Boobs, boobs everywhere.

Nursing a baby can take a while. When they are little, they aren't very efficient yet, so they often hang out at the breast and nurse for sometimes 30 minutes at a time. It's a good idea to be relaxed and read a good book or watch TV or just enjoy bonding with your new, snuggly infant.

That is how I got a lot of reading done in the early days of this blog. I had a baby that loved to hang out and snuggle and nurse. Now, with baby #2, I still have toddler #1 to look after, so it isn't as easy to curl up with the baby and a good book and nurseathon. I still do have some good chances to read, though.

The Breast was a very odd book. I know I'm totally missing the point. I found my own humor in the fact that I was primarily reading it while nursing.

So basically, this guy turns into a breast. I'm not sure if it was the time in which it was written (early 1970s, I think) or what, but the breast's essential function as a food source was quite diminished. Roth spends pages upon pages dealing with the sexual nature of the breast, the guy has his girlfriend come over and stroke his new form, etc. Only at the very end was there any discussion of the fact that breasts make milk and that this guy did not produce milk, and even then it was very brief.

Anyway, weird, weird, weird book and I definitely missed the theme of this one.

Happy Father's Day.

It's fitting that I am writing about American Pastoral by Philip Roth on Father's Day. This book was fantastic. It made me a little sad, though. Without giving away too much of the plot, the protagonist's daughter commits an act of political terrorism and the book is about how the protagonist deals with his feelings about his daughter and the terrorism, and how it changes his family and his outlook on the world.

There are a lot of flashbacks where this guy is pushing his daughter on the swing, or playing with her as a baby, etc., and it made me sad. As a parent of a one year old, I always love to imagine the possibilities of her life. Whether she'll love basketball, or classical music, or whatever. What she'll decide to be when she grows up. Who she'll fall in love with. And I can't imagine a few years down the road, having my life turned upside down by something like what happens to this guy. Very sad.

I can't stress enough, though, how fantastic this book is. I just couldn't put it down.