Well, the past few years I've always found the time to tear through about five or so novels and two pop-science books while in the field. Each summer has begun with a ritualistically trip to either "Half-Price Books" in DFW or "The Walrus and the Carpenter" in Pocatello {a very cool place, by the way. One can drink coffee, look at local art, listen to impromptu poetry or guitar and discuss books with proprietor Will Petersen ~ who inevitably has read every book in his store}.
But this summer has been different mainly due to an over ambitious PI who bit off more than we could chew. With candles burning at both ends, who has time to read for fun? So this summer I am stuck on about page 100 of A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving. A reread which I will complete, perhaps on the plane back to Texas. Last summer I was pleased to read The World According to Garp, by the same author. Both are really fun reads, and thought provoking I might add.
By the way, someone decreased the octane level of the coffee in the dining trailer. It's really irritating. Thus I need about five more cups of 'decaf' before I can think about such things as the proper placement of apostrophes or commas. So my apologies if this post makes Mr. Bordelon's ex-students cringe.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
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3 comments:
Everything I learned about apostrophes came from Miss Twiss. Bordelon taught me how to think and Twiss taught how to present that thinking in something resembling proper English.
John Irving is fantastic and undrerated, I think, in literary circles. And I don't what, exactly, is to account for this. Certainly not all of his books have been roaring successes, but A PRAYER FOR OWEN MEANY --(whose title I type in caps because a.)it's a title and b.) because that is the way OWEN MEANY speaks. In all caps)--is an amazing novel technically, stylistically, and narratively. Irving writes from the underbelly of irony and there are handfuls of the bitter-sweet in this book.
THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP is thematically more ambitious and more complex, I think, than A PRAYER, what with the social commentary on the then fledgling movement of feminism, gender & transgender issues, castration (literal & metaphorical), and the American psychosis known commonly today as parenthood.
That is not to say that A PRAYER falls short on social commentary. It fully engages and explores a richly nuanced landscape where class issues (the blue-blood Wheelwrights and the quarry-squating Meanys), the Grace (capital G intended) of friendship, and sacrifice all inform the main characters' search for meaning.
In the end, Irving as created, I argue, two of the most memorable characters in American letters: Garp and Owen Meany.
By the way, I think Irving has a new book out, but I haven't heard much about it. Anyone else?
That word should have read: underrated, as opposed to the slightly more fanciful undrerated, which is different of course.
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