Author: 459856pwpadmin

The new year has begun and if I had great plans for being efficient, together, working hard and not sloughing off important tasks I would have failed.  Fortunately no such resolutions were made, although I do intend to spend a little more time on the exercise bike, accompanied by books of course.

In fact reading seems to be the main accomplishment of the year so far.  I sneak off to a quiet corner whenever possible to lose myself in someone’s prose and it is a quite enjoyable habit, one I have never managed to quite outgrow.

I have finished:
Musicophilia which was interesting and entertaining.  Like most of Sacks’ books, it revolves around numerous case studies, each illuminating different points, pathologies, or aspects of how the human mind approaches and understands, or fails to understand music.  In that sense it was a quick read because it was easily picked up on a whim and just as easily abandoned. 

Do not think this  is a criticism of the book. I enjoyed it and it has made me reconsider many of my thoughts and preconceived notions about how we as humans process and approach our sensory input.  Sacks has a way of giving us just enough information to lead us to reflect on what we have read, pointing us in a particular direction perhaps, but leaving the reader to ponder implications not previously considered. 

In fact the book has reminded me of my own discomfort at criticism — such a subjective analysis and prone to so many biases.  I am reminded how my own judgment of a book or a musical performance can be highly influenced by my own expectations as well as my emotional or mental state. As humans are we ever so purely intellectual and neutral that we can make a purely rational judgment on facts alone? I aspire more to the summary view, something along the lines of "I read x and it made me think about y".  As usual, for good or ill, well-written or total hack-job, I remain uninterested in anything that does not lead me on to ponder something, good or ill, complex or mundane.

I also read Phoebe Damrosch’s Service Included which was interesting because most of the books I have read about the restaurant world are written from the point of view of the chef and this is the first book I have read from the view of someone working in the front of the house.  I found it interesting and entertaining.  I would think anyone who likes to eat out and occasionally go out to high-end restaurants would find it interesting. 

The person who passed it on to me expected it to be more of a titillating read, expecting more celebrity gossip  and tales of the misbehaviors of the rich and famous.  I frankly found the lack of the titillation factor to be a good point and as I said I enjoyed reading the book.  It is not something that I will treasure for ages, I don’t suppose it is meant to be.  But it was fun, entertaining, at times enlightening; at times it made me laugh and at other times I laughed at human foibles.  I didn’t find it as gripping as the NY Times review seemed to intimate it might be, but I found to to be fun.  And although I have never eaten Per Se, I have wanted to do so since it opened.  Reading the book has only added spice to the dream, not dampened the anticipation.

"We are never very far from those we hate. For this very reason, we shall never be truly close to those we love. An appalling fact, I knew it well enough when I embarked. But some truths deserve our attention; others are best left alone."

So begins my new novel, Cold Skin  by Albert Sanchez Pinol, and I am immediately drawn in.    It is a dangerous thing, this novel which is also beautifully written.  I had picked it up for bicycle reading.  Beautiful language is not usually what I seek out in  a bicycle book.  Not that I object, but beautiful prose can be a deterrent to exercise.  Beautiful prose makes me want to stop pedalling, to curl up in a comfy chair with a cup of coffee and savor the language.  Bicycle books are meant to keep the blood flowing and the legs pedalling with a gripping story.  I may find them formulaic,  with imperfect characterizations and  even heavy prose, but all is forgivable as long as I keep to the stated goal:  more miles pedaled.

That does not mean I don’t enjoy good fiction when I can find something that I can actually savor while I ride.  This book promises both, a good ride and a good read. 

It seems that my reading has been either missing entirely, or of one extreme or the other of late.  Until a week ago the last book I read was Floor Sample  with which I was very enchanted in the beginning.  In the end that is what I look for in a book, something that enchants, something that forms a connection, almost like making a close friend.  Few books live up to that potential of course, and of the ones we read, some are just passing acquaintances and others become friends to some extent or another, but few become lifelong companions.  Those books we love deeply are few.  But even knowing this I am eager to start each new book, and disappointed when it does not fulfill that promise.

Julia Cameron’s book was like that.  It seemed full of promise at the beginning and I eagerly looked forward to each meeting.  And truthfully I was drawn in to the story through a good portion of the book.  But then it faded, slipping into what seemed to me just another accounting of the passing of life.  Although that is not exactly true.  The book has a rather open ended conclusion, but then life, while being lived, is also open ended.  I suspect too that my own frustrations with this peripatetic lifestyle shadowed some of my perceptions of the book.  "Settle down" I wanted to scream.  This moving back and forth really gets you nowhere, you keep repeating the same scenarios.  But that is not true.  That is how I see it as I am much more of a person rooted to a place.  But the personality and the art are always linked, and I admire Ms. Cameron for continuing to allow her art to thrive.   At times the spark seemed to have gone missing in the book, but that may be that it is just all the more difficult to write about one’s own more recent past than it is to view that which is more distant.  Not that I should complain.  We all start out with great promise, but so often then are worn down by the repetitiveness of life and the need to get things done and account for our accomplishments.  That the writing fades should not surprise me.  Who am I to judge?  I too subject the world to a meaningless drivel of boring words and accountings of the mundane passings of life.  Of course I am not selling my words in a book, but still they are being flung out there, ever ready to blanket the world in boredom.

After that I did not read.  There seemed little time to slip away into that magical kingdom ruled by words and imagination.  Even bicycle books were ignored as I gravitated to the treadmill and running to a driving beat.  But my brain longed to escape, and my knees longed for relief brought by that circular motion.

Last week I read Louse Erdrich’s The Master Butcher’s Singing Club and thoroughly devoured in a few short hours.  Then I began bicycling again, and finding myself at the gym without a book, picked up Mary Higgins Clark’s ‘ll be Seeing You which was not such a treat, but did its job as exercise distraction, although just barely.  Admittedly I can read some pretty bad things on the bike, but I have trouble getting through Mary Higgins Clark every time.  Even on the bike the temptation to skim and skip ahead was almost overwhelming.  Luckily it is a short book and fast read. Two sessions was about all I could take.

But now I have something better, but it too is short, and unlike Clark, this one encourages me to stay on the bike longer, travel further and read more.  It will be finished before the week is out, even if I resist the urge to take it to my favorite reading chair and shut out the world for a while.