So embarassing

You know how sometimes books have quotes on the back from other authors or reviews extolling the virtues of the book? Jeff told me last night that Modoc, my book about elephants? It has a quote on the back from Betty White. Betty. White. From the Golden Girls!!!

Truth and Beauty

I loved this book. This was my favorite kind of reading. I started the book on Saturday night and finished it in bed this morning. I couldn't put it down. I recommend reading at least one of Ann Patchett's books and Autobiography of a Face before reading this book, but you could do it in whatever order really. I just liked having some background information on both "characters" before picking this book up. Like I said in my post last week, this is the memoir of Ann's friendship with fellow author Lucy Grealy. You should be warned, this is not an uplifting book. But the writing is so beautiful and their friendship is so captivating that you forgive the fact that it's the literary equivalent of listening to REM's Everybody Hurts over and over.

I particularly related to Ann in the telling of the story. She often compares herself to the tortoise and Lucy the hare, or herself as an ant and Lucy as the grasshopper. I am most definitely, without a doubt the ant and the tortoise in most of my friendships. While Lucy was technically the addict, it also seemed like Ann was addicted to Lucy and their friendship, and I didn't find it hard to connect to that. While the book honored their intense friendship and showed how fiercely intelligent and sensitive Lucy was, it also painted her in a very ugly light. There seemed to be an anger coming from Ann, it was hard to tell if she was angry at Lucy for all her betrayals and bad behavior, or just angry at her for dying and leaving her alone. Both maybe.

Reading the book made me curious about what Lucy actually looked like, so I watched a couple tv interviews of her in the late 90's. It was interesting, but difficult to reconcile the difference between the Lucy on tv and the one in the book.

Anyways. This book is really, really good and if you haven't read it - you should.

I think I'll start The Alchemist tonight.

Modoc

I finished Modoc by Ralph Helfer today. I'm not going to lie, I was pretty pumped about this book, which may be why I was slightly disappointed by it. Here's the description directly off the back of the book -
Spanning seven decades and three continents, Modoc is one of the most amazing true animal stories ever told. Raised together in a small German circus town, a boy and an elephant formed a bond that would last their entire lives, and would be tested time and again: through a near-fatal shipwreck in the Indian Ocean, an apprenticeship with the legendary Mahout elephant trainers in the Indian teak forests, and their eventual rise to circus stardom in the 1940s New York City. Modoc is a captivating true story of loyalty, friendship, and high adventure, to be treasured by animal lovers everywhere.

Sounds good, right? Or am I just a big, elephant-loving dork? I was sold. And the story IS good, but the telling of it leaves a bit to be desired. Basically, it's corny. In hindsight, I should have been tipped off by the last sentence on the back description - "treasured by animal lovers everywhere"? Corny. But I think I was blinded by the adorable picture on the cover.

The author is an actual elephant trainer, so you can definitely tell that the corniness is genuine, but the excessive use of exclamation points was a little cringe-worthy. Also? There's a poem at the very end about Modoc the elephant written by the author and it's not so good. I also started to get a rash from all the rants about nature and the wisdom of nature and becoming one with the thinking of the elephants.

Exclamation points and nature rants aside - the story was definitely captivating. The fact that it was true made it much more entertaining and I liked the fact that you got to follow the story from Germany, to India to various locations in the US. And it's possible that I did cry for like one second at the end.

I think I'll start Truth and Beauty by Ann Patchett tonight.

I am the mayor of Serioustown

So I had about an hour free this afternoon between meeting with the hotel and freaking out about things beyond my control. It's possible that during that time I visited my favorite place (see my first post). At this place, I might have swung by the table marked "buy two get one free". So I might have bought three new books:

Modoc - a true story about a boy and his circus elephant that spans 7 decades and 3 continents. It's described as a book about friendship and love. I am seriously quite pumped about this book and might have already started it. Why do I feel so connected to elephants?

Truth and Beauty - another true story about a friendship, this time between two humans (no elephant); Ann Pachet (who I think is an excellent writer - Bel Canto, Patron Saint of Liars, Magician's Assistant...) and Lucy Grealy, who wrote Autobiography of a Face, which I loved. My friend Maggie highly recommends this book and I've meant to read it for a long time.

The Alchemist - this book sounded familiar, but I'm 99% sure I haven't read it. It says that it "inspired a devoted following around the world". It's about a Spanish sheperd boy who travels to Egypt in search of treasure buried in the pyramids.

So much for buying a girly novel to read on the plane. Since when am I the mayor of Serioustown? So I guess one book is about circus elephants, but still!

The Great Gastby

I liked this book. While it was from the same era as The Sun Also Rises, and I think I remember reading that F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway ran in the same circle, it contained so much more plot and more character than The Sun Also Rises. Everything about it was just more interesting, more articulate.

