Perfectly still warm weather, no breezes at all, pretty dry, puffy white clouds in the distance...August is here in Northeast Bulgaria. 31 whole days of waiting, reading, and playing with the cat. I'll admit, life is pretty good when there's little to do. I like relaxing. I get a kick out of it, and it gives me the energy for those times when I really have to do something.
Unfortunately, it doesn't make for exciting journal writing. So, basically, um, that's what we have for the day. Today's book recommendations are The Tortilla Curtain, by TC Boyle and The Corrections, if you still haven't gotten around to it, by Jonathon Franzen. The first is a clever, entertaining, tale of the struggle between classes in Los Angeles. It's not really the newest ground to cover, and it wasn't when the book was written, but for being so heavy, it was a real breezer. 400 pages in a weekend. It also has pretty solid moments of levity.
The Corrections, a honeymoon #2 on my all-time favorites list, is a well-told story that if poorly told, would be incredibly boring. Basically, a mother wants all of her adult children home for "one last Christmas." It's the characters that really do it for this book, each new family member adds something new to the story of the family's dysfunction.
One of the Peace Corps Bulgaria memes rolling around these days is that "men may be children, but women are nuts," and I think Franzen subscribes to that theory pretty closely. The female characters seem to be, at times, entirely irrational (except, notably, for the lesbian), while the men seem completely incapable of running their lives without outside help. Again, great book.
Read 'em. If you already have, and these have been out for a while, talk about 'em. I'll be around.
Posted by Rob at August 2, 2004 07:48 PM