, George asked Nancy what she would do about Rick and Ned. Nancy replied that some things just work themselves out. She was right. As fate would have it, Rick hastily had to leave the resort because his mother was sick. 

But my copy of The Secret of the Old Clock proved to be a doozie of a read. I can remember reading it both when I was little, and again in high school when I went through a nostalgic phase. The book I snagged at the library this time around looked old, but this was actually an exceptional copy. Despite never reading the forward or introduction to any book, I was curious as to why something so mundane as a children's series needed it. Reading through, I discovered that in 1959 the Nancy Drew series was revamped. This book, the first in the series, was published in 1930. While it didn't strike me as odd at the time, there have been a lot of changes since then, including women's rights movements and the civil rights movements. So, in 1959 they took every book written until then and modernized it. This included making Nancy 18 instead of 16, her mother dying when Nancy was older rather than very young, giving her a golden hair a new style (no longer the bob), and updating her car from a blue roadster to a blue convertible, and she drove on highways now and not main gravel roads. What this book did was turn back to the longer, and politically incorrect, version which was published in 1930.

I had a million reactions to this book and I wish that I had access to the revamped version, to see how different they were. Indeed without the reference of the newer text, it is painfully clear that is novel is out of date. The first is that when talking to her dad, Carson, she calls him "Father" incessantly. In the newer books she calls him dad. Another tell-tale sign of the old era is the phrase: "Like a true daughter of the Middle West, Nancy Drew took pride in the fertility of her State and saw beauty in a crop of waving green corn as well as the rolling hills and the expanse of prairie land." What the hell? First of all, it's the midst of the Great Depression and the era of the Dust Bowl. Reality check? (side note: I hate that Nancy spends her time galavanting around spending money and pitying poor people during the Depression.)  And no one in their right mind would write something like that nowadays anyway. In fact, my previous view of Nancy was certainly not "Middle West" minded. Typical of the sexual inequality of the period as well, one of the officers tells Nancy, "Not many girls would have used their brains the way you did." Also, unlike the Nancy of my day, this one is the head of the household, ordering the menu and food for dinner, and leaving Hanna as just a member of the household staff. 

The best part, or well, perhaps the most interesting of the cultural divide, is the racism. The forward mentioned it but until half way through, it never appeared. Then, as Nancy is planning to break into someone else's house, the "Negro caretaker" or "colored man" pops into the picture. HA. Nancy Drew is not only classist (which is evident in her shopping scenes) but she's a racist, too! The "Negro caretaker" is an alcoholic with a bunch of kids and he hates his job. He calls Nancy "White girl" and his conversations with Nancy are reminiscent of this particularly stereotypical dialect: "Ole Jeff done gone and made a fool of himself" and "...dis is my favorite jail." Need I say more. 

Clearly, for the benefit of today's world, the great Nancy Drew change of 1959 was needed. However, as the introduction points out, it's very interesting, from a cultural evolution standpoint, to remember our roots and where things begin. Thank you, Applewood Books, for bringing it back in 1991. 

The Godfather by Mario Puzo

I wrote this back in 2009 when we first started the blog. I'm going to go back through and republish some of my original musings from the start of When English Majors Graduate.

I remember that I really enjoyed this book, as did my friends when we were reading it. Right out of college, feeling on top of the world. It's no wonder we were drawn to all the power.

All right, I wouldn't go so far as to call The Godfather erotic, but it was certainly more sexual than I ever imagined. Massive organs opened the book. Reconstructive surgery popped up partway through. The appetites of virgins also seemed to be a steady thread. All in all, I would go so far as to say I was pleasantly surprised by the sexuality of the book, if not a bit confounded by it. These parts seemed, to me, rather progressive, even in a novel that developed post-1950. Considering the Don's abhorrence of sex-related escapades, the prevalence in the text felt a little bit off. Plus, his hatred never really served a purpose. He feuded with the prostitution profiting family, but that's about it. What, exactly is the tale portraying about sex? How is the reader supposed to interpret it? Clearly, it is okay for males to sleep around, but women must remain chaste, monotonous, and dutiful. ::cue unnecessary and obnoxious feminism critique:: But it can't be all bad, either, you damn feminists. There is a desire for the utmost of protection for women in this novel (even if they are treated in something of an inferior light). Plus, I'd say that surgery of Lucy Mancini was very progressive. Still, the novel ends with Kay Adams going to church and becoming the perfect wife and accepting her husbands lies and lifestyle. I guess that's a bit submissive.

