Beach Reads

THE ENGLISH MAJOR - Jim Harrison

Technically, I did not read this at the beach, but immediately before we left to join Franny and Ken in Kauai for ten beautiful days.

I have mixed emotions about this book. It is the first one I read after finishing Underworld, so in that sense it was kind of a nice vacation from heaviness. On the other hand, it suffered a great deal by comparison. Briefly, it is about a sixty-something English major who dabbled in teaching for about ten years (I have to assert here that in my book being in the classroom for ten years does not qualify one as a teacher. I don't think I really became a teacher until well into my second decade in the classroom.)and then moved onto other occupations. At the beginning of this novel we discover that our "hero" is recently divorced and trying to forge a new identity sans long time wife. He isn't doing well, primarily because his emotions vacillate between self-pity and raging lust. The lust rages whenever he encounters someone, anyone, of the opposite sex. When he encounters a former student (It is a wonder he remembers any of his students.) oozing sex appeal, his lust factor grows by a factor of ten.

He takes off cross country as a way to deal with his current life crisis. I get the feeling that he has had lots of life crises in his time. The former student rides along with him to return to the family she has deserted and during the trip we watch as he discovers all sorts of heavy shit about himself and life in general. To occupy his time and give him the illusion of accomplishment, he sets himself the project of renaming all the states. He manages to make this task much more difficult than one might imagine and the reader is rewarded for his perseverance by getting a list of the renamed states on the last page. Phew!

The most interesting thing about the book for me was the title: The English Major. It seems to turn that rather common college route into a cultural stereotype and since I am in fact an English Major I found it a little irritating. I was probably irritated because I realize that English Majors are of a type. I know a lot about the type. I married one. Most of my friends are English Majors. But I'll just speak for myself. I chose the major at first because I liked to read. I wasn't really thinking about teaching, but rather I thought it would be an okay thing to occupy my time until I got into the seminary and became a priest. Marriage after my sophomore year put an ecclesiastical damper on those plans and forced me to consider the practical side of being an English Major. I quickly discovered that there was no practical side, so I turned to teaching. Now I'm through teaching and asking myself what else my college major has prepared me to do. It has given me a refreshingly literary perspective on being a handy man and allowed me to see the irony in any number of political posturings and proclamations, but other than that I'm not sure how it has prepared me for anything.

So I can see how losing your wife and never really being a teacher would push someone out onto the road armed only with a year long quest to rename states and a hard on for anything feminine with a pulse.

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST - Stieg Larsson

This is the third and best of the adventures of Lisbeth Salander. I started it on the plane to Kauai and finished it by my second day on the beach. Like all of these novels, it is quite difficult to put down. Lisbeth gets herself into all kinds of fixes and always manages to escape by the hair of her chinny chin chin while getting graphic revenge on all her tormenters. Even if you are bothered by the idea of revenge (I still feel guilty about how much I enjoyed Dustin Hoffman finishing all the bad guys off in Straw Dogs.), you will get much satisfaction with the creative ways Lisbeth finishes off her tormenters.

I think the main reason why I like this book is because it spends a lot of time talking about journalistic ethics and even more time in courtroom drama. I love trial scenes.

A LONG WAY DOWN - Nick Hornby

Wonderful book. Four individuals all set on suicide happen to meet one New Year's Eve on the most popular rooftop for jumping in London. We have Martin, a TV breakfast show host who has pissed away his life with a fifteen year old girl; Maureen, a long suffering middle-aged mother of a hopelessly infirm son; Jess, a loud mouth punker with impulse control issues; and JJ, a mediocre rock guitarist who has just lost his band and his purpose in life. These four improbable people unwittingly offer each other support and a reason to live by the end of the novel.

That is the plot, but the charm of the book is the varying points of view and macabre sense of humor permeating every page. I loved this book and was able to finish it in two mornings of hanging out on various beaches.

INES OF MY SOUL - Isabel Allende

This is a serious book that is also exceedingly compelling. It follows the various loves of Ines Suarez through her travails in the Peru and Chile of the 1500's and in the process shows us the true history of Spain's systematic rape of South America happening at the same time that North America was being raped by our forefathers.

On one level the book is about love and soul mates. On another it is about exposing the truth of history. But mainly, I think, it is about an incredible individual who survives against seemingly impossible odds to be instrumental in founding a country. It also shows how women are behind the forming of civilizations. They provide the sustenance, the foundation upon which everything is built, while the men folk indulge in fatal pissing contests.

INHERENT VICE - Thomas Pynchon

I read this on the awful plane ride back to Denver. If you have ever read Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow, V.) you will agree that he is next to incomprehensible, so it was with a little trepidation that I approached this mystery. In this book Pynchon seems to be writing a parody of west coast mysteries, the kind that become film noir classics. The music of his language as he apes the speech patterns of drugged out sixties types in Los Angeles sounds like the patter in L.A. Confidential or Chinatown. Not much more to say about this juicy little novel. I liked it.