Ye auld blog post. Fer F's sake.

I started The Busconductor Hines and was just baffled by the dialect and profanity used in the book.  It was almost like a different language at first until I got used to it.  I finally figured it out about 100 pages in, and then the story went fairly quickly.

Robert Hines struggles with the monotony of his life.  The protagonist has a tough job as a Busconductor and lives in a no bedroom apartment with his wife and 4 year old son.  The circumstances of his life totally weigh on him.  Throughout the book, his wife suggests ways that they can get things better - such as moving to a different location, or saving money for a year with the eventual goal of possibly moving to Australia - but Hines can't ever seem to get it together to make a change.  Even at the very end, where he winds up quitting his job, he goes back to it after a little while because it would be foolish not to work the week's notice and get the extra money.

This is a moderately interesting portrait of working class life in Glasgow.

Why you aren't supposed to throw carrots in restaurants.

When Peanut was 2, she sort of understood the general rules but couldn't figure out the logic behind them.  For example, one time she tossed a carrot stick in a sandwich shop.

Me: Peanut, don't throw the carrot in the restaurant.
Peanut: You can't throw a carrot in the restaurant.  Other kids will want to play with the carrot.

You could tell she was sort of understanding how things worked, but couldn't really fully grasp the logic behind why yet - and in situations that were not directly related to health or safety, it took some time before she figured out the why behind the rules.  At 3.5, I promise that she hasn't thrown a carrot in a restaurant for at least a week or two.

I just finished Nadine Gordimer's book Burger's Daughter.  I felt a lot like Peanut while I was reading this.  I definitely got the gist behind what was going on, but I completely lack the historical/social context to understand the book more fully and clearly in the way the author intended.

Thus seems to be a recurring theme for me with these books.  I really enjoyed history when I studied it in high school but we obviously didn't cover the history of every country through every time period.  Hence, my knowledge of South Africa is very lacking.  I found this book was useful to help me understand in some small way what apartheid South Africa was like - but I can also tell it only scratched the surface.  I get that you aren't supposed to throw the carrot, but I don't understand why.

Life in a British colony.

IIt's Memorial Day weekend and I'm finishing up Fuzz's nap before we have a cookout and relax with our friends and family. It is about 90 degrees and in the distance, I can hear the roars of the Rolling Thunder motorcycles as they come to their convention. That is Memorial Day weekend for me- our cookout and the Rolling Thunder.
I just finished reading Burmese Days, a novel by George Orwell set in the early 1900s in Burma, a British colony. This book amazed me simply by the different attitudes about different races that were so prevalent and accepted 100 years ago. Colonialism itself. The way the white inhabitants treated the natives. Even Flory, who seems to like native culture, treats his Burmese mistress terribly. It was an interesting book because it was so different than anything I'm used to in my life. I can't imagine just going a place and proclaiming my way of life to be superior.
happy Memorial Day!

Books 121-130

Here are the next 10 books on the list!  Almost to the C's!

121. The Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe (1992)
122. By the Open Sea by August Strindberg (1890)
123. Cakes and Ale by W. Somerset Maugham (1930)
124. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth (1934)
125. Camilla by Fanny Burney (1796)
126. Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1968)
127. Candide by Voltaire (1759)
128. Cane by Jean Toomer (1923)
129. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (1945)
130. Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres (1994)

Monotony is good!

Have you ever had a period of your life that was characterized by doing the same thing day in and day out?  Monotony doesn't bother me in the least.  I find comfort in it and find very mundane tasks particularly relaxing.  (I was an AWESOME administrative temp in college for this reason.  Need to organize thousands of batteries by country of origin?  I'm your girl.)

Edith Wharton's novella Bunner Sisters (do you italicize the title of a novella?) is a story of how a pair of sisters with a small shop change up their monotonous lives with disastrous results.  I have written before about how amazed I am that I hadn't read any Edith Wharton until beginning this project, and this novella yet again made me realize what a brilliant writer she was.  The whole picture of the sisters, their sad little lives, their sad little shop, just drawn so perfectly - and then just turned on its head as their circumstances change.  I really enjoyed this one.

Sometimes you get it, and, well...

Sometimes you just don't.  The Buddha of Suburbia was not one of those crazy books that make absolutely no sense to me, stream of consciousness or with holes cut out (or pooping outside of a window).  It was a coherent story.

Unfortunately, it just didn't resonate with me.  It's narrated by a half Indian young man making his way in 1970s London.  The story was interesting, and his world was interesting, and the characters are all interesting, but I just was left feeling kind of meh.  I'm sure that for some people this was a fascinating social commentary, but I'm just not one of those people!

I'm definitely not going to like them all.

In other news, my daughter has just started reading!  I'm so happy and proud of her and we have been reading a lot of those decodable books.  She loves it so far.  The way she goes through a new library book at rapid speed enjoying every minute reminds me a lot of Marissa and me when we were little.  It's a very happy time here in my house.

Family.

We have a picture of my little 2 month old son, his dad, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather all sitting together on the couch last Christmas Eve.  It's so amazing to look at these 4 generations of men and think about everything that has happened in their lives - and to think that someday my son might pose for a picture with his son, grandson, or even great-grandson.  I look at Great-Grandpa and think about what an interesting life he has had.  And I look at my son and think about what an interesting life he may also have.

Thomas Mann's novel Buddenbrooks has really gotten me thinking about family.  This novel was amazing.  So amazing in fact, that I read all 730 pages in less than 2 weeks.  I simply couldn't put this one down.  I obviously hope that my family doesn't turn out like the Buddenbrooks - the novel chronicles the decline of this once-illustrious German merchant family and ends with the typhoid death of little Hanno, the young son.  It was very sad.

But I liked how no matter what they were going through in the story, the family remained very close.  They had Thursday afternoons as family time when extended family members would come to eat.  They had this cool family chronicle book handed down through generations in which all the important events that took place were recorded.  And they generally had each other's backs.  Although Antonie had to deal with 2 very bad marriages, she knew she could always come back to the family home.  She could always count on her parents and oldest brother.  And she similarly could always be counted on to support her family and stand behind them no matter what they chose to do.  I liked their family closeness through good times and bad.

This is one of those books that I absolutely loved and would recommend to anyone.  I'll definitely be thinking about this one for a while.  This was among the best I have read so far for sure!