Better Late Than Never - My 2015 Favorite Reads

So let's just pretend, shall we?  Let's pretend that the end of 2015 is nearly upon us, or maybe 2016 just arrived fewer than 48 hours ago.  Your now dusty Christmas tree is still holding court in the living room, the tree skirt rumpled and askew.  There are three Christmas cookies left, but they've gone stale and nobody wants them, and an arm wrestling bout is scheduled for later to decide the fate of the last of the Christmas ham.  You're back to work, but you still have that holiday sleep schedule hangover.  And if you hear one more Burl Ives Christmas carol, somebody is getting hurt.  That, my friends, is when the Best Of lists should appear on blogs and vlogs and websites everywhere.  NOT on January 12, 2016.  But we've agreed to pretend that I'm on top of things, so let's all just enjoy this land of make believe and talk about my favorite reads of 2015.


First, it's confession time.  I only read 55 books this year.  (Books read from beginning to end, not counting any DNFs.)  That's down from last year's number, and I'm slightly embarrassed.  I'm the first to admit that I'm fiercely competitive and acquisitional (is that a word?) with my reading, and I would have preferred to top my previous number.  But apparently, teaching and volunteering and chauffeuring took its toll, and I averaged just over a book a week.  MUST do better in 2016.

Now, on to my favorites.

FICTION

1Q84, Haruki Murakami

This wasn't my first Murakami, but I do believe it is my new favorite.  I'm always a sucker for a giant, doorstop of a book, and this "little" tome delivered.  Magical, dream-like, all the things we always say about Murakami, only there was just something else about this one that made it surpass The Wind-up Bird Chronicle as my favorite.  I can't really put my finger on what it is.  Maybe it was the badass lady assassin.  Maybe it was the happy ending.  Maybe the reason is as hard to pin down as one of Murakami's mysterious cats.  Loved this book.

Find Me, Laura Van Den Berg

If you haven't figured this out already, I'm a sucker for dystopian/post-apocalyptic/speculative fiction. Margaret Atwood is my jam.  I never miss an episode of The Walking Dead.  This beautiful book scratches my disaster itch with a story of a young survivor of a plague that has wiped out much of the US.  Van Den Berg is an amazing writer, and combining her skills with my favorite subject matter made for a book I couldn't stop reading (and recommending.)

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

I am so embarrassed to admit that I'd never read this book before this year.  It was just one of those bizarre gaps in my reading that I was determined to remedy.  This little book needs no explanation or blurbing.  Loved it.

Saint Mazie, Jami Attenberg

I'm listing these books in the order I read them, not in the order in which I loved and adored them.  Otherwise, this book would be near the top.  Heard about this title on the All the Books podcast, and it just intrigued me.  Reserved it at the library and proceeded to devour this story.  My only regret is that I don't actually own a copy.  If you love stories about the Depression, New York City, independent women, or immigrants, this based-on-a-true-story novel is for you.  It reads as a collection of journal entries, news clippings, and interviews.  It covers a lot of ground, but moves so quickly that you'll be in shock (and maybe in mourning) when it ends.  I need to read this one again.

Music for Wartime, Rebecca Makkai

Not just my favorite short story collection of the year, this may be one of my favorite short story collections of all time.  Another All the Books find, these stories are smart and beautiful and funny and sad in turn.  I especially recommend this collection if you are a lover of classical and/or orchestral music.  And if you need any more prompting to pick this one up, there's a story where a miniature Bach crawls out of a woman's piano and becomes her interim boyfriend.  Yeah, that happened.

In the Country, Mia Alvar

I've read comparisons between Alvar and Jhumpa Lahiri, and they're not off the mark.  This is a gorgeous short story collection about immigrants, outsiders, and the other.  Loved it.

Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff

I'm always suspicious of hype, and this book came with plenty.  Somehow, though, it managed to live up to the raves.  Beautiful, sprawling book about a marriage.  If you liked The Interestings (Meg Wolitzer), you'll like this book.

The Maddaddam Trilogy, Margaret Atwood

So, I cheated.  This is actually three books, but I read the whole trilogy this year, and I couldn't just pick one of the books as a fave.  Loved, loved, loved these books.  Got to the end and wanted to immediately start over and read them all again.  Nobody does speculative fiction like Atwood.  Also, name drop...she tweeted me back!

HONORABLE MENTIONS - FICTION

The Fishermen, by Chigozie Obioma, was amazing and a must-read about Nigerian brothers living with a curse.