I suppose one reason I enjoyed it was because it's technically a romance, just an old school one without the happy ending. I thought it was really interesting the way the plot is largely a story about Daisy and Gatsby's romance, but that everything is told by a third character, Nick. I'm not sure, but this seemed like a strange way to tell a romance. It meant that during romantic and personal exchanges, Nick was always lurking around. At the same time, it colored the whole story in a different angle than if the narrator was Daisy or Gatsby. Nick is super honest and not very judgey (an attribute I'm not all too familiar with) and this is what allows him to tell the story in the way he does.

I'm not going to lie, I'm always made kind of uncomfortable when books have plot lines that involve people cheating on their partners. So the fact that most of the plot revolves largely around this theme, didn't let me love this book.

Something interesting I noticed that varies from most modern books I read is that the writing is much more subtle. By that I mean that they don't necessary tell you that someone is floating in the pool dead, you kind of have to work to figure that out. Here's the paragraph where you're supposed to gather this:

There was a faint, barely perceptible movement of the water as the fresh flow from one end urged its way toward the drain at the other. With little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves, the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool. A small gust of wind that scarcely corrugated the surface was enough to disturb its accidental course with its accidental burden. The touch of a cluster of leaves revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of transit, a thin red circle in the water.

The book assumes a certain amount of intelligence that a lot of modern books don't, and I appreciate being given the benefit of the doubt. Anyways, I thought this was really beautifully written. Not really an absolute page-turner, it was definitely entertaining.

Airplane reading

Still working my way through The Great Gatsby. I read most of it on the plane today (in between bouts of head bobbing and drooling on myself while nodding off). I don't think I'm quite ready to review it, but I can say that I'm enjoying it. I just got to my hotel in DC and while I should probably go to bed, I'm still on west coast time. So instead, I ordered some chicken noodle soup from room service and am going to eat it with the cheese and crackers they sent me up a few minutes ago (one of the only perks of being a conference manager - free cheese and crackers). Of course they also sent me a bottle of wine, but I can't for the life of me open it so it looks like I'll be drinking tap water with my hands - I can't bring myself to even touch hotel glasses after that horrible news scandal where they showed hotel staff using windex and a toilet rag to wash out the hotel glasses that come in your room. SICK!! Then I will hopefully finish this book before falling asleep. The rest of the week will be a loss as far as reading goes, I'll be spending my time reading the conference agenda and rooming list at the hotel. Once this conference is over, you can bet that I will buy a trashy airport book to read on the flight home. I'm already looking forward to it.

The Sun Also Rises

Am I retarded? This book is hailed as being one of the best ever, but I thought it was LAME. Maybe I just didn't "get it".

There is practically zero character development for any of the book's characters. How am I supposed to develop an interest in the plot if I don't even know the people in the story? There are references to some of the characters having been in the war, but there aren't enough details to actually sympathize with them as veterans. There are vague references to Jake, the narrator, being injured during the war in a way that is ironic and a joke, but you kind of have to figure out on your own that maybe this means his genitals were wounded? The whole book I kept thinking, "Am I misinterpreting this? Could he really be saying that he injured his penis in the war?" Weird.

Also, what little I did learn of the characters, lead me to conclude that none of them were likeable. Brett Ashley is a slutty drunk who all the men in the book love and most of which sleep with. All the men are boring drunks. I suppose all the drinking and slutting about are reflective of the "lost generation" that Hemingway was famous for capturing? I feel like *I* was the one that was lost - one character, Robert Cohn has an ex wife and 3 kids in the US, but he's busy drinking and feeling sorry for himself in Paris, the main character has a wounded penis and spends the whole book helping the girl he loves hook up with all his friends, one is engaged to a slut and watches his trampy fiance sleep with all his friends and then they all go get "tight" (ie: shit faced) together. At first I excused some of the behavior based on the fact that they must be young, but towards the end of the book you learn that Brett (aka the trampy fiance) is 34 years old. Remind me again why I'm supposed to root for any of these people? That actually made the book sound way more interesting than it really was. Because this book was bor to the ing.

I have a feeling that this book could be analyzed for an entire semester at some pretentious college on the east coast. I suppose the 20 page long descriptions of bloody bull fights is representive of something and that the main character's wounded genitals is symbolic of the impotence that veterans felt post-war. I guess I just don't care. Did I mention that the book was boring?

Immediately after I finished The Sun Also Rises, I picked up The Great Gatsby. I don't think I've ever read it. I got about 20 pages in last night and already I like it much better. Although after I finish it, I will definitely be reading something from the young adult section of the bookstore to counter all the culture I've been getting this month.