Lolita wrap-up

So, I finished reading Lolita. And, yeah, it was good. But I feel strangely let down by the ending. The conceit of the book somewhat muted the wrap up for me, in the same way the Cloverfield's conceit muted its ending. (There it is, people - the only truly unique thought I'll have in this lifetime... and I squandered it on a Cloverfield reference. This is what happens when I drink Irish whisky before blogging. sigh) There's just no way to end on a climax when the outcome has such a narrow space to operate in.

But again, I liked the book, and when your topic is pedophilia, getting so many people to enjoy your book has to give you a major ego boost. Good on you, Nabokov.

There is one thing that still bothers me about the book. Humbert Humbert is such a manipulative story teller, that I always half-wondered if he actually did kill his wife. And then, nearly at the end of the book, HH mentions some case that was in the newspapers where a guy killed his wife and tried to make it look like an auto accident. HH comments "I did better". What is that supposed to mean? Is it a tongue in cheek moment, or is HH telling us that he actually murdered his wife, and has been lying to us this whole time? If that's what's going on, its the only allusion to it that I noticed. Anyone have any input on this topic?

Incidentally, whenever I think of Humbert Humbert, I will think of him mentioning his "foot of engorged brawn". Sure HH, a foot, right. If you say so. That line more than anything else makes him seem pathetic to me. It cuts through the educated veneer he so desperately maintains, through all of his posturing and justifying. In the end, I'll forever see him as a loser obsessed over the size of his penis. Works for me.

One of my favorite quotes...

I've used a piece of this as my sig on some bulletin boards, but the full quote is way better. I find it incredibly hopeful and uplifting:

"We are a tough and resourceful lot, all things considered; our descendants
will have to be tougher and more resourceful still. The odds
are all against them. The stars are high, life is short, and the house always
takes a percentage. But Man himself is so unlikely that if he did not exist, his
possibility would not be worth discussing. Heinlein's money is on Man; and I
have a hunch that the next century will prove him right."

- Damon Knight , 1967
(from the introduction to Robert Heinlein's "The Past Through Tommorrow")

The ABC of Cocktails

I've finally gotten around to scanning the illustrations / poems from another of the "ABC of..." books. (recall the ABC of cookies)

This one is even more amusing, and shows its age (originally printed 1953) even more strongly. Check out the illustration at left for an example, or click here for the whole set of A to Z (except, no 'U' for some reason).

"Men must have liquor, Women and song, To gladden their hours and smooth life along." The question is... does he chase her because she's naked? or because she has his bottle of hooch?


PS: These illustrations by Ruth McCrea are from the 1953 book "The ABC of Cocktails" from the Peter Pauper Press. I don't own the rights to them. If you do, and wish me to remove them, just let me know! The book appears to be out of print, but plenty of used copies are available on the web. Shop around for best value. Thanks!

The Great Panjandrum himself

So she went into the garden to cut a cabbage-leaf to make an apple-pie; and at the same time a great she-bear, coming down the street, pops its head into the shop. What! no soap? So he died, and she very imprudently married the Barber: and there were present the Picninnies, and the Joblilies, and the Garyulies, and the great Panjandrum himselff, with the little round button at top; and they all fell to playing the game of catch-as-catch-can, till the gunpowder ran out at the heels of their boots.

Mr. Thundermug: A Novel

What is the deal with this book? It gets amazing reviews from everyone, and I can't figure out what these people are seeing to admire in the book. I saw nothing in it.

Mr. Thundermug is a baboon who has developed the ability to speak human language at about the time he mysteriously appears in the narrator's town. The story walks us through a sequence of scenes, but doesn't really tell a story. There's no flow. There's no detail. No back story. Nothing is gone into in depth. No one seems the least bit surprised by a talking baboon. What am I meant to gain from this story? I'm sure I don't know. And I am also sure that I don't know how this little piece of junk got published.

Perhaps Cornelius Medved is the publisher's untalented brother-in-law? It's the only explanation I can come up with. Dorothy Parker might as well have been speaking about this book when she said ""This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."

DESPAIR!!!

I'm officially giving up on Augie March. I just can't make any freaking progress on the damn thing. I'll blame 30% of this on my overloaded schedule. Another 45% can be attributed to the fact that, even after over a hundred and twenty pages, NOTHING HAS HAPPENNED YET! We are introduced to people; we learn what makes them tick. We are introduced to other people. We learn what makes THEM tick. A few casual references to someone committing arson, but mentioned in an oblique way. A burglary, that completely lacks any fun, and seems to do nothing to progress the plot. Except there ISN'T ANY PLOT! Because nothing happens! I'll try again in a couple years. Took me more than that to finally make it through The Fountainhead. Won't be the first time.

Grounds for Murder

I keep forgetting to mention that my Aunt Sandy has a new mystery novel out. She's doing a reading and signing at the Brookfield Schwartz Books. If you read her first novel Uncomon Grounds, you know she's a damned good writer. So come check it out and pick up an autographed copy before she becomes even more famous! Or buy one from Amazon, if you'd rather.

Sandra Balzo Grounds for Murder
Tuesday , November 6 • 7:00 p.m. reading • Brookfield

Brookfield author Sandra Balzo brings Maggy Thorsen, star of the Uncommon Grounds, back for another round. When coffeehouse owner Thorsen is dragooned into emceeing the barista competition (think “Iron Chef,” but with coffee) at the industry’s competitive trade show, she fears nothing good will come of it. Sure enough: The morning of the finals, Maggy discovers the body of her chief rival and conference organizer, Marvin LaRoche, under the trophy table. Finding herself not only the fill-in conference coordinator, but also chief suspect, Maggy must track the murderer, save her coffeehouse and, if she has some spare time, heat up her love life.

