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June 2007

 

Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About- Mil Millington

I used to read Mil's site of the same name, back before he got a book/movie deal.  I've always meant to pick up the book, and finally got around to it, years later.  Something about the writing style makes it feel like I'm still reading a blog, but I can't pin down what.  Good, but not fantastic.

"This place is a complete bloody circus," he said, stabbing his finger repeatedly at the floor in front of his feet to stress the sentiment (though I assumed he meant the university as a whole, rather than just that particular piece of carpet).

"Yeah."  I nodded, uncomfortably.  "And clowns are really scary, aren't they?  I can't imagine how anyone ever looked at a clown and thought, 'Ha!  You've painted your face!  Stop it- you're cracking me up!'  Maybe, when 'a family day out' meant a public hanging, I can see how they could have been comedy relief, but their only function now is to frighten the crap out of me."

"Can you see how you could have just replied 'Yes' there, and not left me any worse off?"

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June 2007

A collection of Jennifer Weiner's short stories.  I'd read a few before in other collections.  Like the usual collection of stories, some are great, some are good, some aren't memorable.  The first three stories deal with the same set of characters, and I could really see them continuing on into a book- you want to know more about them by the time you're finished.

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May 2007

As tends to happen to me with Tom books, I've started reading this one a few times before, but it took a few tries to get into. It took me around 100 pages to get into it, but after that, I was loving it.

The thing I LOVE about Tom Robbins is that he tells stories that are totally original- none of the same old cliches wrapped up in new packages. The other thing I love is the care that he puts into selecting each word- it makes every sentence a delicious dessert to be consumed.

Some of my favorite bits:

(on the city)

"Tanuki grew sick of Kyoto. Its women were too finicky, its air too smoky, its streets too crowded, its crowds too noisy, and it had far too many rules. You couldn't hear the crickets, you couldn't see half the stars, and the trees were being chopped down to make way for more houses and shops. "Why", Tanuki grumbled, "would they fell trees but leave men standing? Trees are a damn signt more useful than people, and everything in the world knows that except people.

Maybe he had a point. Trees do generate oxygen, men just breathe it up, stink it up, and generally misuse it. Trees hold the soil in place, men are constantly displacing it. Trees provide shelter and protection to countless species, men threaten the existence of those species. When in sufficient number, trees regulate atmospheric temperatures, men endanger the planet by knocking those regulations askew. You can't rest in the shade of a human, not even a roly-poly one; and isn't it refreshing that trees can undergo periodic change without having a nervous breakdown over it? And which has more dignity- the calmer spiritual presence- a tree or a typical Homo sapiens? Best of all, perhaps, what maple or cypress ever tried to sell you something you didn't want?"

(on history)

"After the monkeys came down from the trees and learned to hurl sharp objects, they had to move into caves for protection- not only from the big predatory cats but, as they began to lose their monkey fur, from the elements. Eventually, they started transposing their hunting fantasies onto cave walls in the form of pictures, first as an attempt at practical magic and later for the strange, unexpected pleasure they discovered in artistic creation.

Time passed. Art came off the walls and turned into ritual. Ritual became religion. Religion spawned science. Science led to big business. And big business, if it continues on its present mindless, voracious trajectory, could land those of us lucky enough to survive its ultimate legacy back into caves again."

And:

"To call Bangkok a city of contradictions is worse than a cliche, it's a trite superfluity, not merely because it's so patently obvious but because there's a sense in which every city is a city of contradictions. Are we not a contradictory species occupying a dichotomous planet wobbling about in what, from all indications, is a paradoxical universe?"

And of course, as seems to be the case in most books by Tom, you can't beat the very first sentence of the book:

"It has been reported that Tanuki fell from the sky using his scrotum as a parachute."

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