Now if only I could remember…

what I’ve read. I thought Samara had abandoned the blog, so I hadn’t bothered to write anything down. Luckily, I try to track all my reading on shelfari.com, so it’s not all forgotten (though I have realized that I don’t even do a very good job there).

So in the last few months, I’ve read a few books, but have also abandoned quite a few, which is unusual for me. I do like to finish things once I start, but checking books out from the library has required me to read things faster than I would like. Even with multiple renewals, I was unable to finish The Toad, by Gunther Grass. Grass is apparently the best German writer since sliced weinerschnitzel, so I felt like I should read him. I picked this particular book since it was the shortest one that the library had. I made it about a third of the way through and just didn’t like it enough to continue. It wasn’t terrible. Part of the problem was that I got bogged down in history. It’s about Germany and Poland and Lithuania. Apparently during WWII, there were people displaced from all of those places. I don’t know enough to know why, but I suspect some of them were Jews. The book, being written for Germans I presume, makes assumptions that you know something about the history of the region. Assumptions which in my case are ill founded. Plus, places are alternatively referred to by their German names and Polish names, so one city may be called Danzig or Gdansk, Vilnius or Wilna. Holy confusing!

I still want to read Grass, but I’ve decided to go for his best known work, The TinDrum, when I have more time.

I also finally read “In defense of food,” by Michael Pollan, which I think Samara had left with me a long time ago. I’m a big fan of Pollan’s books and have enjoyed all of the ones I’ve read. This one was no different. In fact, I loved it. Although I’ve read many books in this genre and like to think I know pretty much everything about industrial food, I think he actually has some original thoughts and opinions. And his rules for eating are very useful, and ones that I already try to follow, such as “Don’t eat things your great grand-mother wouldn’t recognize as food.”

Right now, I’m reading one called “Crossing the Heart of Africa: An odyssey of love and adventure.” This week’s library trip had me leaving with about 10 books. 2 books on how to mud and tape drywall (for the basement), a book about “reading like a writer,” the world according to garp by John Irving (my new favorite writer), and another book on Africa. I love going to the library but sometimes I get overwhelmed by all of the interesting books I want to read. I usually resist the urge to get random books, but this time I decided to give in to temptation and get a few “wildcard” books. If I don’t get a chance to read them, I return them unread and nobody dies. Crossing the Heart of Africa was one of these and I’m liking it a lot so far. It’s about a guy in the late 1800s who decides to explore the middle part of africa from cape town to Cairo in order to impress his girlfriend’s stepfather and win her hand. In a paralel story, the author is retracing this man’s steps months before his own wedding. It seems, to me, that for both men it’s just a good excuse to go to Africa on an adventure. But whatever. It makes for a good story anyway, and that’s all I care about.

Anyway, I’m definitely in a reading mood this winter. I think I would be content to do nothing but read, sitting here in my captain’s chair by the fire, with a glass of red wine on the little table next to me and a cat curled up at my feet. It’s just heaven.

Next time I’m reading a pamphlet….

So I have actually been reading – I just happened to start 2 600+ page books at the same time!  And finally I have actually finished one – Sophie’s Choice by William Styron.  Overall, this was a good book.   It’s the story of Stingo, the narrator-a young writer from the south in his early 20s and Sophie, a Polish Holocaust survivor and her psychotic Jewish boyfriend Nathan and the friendship they forge over the course of a summer in 1947 and the tragic events that ensue.  Regular readers of this blog may recall my obsession with World War II and its atrocities.  So I figured this was right up my alley, with the whole Holocaust survivor element.

Now, in my last post, I’d commented about the blurb on the back of the copy of the book I own – referring to Stingo as “the horniest would-be writer in New York.”  Well, folks, the blurb wasn’t kidding – and at first I found the counterpoint between Stingo’s obsession with getting laid and the tragedy of Sophie’s past very strange.  However, Styron brings it together at the end (when Stingo finally gets laid – I was relieved – 600 pages of build up – oy vey!)  His partner is Sophie of course – tortured Sophie who cannot let go of the past.

I was inexhaustible because I was twenty-two, and a virgin, and was clasping in my arms at last the goddess of my unending fantasies.  Sophie’s lust was as boundless as my own, I’m sure, but for more complex reasons; it had to do, of course, with her good raw natural animal passion, but it was also both a plunge into carnal oblivion and a flight from memory and grief.  More than that, I now see, it was a frantic and orgiastic attempt to beat back death.

Frankly, I found the parts of the books where Sophie is recounting the horrors of the war, her attempts to keep herself and her children safe in war-torn Warsaw, and the hell of Auschwitz the most compelling.  The parts that focused on her embattled relationship with Nathan I found difficult to read – the abuse she endured – but I understand that.  Her survivor guilt and the need to punish herself.  And Stingo, good ole Stingo – he just annoyed the hell out of me.  From what I’ve read about Styron, it sounds very much like an autobiographical sketch.  But, hell, aren’t all 22 year olds pretty much insufferable?  Including myself, back in the day, of course.

So, anyways, my other 600 page book?  The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano.  Honestly, I think I”m on page 100 so it could be a while before I have another new post, heh!  I’ve also just started a shorter book “Olive Kitteridge” by Elizabeth Strout.  This is a collection of short stories that are set in Maine.  It did win the Pulitzer Prize, so it’s possible, I could end up hating it, given my past track record.  I’ll let you know.