Tenth of December, by George Saunders, is another embarrassing gap in my reading.  One of the ultimate short story collections.  Took my breath away.

FAVORITE 2016 BOOK I'M STILL READING

This Angel on my Chest, by Leslie Pietrzyk - Do yourself a favor and read this book immediately.

NON-FICTION

Faith Unraveled, Rachel Held Evans
Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans

Out of Sorts, Sarah Bessey

Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates - Here's a link to my previous mentions of this amazing book.

Well, there you have it.  My latest loves of the literary kind.  I'd post about my TBR, but it's grown to an unmanageable size.  Too much book shopping in Asheville over Christmas break!  (No such thing.)  So I'd better get back to my reading!

Reading Crazy

It's Sunday night, and I'm holed up grading papers while my husband watches TV and my books languish on my night stand.  Of course after over two weeks of prednisone, it's probably safer for everyone concerned that I be kept under lock and key.  I was so keyed up yesterday that the smallest annoyance took on epic proportions, and sitting still and following an hour-long television program was impossible.  The good news is that today was the last of that hateful drug, and so tomorrow I should begin to come back down from my steroid mania.  I'm certain everyone in this house will be glad to see the back of Crazy Sarah.

It's going to be another hectic week, full of appointments and classes and general life maintenance.  Here's hoping that I don't crash from prednisone withdrawal as I have in the past, or the week could get a whole lot trickier.  After all the chaos from my illness, I'm constantly feeling a step or three behind, and I realized late Friday afternoon that I double-booked myself for tomorrow morning (doctor's appointment and Kiddo's preschool field trip.)  So now, I'm crossing my fingers that the rain nixes the field trip (they have an alternate date -- I'm not that terrible), so I can make it to my appointment.  Meanwhile, I feel more like a flake than I have since I was pregnant.  I'm still not sure what happened to that organized, no-nonsense, never procrastinating woman who used to live here.  I miss that chick sometimes.  Okay, all the time.

While I haven't been able to watch anything on tv more complicated than episodes of Bob's Burgers (which is AWESOME, by the way), I can, for some reason, read like a fiend while in the midst of my prednisone insanity.  It's so weird because you'd think that would be harder to do than watching television when your brain is on fast forward.  Nevertheless, I've been powering through my TBR list like a boss.  Recently finished:

The Buried Giant, Kazuo Ishiguro.  Not quite the fantasy revelation I'd seen in reviews, but okay.

The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters.  This made so many lists in 2014, but basically it was just a happy-ending lesbian love story/implausible crime novel -- and not that great of one at that.  it was kind of like if Jodi Picoult were British and wrote historical fiction.

Yes, Please, Amy Poehler.  This was entertaining.  If you like Tina Fey's Bossypants, you'll love this too.  The structure is pretty random, and I wasn't personally interested in most of the Parks and Rec stuff, but overall it was a good read.  Also, she and Fey are the only two memoir writers I've read who were like, "Hey, our parents were so great and supportive and wonderful."  It was kind of refreshing.

Currently in-progress:

All the Light We Cannot See, Anthony Doerr.  I'm only a few pages into this.  I tried to start it over a week ago, and then library books came in that needed to be read, so now I'm starting over.  But I like it so far -- even if it does have these little mini-chapters that I'm not completely sold on yet.

Searching for Sunday, Rachel Held Evans.  This one isn't even supposed to be out till Tuesday, but apparently Barnes & Noble stores across the country started shelving it on Friday night, so I swooped in and snagged a copy.  So so good thus far.  Beautiful writing about faith and doubt.  Plus I get to be one of the cook kids and read it before everybody else.

Next up in the queue are some used book store finds that are about as dissimilar as you can get:

Wild, Cheryl Strayed.  I've been listening to her Dear Sugar podcast.

Lady Chatterley's Lover, D.H. Lawrence. Because I've never read it.

House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus III.  It was $2.

[Get Out of My] Cabin Fever

I officially have "Get Out of My Cabin" Fever.  This particular illness differs from the more traditional, Cabin Fever, in that it requires every else in the house to leave and enjoy the outside world, whilst I remain home in my cozy nest, alone.  Except for the dog.  He can stay.

He's the strong, silent type.

We've been hit hard the past two weeks.  First there was the scourge of mothers everywhere....head lice.  There was treating and combing and laundry.  Lots of laundry.  And then there was more treating and more combing and more laundry.  If you see a kid at preschool running around in a swimming cap, that's going to be my kid.  We are NOT risking this madness again.  Also, I had to go three days without washing my hair or using any kind of hair product.  Yeah, there won't be any pictures of that.  Or maybe that's not really a photo of Sam above.  Needless to say, there has been quite a bit of homebound time during the Lice Debacle of 2015.

