July 3, 2004

• Light Reading

  
  

  I was in the mood this week for something that would be fun, interesting, and not too taxing on the brain cells.  Every book I picked up was funnier, more interesting, and had more depth than I expected. 

  
  

  I started with Christopher Moore's, Island of the Sequined Love Nun.  I'll admit it, I picked it up simply for the title.  I'm a sucker for anything absurd that looks like it won't dissolve into inanity after page 7.  I'll admit, Moore teeter's on the inane edge, but his characters are just quirky enough and likeable in a "thank god I never wound up in this place" kind of way that they kept me interested.  I was predisposed to like the story because the hero's name is Tucker.  Tucker makes his living as a pilot for the Mary Jean Cosmetics Corporation.  But he has an unfortunate meeting with a lady of the evening who's willing to give him one on the house if he'll induct her into the mile high club.  By the end of chapter three the pink corporate jet is in flames and so is Tucker's life.  From there, it gets really wild.   The back cover says its a brazen, ingenious, irreverent, wickedly funny novel from a modern master of the outrageous.  This book lives up to its cover. 

  
  

  Next I found Undead and Unwed by Mary Jane Davidson.  You'll find it in the romance section even though its a wickedly irreverent (there come those descriptors again, maybe I need to consult my thesaurus) vampire novel.  I was tickled when I opened the book and read the description of our heroine being attacked in the Mall of America parking lot.  I'm such a pushover for books that are set in places I love and this one has a heroine living in the same little St Paul suburb I lived in.  Being killed isn't the worst part of Betsy Taylor's day, she wakes up in the morgue wearing a horrible pink suit and cheap shoes!  That's just a shade too much for the woman who fought off a vampire with nothing more than the toes of her Manolo Blahniks and the scent of garlic on her breath.

  
  

  Let me give you more from the back cover of this one, "...what really bites is that she can't seem to stay dead.  Every night she rises, with a horrible craving for blood, and she's not taking too well to the liquid diet.  Worst of all, her new friends have the ridiculous idea that Betsy is the prophesied vampire queen, and they want her help in overthrowing the most obnoxious, power-hungry vampire in five centuries - a badly dressed Bela Lugosi wannabe, natch.  Frankly, Betsy couldn't care less about vamp politics, but they have a powerful weapon of persuasion: designer shoes.  How can any self-respecting girl say no?"

  
  

  Years and years ago, Lorna Landvik wrote her first novel and my friend told me I should run to the bookstore for my copy.  I was foolish and forgot her advice until this week when I was shelving books and found it.  According to the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Patty Jane's House of Curl has the emotional warmth of Lake Wobegon and the tender/tough female characters who populated Fried Green Tomatoes ... a unique story.  This is a story of love and loss in which the men who come and go from the lives of the women at the center influence and shape the direction of their lives.  Patty Jane marries a young blond god with ambition to become a great architect.  But Thor disappears from her life mere weeks before the birth of their daughter.  Told from the viewpoint of the daughter, Patty Jane's House of Curl has the unmistakable flavor of Norwegian baked goods and the acrid aroma of a permanent wave.  I thought last night that I'd read a chapter or two just to see ... an hour and a half later, I realized I was on page 175 and couldn't put it down. 

  
  

  The last book in my light reading week is a mystery.  The only part of my job that I really don't enjoy is that we have to go through the shelves and pull out books for return.  Doing returns means stripping off the covers and the first chapter of the book - effectively destroying it.    One book I was supposed to destroy on Tuesday evening caught my eye.  Tamar Myers' Baroque and Desperate, (A Den of Antiquity Mystery).  The heroine has the sassy kind of attitude I enjoy in others and can never quite pull off in my own life. 