The Adventures begin!

As I mentioned earlier, I'll be blogging my reading of Saul Bellow's The Adventures of Augie March as part of NaNoReMo. It's 584 pages of "Great Books" goodness. I'm only a few pages in, and I've already 1) found a reference to Racine, WI, and 2) learned an important truth. The truth? When TheBoy is in a good mood, he's even noisier than when he's in a bad mood. Never really noticed before, but reading dense text is nearly impossible when he's playing with his musical toys! Wish me luck!

Update:
This book is going to take a while to read. The words he uses! jesuitical? animadversion? It's like reading in a foreign language. And the sentence structure so complicated in places that even after three reads, I'm not really sure what exactly is meant. Yes, if I manage to finish this, I'll feel a sense of accomplishment. If I understand it, even more so!

NaNoReMo - Augie March

Defective Yeti has had a lovely idea. Since schedules do not currently have enough wiggle room to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) (Heck, they don’t even have enough time to get the mandatory stuff done!), he is sponsoring NaNoReMo (National Novel Reading Month). He posted a list of literature from Huckleberry Finn to Lolita and back again, and asked his readers to vote on which novel they’d like to read. The winner was Catch-22… which kinda sucks, because I just read it (or listened to an unabridged recording on tape, anyway) earlier in 2007 (maybe late 2006, I can’t rightly recall). So, I decided to pick a different book off of his list. Since I’d never heard of it, and since it’s over 500 pages long (long enough to take some time), I’ve decided on Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. This appears to be one of those pop-culturally second-tier (but critically first tier) books that appears on a decent selection of “books you should have read by now, you borderline illiterate!” lists, but doesn’t seem to have caught the public eye the way Lolita or Catch-22 has. It is also (new word alert) a picaresque:

a popular subgenre of prose fiction which is usually satirical and depicts in
realistic and often humorous detail the adventures of a roguish hero of low
social class who lives by his or her wits in a corrupt society

Thanks, Wikipedia! Anyway, I’ll be blogging my thoughts on the novel as I read (beginning November 1st). So as not to bog the blog with posts about the novel, I’ll be adding my thoughts as comments on this post. If you’re familiar with the book, or are also reading along, feel free to add your own comments here (no, I’m really not expecting this, though it would be cool. This is essentially about me trying to track my reactions to a critically recognized book as I read it. It’ll be interesting for me, if not for all of you!)

PS: They're getting $16 for a paperback of this book - unbelievable! I picked up a used copy for $6 at half-price books. Much more reasonable!

A quotation...

From Agatha Christie's ABC Murders (first published, 1936):

"I shall, I think, remember that 11th of September all my life".

Me too.

Goodbye old friend...

At last, it has passed. Today, my Canon S230 Digital Elph made its way to the great circuitry graveyard. Something inside it just stopped working, and while I could still view the photos already in memory, new photos could no longer be produced.

Fearfully, I turned to amazon.com... and found that the $120 low-end camera had 1) higher resolution, 2) a larger view screen, 3) cheaper memory cards, and 4) used non-proprietary rechargable batteries (that don't cost $50). I've never been so happy to have a piece of electronics fail.

Oh, and while I was ordering from Amazon, anyway, I decided to pre-order Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! I should have it within two days of the release date. Although if you pay for shipping, they'll guarantee it arrives on the day of release. Not worth it for me. I can wait two days to read a book if it'll save me $5.

Niche Publishers

While searching Target.com for a vegetarian shaving brush (no luck. Seems like it's impossible to find a reasonably-priced shaving brush that doesn't contain badger hair or boar bristles), I came upon a book entitled: The 2007-2012 Outlook for Shaving Brushes and Hairbrushes in India. At $495 for the hardcover (no word if there's a paperback available), this 258 page study report "covers the latent demand outlook for shaving brushes and hairbrushes across the states, union territories and cities of India. "

I'd like to see a book on the latent demand for books on selling hairbrushes in India at Target.com. Is this a huge market for them? or for anyone? I mean really, how many copies of this book need to exist in the world? Ten? Maybe 20? One for each of the hairbrush manufacturers who sell in India, maybe one for the author... one for his mom... and that's about it,right?

And then there's the topic of this publication. Do the same companies even make shaving brushes and hair brushes? Seems like it would require radically different manufacturing expertise. Why are these things even investigated in the same study? I'm flabbergasted. Of course, thatt might have more to do with last night's lack of restful sleep (thanks to The Boy's entry to the land of teething), and less to do with niche publications.

Is there a Santa Claus

I just came across this explanation of Santa Claus in a book of Christmas Stories. It's written by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

“Ma!” she cried. “There is a Santa Claus, isn’t there?”

“Of course there’s a Santa Claus,” said Ma. She set the iron on the stove to heat again. “The older you are, the more you know about Santa Claus,” she said. “You are so big now, you know he can’t be just one man, don’t you? You know he is everywhere on Christmas Eve. He is in the Big Woods, and in Indian Territory, and far away in York State, and here. He comes down all the chimneys at the same time. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, Ma,” said Mary and Laura.

“Well,” said Ma. “Then you see –“

“I guess he is like angels,” Mary said, slowly. And Laura could see that, just as well as Mary could.

Then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

Wherever anyone was unselfish, that was Santa Claus.

Christmas Eve was the time when everybody was unselfish. On that one night, Santa Claus was everywhere, because everybody, all together, stopped being selfish and wanted other people to be happy. And in the morning, you saw what that had done.”

I love that. Thanks, Ms. Wilder.