But enough of feminism. That was the last thing on my mind when I read the book (as it is in almost any situation). Mario Puzo created an enticing and enthralling fiction. I couldn't put it down. Seriously, I went with my family over the holiday and read all but the last 40 pages in a day and a half. The way the story develops is perfect--a bit of info here and there, and certainly not chronological or centrally focused on a character. But as the readers' involvement with the Corleone family grows, the plot develops, character background grows, and you slowly learn more and more to the point that at the end you know as much as a consigliere. Brilliant. 

Of course, I found some fabulous wordage as well. The nightclub that's a "finishing school for hookers" and the synonym "corpse valet" for "undertaker." And plenty of others that I didn't mark, simply because that would have taken away from valuable reading time. 

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Another past book club gem I just found notes on: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

I don't remember much from this meeting, but I do know the book was a quick/easy read for me. I gave it four stars on Goodreads, and I said it was a beautiful depiction of character. I think I really felt for the kid, and the characters you met were memorable/different. (At the time, that is. I hardly remember the book at all, now. It's embarrassing, really.)

What I took brief note of was the writing. There is some poignant wording. It was lovely.

.... she cried and cried and cried, there weren't any napkins nearby, so I ripped the page from the book--"I don't speak. I'm sorry."--and used it to dry her cheeks, my explanation and apology ran down her face like mascara... (31)

I like to see people reunited, maybe that's a silly thing, but what can I say, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can't tell fast enough, the ears that aren't big enough, the eyes that can't take in all the change, I like hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone... (109)

Maybe we're just missing things we've lost, or hoping for what we want to come. (222)

"I not know was New York. In Chinese, ny mean 'you.' Thought was 'I love you.'" It was then I noticed the I {heart} NY poster on the wall, and the I {heart} NY flag over the door, and the I {heart} NY dishtowels, and the I {heart} NY lunchbox on the kitchen table.

Running Away to Home by Jennifer Wilson

So, uh, I think I started writing this post in 2013. It's 2015. But the content--really, the one idea I'm suggesting--is too good not to share.

{A long time ago...}

Last night, my sorority book club gathered to discuss Running Away to Home, a novel by Jennifer Wilson.

The catch? Jennifer is a Des Moines resident and attended the event.

BEST BOOK CLUB EVER. 

She wooed us all with her wit and hilarity. (Sidenote: She's pals with an undergrad professor of mine, and I can totally tell. They're both good stuff.) She told us a few fun facts that weren't in the book, name dropped some fabulous people she works with and for, and told us a bit about the reactions to her book--family, friends, and the people she met and wrote about in Croatia. She's visited a number of book clubs in Des Moines, and she's even heard from other book clubs who were planning trips to the same area of Croatia to meet the people in her story.

It was such a lively meeting, and so much fun to feel like you're getting behind the scenes, especially on a story loaded with real people and places. Oh sure, public libraries and universities and such do readings all the time, but I never thought about our rag-tag-group of sorority gals could coax an author into joining us at the local market. But really, authors are people, too. I highly suggest your book club look into it. Probably not our star, but someone near you. It certainly breathes a bit of new life into an ongoing gig.

{More recently...}

Jennifer now works two rows down in my office. She's editing a super-fresh magazine, and she's a riot in our on-the-reg meetings. I have to admit there's some disconnect for me between the writer at that table a couple years ago and the woman now working for the man, but I think she challenges a lot of what's the norm around this joint, and I like it a whole lot.

Word is she's working on another book, and I hope our club picks it up and invites her again.