  
  

  When the book opens, Abigail Timberlake is waking from a nightmare about Yankee terrorists and the Pledge of Allegiance on an airplane returning from vacation, "You had a nightmare," the young man beside me said.  "I didn't know what to do, so I poked you with my magazine."
     I stared at him.  He was handsome, too handsome for me to have missed when I boarded the plane.  That's what happens when your cruise ship docks in San Juan on its final night and you suddenly discover you have a taste for Puerto Rican rum. 
     "My name is Tradd Burton," he said, and gave me an easy good-old-boy grin.  "Tradd Maxwell Burton."
     "Abigail Timberlake," I grunted.  I do not dispense my middle name to strangers.
     "You from Charlotte," he asked. 
     I nodded and my seatmate became a blur.  There was no need to ask where he was from, Tradd Maxwell Burton couldn't say the pledge of allegiance in under a minute if he taped it and played it on fast forward.
     "You been on a cruise?" he asked.
     "How'd you guess?"
     "I saw the name of your cruise line on your bag when you put it in your overhead."
     "You're very observant," I said, and closed my eyes.  The young man had a right to be flattered.  Usually I reserve sarcasm for close relatives and other people I care about. 

  
  

  Oh, yeah, I bought it.  I felt a moment of guilt over my spendthrift waste of money - but with the employee discount it was only $4.  So I skipped my nightly diet coke and cashews at the Candy Craze.  I'd rather have the book.  It really was a struggle, but the innocent little think was looking up at me so trustingly.  It just didn't deserve to have it's little cover ripped off.  And, well, I was weak. 

  
  

  I gave in to another weakness that evening and bought a book of poetry.  I've been reading Neruda for months on the recommendation of two different people who's opinion I value highly.  This week I bought The Captain's Verses.  Which is a collection of Neruda's love poems.  I wouldn't classify this as light reading unless the light refers to the glow from the fires he ignites with his - how do you describe what he does with words?  I'm at a loss.   

  
  

  I can't read this for more than one or two poems at a time.  It just takes me that long to appreciate what is before my eyes and truth be told I'm not sure I fully appreciate it even at that slow pace.  His words flare up throughout my day and I see shades of meaning from each new look at what he's said to me.  That's the power of Neruda, he doesn't speak language, he speaks through language and says things that make words seem like white noise you have to put up with to get the picture you must see. 

  
  

  Let me share with you the poem I read yesterday, I'll tell you at the end which line it is that won't leave me alone, and maybe you'll come back in a day or two and tell me which line grabbed you ...

  
  

  The Question

  
  

  Love, a question
  has destroyed you.

  
  

  I have come back to you
  from thorny uncertainty.
  
  I want you straight as
  the sword or the road.
  
  But you insist
  on keeping a nook
  of shadow that I do not want.

  
  

  My love,
  understand me,
  I love all of you,
  from eyes to feet, to toenails,
  inside,
  all the brightness, which you kept.

  
  

  It is I, my love,
  who knocks at your door.
  It is not the ghost, it is not
  the one who once stopped
  at your window.
  I knock down the door:
  I enter all your life:
  I come to live in your soul:
  you can not cope with me.

  
  

  You must open door to door,
  you must obey me,
  you must open your eyes
  so that I may search in them,
  you must see how I walk
  with heavy steps
  along all the roads
  that, blind, were waiting for me.

  
  

  Do not fear,
  I am yours,
  but
  I am not the passenger or the beggar,
  I am your master,
  the one you were waiting for,
  and now I enter
  your life,
  no more to leave it,
  love, love, love
  but to stay.

  
  

  The line that keeps coming into my mind for consideration more than any other is I come to live in your soul: you can not cope with me.  There are others that won't let me go, but this one has really challenged me to think about how much I approach relationships, or rather how much I don't allow relationships to approach me unless I already have my coping strategy in place.  One of the things I'm learning about myself is (and this is not all bad) how very much I hold myself apart.  It's important to have boundaries.  But unless  boundaries are challenged, they become rigid walls which allow no intimate exchange.  I want intimacy in my life.  I want to drop my walls and be open to the relationship that can't be coped with or strategized. 

  
  

  Yeah - I'm glad I picked this week to be for light reading. 

  • 11:37 am
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