Everything but the Xanax

And then, just when I thought we couldn't have any more togetherness, there was the ice storm.  And no, it was nothing like the movie.  Here in the South, the world shuts down whenever any sort of frozen precipitation falls from the heavens, so we've been home now for three days with no preschool (Presidents' Day was thrown in just for fun.)  I have taken to hiding in the back of the house as soon as my husband gets home and takes over as Chief Question Answerer/Admirer/Edifier/Entertainer.  We say things like, "Mommy is taking a bath," which is code for, "Don't bother Mommy while she watches Star Trek:Voyager in peace."

Lest I sound like the biggest villain since whoever cancelled Arrested Development, allow to me clarify that we did celebrate Valentine's Day as best we could as a family, and I made pancakes with Kiddo this morning just because.  I also allowed my husband to join me in the back of the house to watch the mid-season premiere of The Walking Dead (yes, we're an episode behind.)  So I have my moments of soft-heartedness.  Only moments though.

Back to zombies, however.  What is the deal with the second halves of seasons on this show?  Last year we had to wade through at least six episodes of the separated group whining, I mean, wandering through the woods and a whole lot of not much else.  The first half of the current season was action-packed and ended with a BANG (literally.)  And now, here we are again in the Slough of Despair, directionless, whiny, and killing off one of the only currently interesting characters.  I am so sick of Conflicted Rick with his Furrowed Brow, and now it seems (at least as far as the mid-season premiere went) that he has passed this disease on to the perpetually hopeful Glenn.  Anyway, fingers crossed that the second episode is better tonight.  Also, on a side note, there is a special place reserved in hell for people who post spoilers on Facebook.  Ever heard of a DVR?  Or a ROKU?  Official Facebook pages for shows, this goes for you too!  (You'll notice that I was VERY careful to word my complaints about the show in very non-specific language above.)

While I'm in such a sunny mood, I'll also post a mini-review of Lena Dunham's Not That Kind of Girl, which finally came in on my reserve at the library.  (There were something like thirty people ahead of me.  This is not hyperbole.)  I added my name to the list, pretty much as soon as it came out -- you know, somewhere between the release announcement and the shitstorm of accusations that followed.  I've seen Dunham called all kinds of unrepeatable things -- not the least of which were that she was a child predator -- online and in print by a whole herd of angry people.  So when the title finally came in to my little library with my name on it, my excitement was tinged with curiosity from reading so much negative press.  I read the book in two days, so obviously, it was entertaining.  Reading this book convinced me of two things: #1 - Lena Dunham is awesomeamazingsupercoolsmartfunnycleverkindredspirit.  #2 - All those KneeJerks (as I am henceforth dubbing them) didn't actually read the book.  Now there's a shock.  

So what is their (the KneeJerks) problem with Lena Dunham?  Is it really that she was curious about what the human body looked like when she was very little?  Is it the fact that she talks about what she actually thought and felt as a young person in a completely honest, open, and straightforward way?  Or is that she is a woman who is comfortable in her own skin, at ease with own thoughts, and unapologetic about her personality and temperament? Perhaps if she showed some sort of shame about her not-so-Hollywood body they could forgive her being smart, funny, and a woman.  I am so over the dismissal of powerful women as bitches or perverts, as if being a woman in charge is somehow unnatural. 

Ok, I'm getting riled up, and this isn't the day to risk that.  So we'll move on.  Before we do, though, on a semi-related note, here's a link to a great Salon article on the power of female nudity. Do yourself a favor and read it with an open mind.

Well, Kiddo has had all the alone time she can muster, and there is a little face at my door every couple of minutes now with some manufactured reason why I need to be interrupted.  And I just used the words "unless you're on fire or dying" in a sentence to her, so yeah, I'd better go.  Plus, there are still papers to grade (only five, so that's not too bad.)  Tomorrow it's back to school.  FOR EVERYONE!

Obsess Much?