The Beautiful and Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I listed to The Beautiful and Damned on audiobook quite a while ago. I really didn't love it, just the story of two people who use money to fix their problems and never learn their lesson, ever. I guess Fitzgerald did a pretty great job of making the characters consistent in moral character, and he was successful making you dislike them.

The reason I'm posting here at all is because there was part of a sentence in the book that I wrote down immediately after hearing it--and I just found it.

... that it is the manner of life seldom to strike but always to wear away. 

Sure, he's probably not the first person to express that sentiment. Yet I think he expressed it well in that very Fitzgerald way.

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

 I had just returned from a cruise where I spent time along coast of Italy--the exact town pictured, if I'm correct--when I first spotted this book in an airport. So I have to be honest, this selection was definitely a judge a book by its cover scenario. How could a book, embracing the most beautiful place I have ever been, be bad?

Not bad is so far from the description of this book that it's almost a shame that I initially thought that way. This book is beautiful: the language, the characters, the stories. What I loved was how accessible and easy to read it was, while still being a book of substance. Old hollywood, new hollywood, war history, romance - so many elements that combine to create one fluid story and work together instead of feeling forced. Each piece feeds into the next for a narrative that has an ending {spoilers ahead!} that's both realistic and heartwarming. It's not perfectly tied up with a bow and given to you. The young guy with a shitty past doesn't get the young girl with a shitty boyfriend. She actually keeps the shitty boyfriend who seems to get a bit better. No one beats cancer. No one really comes out on top. But most of the main characters end up making the best of their lives in a way that leaves a positivity to the ending. There's a lot they had to go through before the end, but in the end, the end feels right. And that's my favorite kind of book.

I basically devoured the book and didn't read it as closely with sticky notes in hand, but I did have to flag a couple pages.

He had never really mastered English, but he'd studied enough to have a healthy fear of its random severity, the senseless brutality of its conjugations; it was unpredictable, like a cross-bred dog. (9)

I can remember a French teacher trying to relay how complicated the English language is for a learner, and this seemed to nail it.

"Life, he thought, is a blatant ant act of imagination." (13)

Delightful! What is life if you aren't trying to create your dreams?

Alvis Blender, scrittore fallito ma ubriacone di successo--failed writer but successful drunk. (59)

Nothing new - a drunkard with a writing problem - but improved with the addition of Italian?

"We debated such questions when we encountered these meat puzzles: Who took the head of the partisan sentry? Why was the dead infant buried upside down in the grain bin?" (78)

I'm not usually one for war stories or imagery, but this idea is so tangible. Meat puzzles. Parts and pieces of people blown apart, or strewn about, inciting queries as to what happened and creating an unsolvable puzzle.

"The first impression one gets of Michael Deane is of a man constructed of wax, or perhaps prematurely embalmed. After all these years, it may be impossible to trace the sequence of facials, spa treatments, mud baths, cosmetic procedures, lifts and staples, collagen implants, outpatient touch-ups, tannings, Botox injections, cyst and growth removals, and stem-cell injections that have caused a seventy-two-year-old man to have the face of a nine-year-old Filipino girl." (93)

Over the top! At first it felt like too much--wouldn't a couple of those examples have been enough?--but it fits just right. The description grasps the nature of the man, you learn. And you can't at all really imagine this person - except perhaps as Joan Collins?--until the final clarifier.

"But this was Pat, and he proudly confessed his elaborate plans like a cornered Bond villain." (202)

Well, duh, I'll flag any Bond reference. And this is a pretty appropriate one.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

The most interesting thing about reading this book was how fleeting of a book club conversation it produced. For the first time two of my book clubs (like, the two most opposite book clubs on the planet) covered the same book. And each time it produced a pithy conversation that didn’t last. Each question we asked ended with limited discussion. Although there were definitely different opinions, there weren’t exactly points to argue on or expand the discussion. It was more of a “What’d you think of this?” with a flurry of responses. Then done.

