Yes, I already find myself in the circumstance of playing catch-up. As someone was so kind to point out, I’m on vacation, but I’ve managed to spend most of the past month in places with intermittent internet access and, when at home, I found myself trying to cram in as much as possible.
In any case, here I am, and I plan on bringing everything here up-to-date over the course of the next few days.
Back in July, I managed to get a lot of reading done, mostly thanks for my amazing talent for procrastination. Homework? Peh! I’ve got some serious reading which demands my attention! (Fear not, concerned reader, I did my homework, too.)
I managed to at last read one of those books that it seems everyone read in highschool except for me: J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. It’s funny, because part of the appeal for me was that almost everyone I knew who had talked about reading it ended with, “I hated that book.” I suppose there was part of me that wanted to test those waters, to see what was so (seemingly) universally hateable about the book, but that was still meritful enough to be on everyone’s reading list. (Of course, Margaret Laurence’s The Stone Angel is also on the same list, it seems, and I did read that one.) Funnily enough, I went into the reading with very little knowledge of the book and therefore with almost no expectations story-wise. I knew it was about an angry young protagonist, but that’s about all I knew. Surprisingly enough, I did not hate it. Maybe it’s because I’m reading it as an adult, and not as an an angsty 15 year old, but I didn’t find Holden Caufield intolerable. (I even find him less of an icon of teenaged rebellion than I was told he would be.) What I found so interesting about the character was that he’s not simply disenfranchised; he’s disenfranchised, but desperately wants not to be. He wants to have heroes, he wants to connect, but somehow cannot get past being let down. Those he expresses admiration for are those who haven’t yet proven themselves to be “phonies” or, perhaps more accurately, fallible. He’s somehow reached the place where he’s confronted with the reality of the flawed nature of … well … everyone, but can’t quite resign himself to it. In any case, and without going on an enormous diatribe about the whole book, I enjoyed the character study quite a bit. (I also enjoyed finally reaching the point in the book where I understood the cover image.)
Next up, I read The Believer: Issue 80. As you may already be aware, this is one of my favourite magazines, and when people ask me what it’s about I usually find myself scrambling to explain, “It’s sort of a non-fiction magazine about … I don’t know, all sorts of things that I wouldn’t end up reading about anywhere else. And book reviews, too.” This issue featured such eclectic content as a humourous and fascinating article about the Barkley Marathons (look it up – it’s crazy), a discourse on Bulgarian street-obituaries, and an interesting interview with Darren O’Donnell who works with Toronto students in a curious theatre-based artist-in-residence program.
After having it on my shelf waiting for several months, I finally cracked Room by Emma Donoghue. I’ll not say much, for fear of ruining anything for future readers, but I will say that I was surprised to discover that only half of the book was what I expected it to be. I will also say that I certainly recommend it. Interestingly enough, a day after I finished the book, I happened to catch Donoghue on some CBC talk show discussing the book. How’s that for timing? She writes a good book AND gives a good interview.
More to come as the days go by!
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