Have I mentioned that I am a nerd?  Not in a Oh-My-Gosh-I'm-Such-A-Dork-Because-I-Once-Watched-an-Episode-of-Buffy kind of way.  I am a full-on socially inept obsessive.  I get way too excited when somebody brings up something I feel passionate about (Battlestar Galactica, anyone?) and talk way too fast and morph into this slightly scary fangirl that frightens away whoever brought up the topic.  Fortunately, I had the foresight to marry an even bigger nerd, so my crazy rants about my recent "Rewatch Every Episode of Star Trek: Voyager" project don't even faze him.  Heaven help our five year old.  She doesn't stand a chance at a normal life.  She's already adopted her daddy's recent fixation on Guardians of the Galaxy (I mean, do you know another five year old who's #1 party trick is doing the Baby Groot dance?) and is well on her way to becoming another compulsive reader like her mother. 

Sorry, Internet, this is NOT a nerd.

Like every good, self-respecting nerd I take everything I love in big, obsessive doses that leave me good for nothing much beyond more of the same.  So I thought in today's post I would spend a little time sharing my current obsessions, and if they overlap with any of your personal manias, let me know!

Last night I spent a good portion of the evening bingeing (I just spent an embarrassing amount of time researching the correct way to write this word) on YouTube videos, a pastime I share with my husband -- even if our tastes in videos differ a bit.  We both enjoy Russell Brand's The Trews (short for "True News.")  If you like irreverent political and social commentary, check it out.  As for my personal YouTube favorites, there are always lots of good videos to watch on Geek & Sundry's channel.  Another favorite of mine is Stuff Mom Never Told You, which is a fun web show that delivers exactly what the title says, quick lessons on everything from "How to Wrap a Present" to "Why Do We Kiss Under Mistletoe?"  The woman who hosts is hilarious and smart, and I love to waste a few hours watching her explain absolutely everything.

But last night my Roku YouTube app was cranking out the Book Riot videos.  In particular, I binged on the videos that featured Amanda Nelson, managing editor at Book Riot.  Her videos are thoughtful and funny and very smart.  I lost track of how many I watched last night, but I will recommend her videos on difficult to pronounce author names, finding good Christian non-fiction, and reading outside your comfort zone.  If you're a compulsive reader like me or even just a little bookish, check out the Book Riot channel on YouTube.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am currently on a Murakami bender, so reading 1Q84 is my current reading project.  I am, however, really excited to swing by the library on the way home today to pick up my two current reserves.  The first is a book that I've already read but want to skim again (somebody just buy me this book already), Jesus Feminist, by Sarah Bessey.  I'm hoping I find things I missed on the first reading and have more time to spend on the associated scriptures and such.  The second title that has come in at my local library is Rachel Held Evans' A Year of Biblical Womanhood.  I'm really excited about checking out this book (see what I did there?) as I have heard a lot of good things about it.  Will let you know what I think very soon.  

Let's see what's left for this post?  So little time and space and so many obsessions.  I supposed I'll wrap things up with what's playing on my tv (and movie) screens.  Last year I discovered the British (of course) show, The Bletchley Circle, a historical mystery/drama about a group of woman who worked at Bletchley Park during WWII decoding encrypted messages from the Nazis and helping the Allies to victory.  After the war ended, these women were sworn to secrecy (upon threat of treason charges) and left to return to quiet lives as underestimated wives and mothers, so of course, they must solve crimes.  I'm always a sucker for stories about smart women, so this show is right up my alley and a definite must-watch for fans of suspenseful stories full of code-breaking and mystery solving.  

I've been dying to see The Imitation Game, not only because of the Bletchley Park connection, but also because of the great and wonderful and amazing and...oops, I'm gushing, Benedict Cumberbatch.  Finally got to see this Oscar contender over the weekend with my best friend (my husband was stuck seeing Paddington with Kiddo), and it definitely lived up to the hype.  (The Imitation Game, I mean.  Can't speak for Paddington, though admittedly, Kiddo dubbed it "AH-mazing.")  Cumberbatch did not disappoint, and Knightley's performance was, arguably, the most nuanced of her career.  There were lots of puzzles and code-breaking and people (women included) being smart, and aside from the repetition of one overly pithy and precious catchphrase (think Spiderman's great power/great responsibility chestnut), it was beautifully written and well-paced.  The acting was superb across the board, and the film's handling of Turing's conviction and persecution for his sexual orientation was respectful and powerful.  So that's my commercial for that.  Go see it.

Well, I've once again clicked away an hour at BN cafe, and there is still much work to be done (class starts tomorrow) and hot chocolate to be drunk.  Must dash!