So, what did we talk about? Each book club meeting kicked off with the ending. My first group liked the ending (they deserve each other) the second group liked it less. Personally, I wanted one or both of them to end up dead. 

Next we talked about whether Nick or Amy were more likable to us as the reader. The group of women said neither and the mixed group seemed to fall on Nick. It seems that the second group really preferred the book before you found out the twist, found out about Amy’s plan. I don’t know that I agree. I think I felt equally disinterested-but-compelled-to-find-out-the-details via either narration. Neither character was likable, which also kind of made the book hard to read. However, there were parts of Nick and Amy (er, Diary Amy) that I did identify with. 

I connected with Nick because of his job loss. I am also a magazine writer and editor, and while reading this book my large publishing company was going through layoffs. I understood so many of the things that defined Nick, whether that was his commentary on the industry, his questioning the world around him, or just some of the ways Amy talked about him. I had thought of it all—to some degree—at some point, too. But my book wasn’t going to be War and Peace it was Anna Karenina and I was already diving into Twitter and other social media to become marketable.  

Passages about Nick:  

I'd arrived in New York in the late '90s, the last gasp of the glory days, although no one knew it then. New York was packed with writers, real writers, because there were magazines, real magazines, loads of them. This was back when the Internet was still some exotic pet kept in the corner of the publishing world-- throw some kibble at it, watch it dance on its little leash, oh quite cute, it definitely won't kill us in the night. Think about it: a time when newly graduated college kids could come to New York and get paid to write. We had no clue that we were embarking on careers that would vanish within a decade. I had a job for eleven years and then I didn't, it was that fast. All around the country, magazines began shuttering, succumbing to a sudden infection brought on by the busted economy. Writers (my kind of writers: aspiring novelists, ruminative thinkers, people whose brains don't work quick enough to blog or link or tweet, basically old, stubborn blowhards) were through. We were like women's hat makers or buggy- whip manufacturers: Our time was done. (4-5)

This litany of crummy jobs. (69) 

It seemed to me that there was nothing new to be discovered ever again. Our society was utterly, ruinously derivative (although the word derivative as a criticism is self derivative). We were the first human beings who would never see anything for the first time. We stare at the wonders of the world, dull-eyed, underwhelmed. Mona Lisa, the Pyramids, the Empire State Building. Jungle animals on attack, ancient icebergs collapsing, volcanoes erupting. I can’t recall a single thing I have seen firsthand that I didn’t immediately reference to a movie or TV show. A fucking commercial. … I’ve literally seen it all, and the worst thing, the thing that makes me want to blow my brains out, is: The secondhand experience is always better. The image is crisper, the view is keener, the camera angle and the soundtrack manipulate my emotions in a way reality can’t anymore. (72) 

I think that’s what it is, that it’s all happened at once, so I have the emotional bends. […] He makes a massive list of things he’s always meant to do...And then he starts on bigger stuff: He reads War and Peace. He flirts with taking Arabic lessons. He spends a lot of time trying to guess what skills will be marketable over the next few decades. (83)

Both groups agreed that Amy was the more interesting character, though. She was a brilliant, villainous mastermind that we were unsure why she was wasting all her talent on petty things like getting back at people. She was also the most inconsistent character. All of a sudden she decided he loved her so she loved him? How did she lose sight of everything, even for a brief time? Also, why did she EVER act the way she did and lose all her money to those two hicks? I know there’s "book" smart and "street" smart, but, damn, she should have both. One aside regarding Amy at both meetings was the idea that Amy felt so very relatable to women. I’m not sure that the older women in my first book club felt it as much, if they did they certainly were not as vocal, but the rest of us really felt connected to a lot of the ideas and things that Diary Amy talked about in regards to being a woman, dating, being single, and creating a relationship. A fact that real Amy would have loved and hated. 

Amy passages: 

I worry for a second that she wants to set us up: I am not interested in being set up. I need to be ambushed, caught unawares, like some sort of feral love- jackal. I'm too self-conscious otherwise. I feel myself trying to be charming, and then I realize I'm obviously trying to be charming, and then I try to be even more charming to make up for the fake charm, and then I've basically turned into Liza Minnelli: I'm dancing in tights and sequins, begging you to love me. There's a bowler and jazz hands and lots of teeth. (11) 

Give me a man with a little fight in him, a man who calls me on my bullshit. […] So I know I am right not to settle, but it doesn’t make me feel better as my friends pair off and I stay home on Friday night with a bottle of wine and make myself an extravagant meal and tell myself, This is perfect, as if I’m the one dating me. (29) 

I am happy not to be in that club. I don’t partake, I don’t get off on emotional coercion, on forcing Nick to play some happy-hubby role—the shrugging, cheerful, dutiful taking out the trash, honey! role. Every wife’s dream man, the counterpoint to every man’s fantasy of the sweet, hot, laid-back woman who loves sex and a stiff drink. (56)

Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving maner and let their men do whatever they want. (222) 

I’d waited patiently—years—for the pendulum to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we’d say, “Yeah, he’s a Cool Guy.” But that never happened. … Pretty soon Cool Girl became the standard girl. … Every girl was supposed to be this girl, and if you weren’t, then there was something wrong with you. (223)

Other characters had brief turns. Tanner was a favorite character in my second book club, but I have to admit I don’t remember talking about him in the first group. The cops seemed shitty. Go was okay. At the first book club we spent a lot more time talking about just how creepy Desi was, and there was a definite sympathy for Amy in that position, even though everyone seemed to agree she deserved it. At the second meeting there was a dislike of Desi as a character, because he functioned more as a plot device than anything worthwhile. They also pointed out that Desi should have noticed how mutilated and bruised Amy was while he was busy keeping such tabs on her, and later kissing every inch of her body. Something like that, you think, would have stood out. Side note: I think in the movie he should be played by Javier Bardem.

There was also the quick whodunit conversation that each group had. As soon as someone asked, “Before you knew about Amy, who did you think did it?” A flurry of names and ideas and plots came out. Her parents. His dad. His sister. His girlfriend. Him. We all agreed we felt like we weren’t supposed to pick Nick because the book set him up so well, but it was hard not to wonder if he did it. No one really bought the Amy’s old friends/exes thing. Most people thought Amy was still alive, but didn’t get so far as to think that she had orchestrated the whole thing to make Nick look guilty.

We looked at portrayals of family and relationships, and each group agreed that there was no paragon that stood out against the rest. I didn’t get a sense that there was a right way and a wrong way to be a family or in a relationship—it seemed like it was all bad, so I don’t know what the commentary there would be. Stay single and avoid your family? Nick/Go and their mom seemed to have the best familial relationship. The award for best romantic relationship probably went to Tanner Bolt and his wife, and I don’t even remember much about them except that she was not white. Here’s a passage from Nick about his dad that I think is interesting because it actually has a slightly positive spin, perhaps because it’s about the father he invented.

… that after the divorce, I saw him so seldom that I decided to think of him as a character in a storybook. He was not my actual father—who would have loved me and spent time with me—but a benevolent and vaguely important figure named Mr. Brown, who was very busy doing very important things for the United States and who (very) occasionally used me as a cover to move more easily about town. (132) 

Feminism was brought up in the second club, but not at all in the first group (interesting, since that was the gathering of 10 women of various ages and life stages). I don’t know that we actually came up with any kind of theory—in fact, I know we didn’t—but it was still interesting. Where does this book fall in the grand scheme of feminism? Does this book really combat the stereotypical Lifetime movie? In a sense, yes, because the husband did not kill his wife, but he did cheat, and lie, and do a lot of other stuff that would look great in a Lifetime movie. And then there's the fact that Amy was (and there is no other way to say it) batshit crazy. So did she do anything to further the cause of the feminist? I don’t think so. I’m not sure what she did, and it’s an interesting theory to really explore (not one that I would dive into, because I don’t really do feminist critiques. I like talking about sex and nature).

We also talked a little about the construction. The diary format (one member noted that she didn’t even realize the chapters had titles related to time until a while into the book. I wonder if that’s part of reading on an e-reader, but I certainly did not miss that fact) was extremely effective and integral to the plot. I liked it. In its own way it was a big lesson on assuming authorial intent in writing—clearly what she wrote and what she thought were two very different things. Learn that lesson, young book nerds!

Nick was very aware of how he came off to the reader throughout the book. He talked to the reader, knowingly understanding his place with them.

I have a mistress. Now is the part where I have to tell you I have a mistress and you stop liking me. If you liked me to begin with. I have a pretty, young, very young mistress, and her name is Andie. (142) 

The older married man promptly exploited his position by launching a torrid fuckfest of an affair with one of his impressionable young students. I was the embodiment of every writer’s worst fear: a cliché. (145)

Amy had two personalities that the reader encountered, and she was very aware of both of those women as well.

I hope you liked Diary Amy. She was meant to be likable. Meant for someone like you to like her. She’s easy to like. I’ve never understood why that’s considered a compliment—that just anyone could like you. (237)

They have to read the diary like it’s some sort of Gothic tragedy. A wonderful, good-hearted woman—whole life ahead of her, everything going for her, whatever else they say about women who die—chooses the wrong mate and pays the ultimate price. They have to like me. Her. (238)

Finally, a little roundup of descriptive writing that I just adored in this book.

We’ll eat lobster with butter and have sex on the floor while a woman on one of our old jazz records sings to us in her far-side-of-the-tunnel voice. (40) 

But I do like a certain standard of living—I think it’s fair to say the garbage shouldn’t literally overflow, and the plates hsouldn’t sit in the sink for a week with smears of bean burrito dried on them. That’s just being a good grown-up roommate. (85) 

She had an unnecessarily loud voice, a bit of a bray, like some enchanted hot donkey. (94)

It was one of those big-smelling days, when people bring the outdoors in with them, the scent of rain on their sleeves, in their hair. (119)

I’d fallen in love with Amy because I was the ultimate Nick with her. Loving her made me superhuman, it made me feel alive. At her easiest, she was hard, because her brain was always working, working, working—I had to exert myself just to keep pace with her. I’d spend an hour crating a casual e-mail to her, I became a student of arcane so I could keep her interested: the Lake poets, the code duello, the French Revolution. Her mind was both wide and deep, and I got smarter being with her. (214) 

The woman’s entire music collection is formed from Pottery Barn compilations. (259) 

His cock is slick with conquest. (366)

Watchmen (1986-87)

Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.

A graphic novel originally published in 12 comic book issues, it is also a movie I saw (and hated) at the midnight premiere my senior year of college. Basically all I remembered was an awkward and seemingly pointless sex scene in a weird machine.

Well, that was in this, too, unfortunately. I just didn't hate it as much this time.

Two close friends of mine said I absolutely had to read this--not only because it's a great book, but also because it's exactly where I should start a dive into comic books and graphic novels.

I hadn't read a graphic novel since my adolescent lit class, and this one was definitely a different experience than even those. There was just so much going on. At some points three stories were happening at once: one in the captions, one in the images, and one in the secondary captions. (Obviously, I lack the proper terminology to discuss this in a scholarly manner.) But I did like it. And although I didn't try to critically read the novel--my film/game/super hero/comic genius friend had all kinds of smart things to tell me about it--I did snag a few bits I really enjoyed.

Love this song reflected in the ad

"The dusk reeks of fornication and bad consciences."

"I like electronic music. That's a very superhero-y thing to like, I suppose, isn't it? [...] Oh, and I've heard some interesting new music from Jamaica... a sort of hybrid between electronic music and reggae. It's a fascinating study in the new musical forms generated when a largely pre-technological culture is given access to modern recording techniques without the technological preconceptions that we've allowed to accumulate, limiting our vision. It's called dub music. You'd like it, I'm sure."

"If somebody wants to call me the world's best-groomed man, then hey, that's okay too."

"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes."
[who watches the watchmen.]

How to Archer: The Ultimate Guide to Espionage and Style And Women and Also Cocktails Ever Written, Sterling Archer (2011)

All I can say is that this book is fabulously written in Archer's voice. And if you love the FX show Archer, then the book is worth reading. The selections below are my favorite. They showcase Archer's style, his perpetual fabrication of words and phrases, and his random uses of pop culture references.

Guy's hilarious. Enjoy. Danger Zone!

But just when the pirates got within grappling-hook range ... bam! Out comes the ol' Jolly Roger, and then the pirates would spend the rest of the afternoon raping the woolen pants off everybody. 10

For a while I tried getting people to say spechnology (a clever portmanteau of "spy" and "technology"), but I couldn't get anybody to get on board for the big win. 27

These locations are normally patrolled by two or more giant and ferocious Rottweilers, which I must incapacitate using "hush puppies" (a combination of knockout drops and bacon)... 30

*38 ... will then provide me with the intelligence I need to keep you safe at home in your cheap, metal-framed bed, in which you're probably lying, right now, waiting for Green Acres to come on so you can masturbate to Ralph. 30

While technically a garment, the Tactleneck(r)---an even cleverer portmanteau of "tactical" and "turtleneck"--is an indispensable piece of equipment, and one without which I would never consider embarking on a mission. [...] And after the mission, I just throw a smart blazer over it and I'm ready for a night on the town. 32

You get to your place just as Big Blowzy does, and before you know it, all three of you are covered in champagne and grape-seed oil and feathers, and blasting form your stereo--at that very moment--is no other than Bell Biv DeVoe's "Poison."
And then you die. 44

For reasons unbeknownst to me, an inordinate amount of international espionage is centered around casinos. I would like to believe it's because secret agents ... live incredibly exciting lives [...] But the truth is, it's much more likely because the type of person who is attracted to a career in the clandestine services to begin with--slightly arrogant, somewhat shallow, hypersexual high-functioning alcoholics with incredibly addictive personalites--is really just there for the glamorous ambience, the top-shelf booze, and the world-class hookers. 47-48

However, I think I've also made it pretty clear that I don't like to invite comparison to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. 81
(He is actually referring to James Bond, not Voldermort.)

Gummi Roy: 5 gummi bears, 2 ounces scotch. 79

Pisco Sour: Not to sound like a dick, but except for Paddington Bear (who is totally awesome!!!) Peru has never had much going for it. I mean, even the gruff-yet-loveable Paddington got out of there on the first train he could hop. 87

But instead of a tasteful rendering of a handsome man introducing a beautiful woman to the subtle melange of complex emotions and intense physical pleasure which is anal sex, I get a gingerbread centaur shitting out a soccer ball. 145

The Art of Fielding, Chard Harbach (2011)

The Art of Fielding is the book my coworker used to explain his "500 list" theory that I talked about in my first revamp post. And his selection was exemplary indeed.

This is the first book in a while that I haven't been able to put down, that I've said, "I want to just go home and read!" when I've been discontent at work. Like my coworker, I can't tell you exactly what had me so hooked or so compelled to keep reading... but I liked it.

The story is about college life and a baseball team and people connected to the team. The appreciated aspect of this obvious setup is that baseball isn't some gross metaphor for life. Well, I am sure that you could easily create a thesis around that idea and this book, but you don't have to, and that's part of the beauty of it. The characters aren't real--I don't really see myself aligning with any of them or their amazing circumstances (super genius, super athlete, super mentor, super gay). But there are parts of all of them--moments and thoughts and ideas and actions--that when combined, feel almost inanely natural and easy and personal. The characters are complex, so complex that by the time I finished the book and went back to gather my quotes, I had already forgotten some of the details of their histories. But I'm not sure that's negative, just a result of how much you learn and experience in 500 pages.

Spoiler alert: Before I round out this post with some passages, I wanted to talk about the book broadly. That includes the ending, so be warned.