Quick Thoughts and Slow Wi-Fi

Day 2 of the Great Barnes & Noble Exile of 2015.  My house is full of family, and I am working at my favorite BN cafe yet again.  Not complaining, though.  There are fewer distractions and temptations for procrastination here than there are in my little office/guest room, and the hot chocolate is so money (though not as good as mine, obviously.)  And on top of that Google Music is giving me my own personal Lilith Fair while I work.  (I've heard Shawn Colvin more in the past two days than I have in fifteen years.  I kind of wish that Sunny would just get home already.)  On the downside, I am so unspeakably tired, and I somehow managed to sit across from the magazine cover (Rolling Stone) with a giant picture of Nicki Minaj's boobs.  I have to say, it feels a bit early in the morning for that much cleavage.  But at least I'm not tempted to look up and get distracted, so there's that.  Also bumming me out is the inexplicably slow BN wi-fi this morning.  Let's just say that my music isn't the only thing having a 90's flashback.  The wi-fi is slow that I keep expecting to hear that dial-up modem noise and the AOL "You've got mail" message. #firstworldproblem

On the happy side, I started Haruki Murakami's 1Q84 this weekend.  If there's one thing I love, it's starting a massive novel, and this one certainly qualifies.  Coming in at a whopping 1157 pages, this erstwhile doorstop should keep me busy for a week or two.  I also just finished his YA(ish) illustrated novella, Strange Library, which was creepy and mysterious and wonderful.

Yesterday during my BN time I did take a few minutes to wander around looking for deals on books that I simply couldn't live without, and I made a great find.  I heard Jeff Bridges promote this a couple of years ago on Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and I wanted to read it then.  Nothing like learning about Zen Buddhism by way of The Big Lebowski quotes.  And the book really ties my bookshelf together.

I've also been enjoying the latest season of Downton Abbey, and I can't wait to finally watch Sunday night's episode tonight.  Poor Steve will be banished to the living room yet again.  AND in less than two weeks The Walking Dead returns!  I don't think that statement requires any further elaboration.

Let's see, what else is new?  Found out yesterday that my spring term class is up to seventeen, so I'm super-excited about that, and I'm busily planning and reading lots of amazing essays to share with the ladies in my class.  My life is about to get significantly crazier with the beginning of the semester, but I'm just so happy to have this opportunity again.  Who'd have thought I'd ever be so psyched to be trapped in a room twice a week with 17 teenage girls?

Well, that's all I've got today.  Time to get busy working on lesson plans and writing.  Have a happy Tuesday!

2014 - The Year of Reading Women and Keeping Track of It

Christmas, New Year's, family, presents, decorations, baking, and here we are two weeks later with Kiddo back in preschool and my husband back to work (though thanks to car trouble, I had to drive him there) and I'm finally back to writing.  Even my reading slowed down during the holidays (unheard of, I know.)  But I'm back, and I'm finally ready to crank out my 2014 reading log post and maybe even mention some of the things I'm excited to read in 2015.

Despite being a prolific reader for my entire life, I've don't think I've kept any sort of reading log/journal since I was a kid trying to work my way to the top of my local library's summer reading program incentives.  Certainly in grad school I made lists of books to be read, but I can't remember making any lists of my reading acquisitions -- and make no mistake, I am very aquisition-minded when it comes to powering through as many books as possible.

My parents mark the dates read on the inside covers of their books, but that didn't seem very satisfying to me as I don't usually re-read, and it wouldn't give me an overall picture of my reading year.  Also, unless it's a textbook (and even then I struggle), I find it nearly impossible to write in a book.  It's right up there with dog-earing or breaking spines.  I just can't do it.

One of my favorite professors from grad school mentioned her reading journal in her blog one day, and for some reason that was a total revelation for me.  I have no idea why it didn't occur to me before.  Also, I took an online survey (I believe it was for Book Riot) about how many books I read in a year, and I had no idea what kind of numbers to even ballpark.  On top of everything else, 2014 was the year of reading women writers, #readwomen2014, and so what better time to track my reading habits? [Edit: Just realized that I didn't include a total count/list of women writers I read.  Will have to write about that in another post.]

So here's a summary of 2014:

Total # of books completed (not counting books started, but not finished): 56 (this counts Station Eleven, which I technically didn't finish until after the first of the year.)

Total # of books started but not completed: 9 (Technically, one of these is still in progress.  The rest are abandoned.)

Overall, I don't think this is a terrible record.  I have a real compulsion to finish books, even if I'm not enjoying them, so I look on those nine books as a bit of an accomplishment.

Some standouts in non-fiction:

The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion - How had I never read this?

Jesus Feminist, Sarah Bessey - Absolutely life-changing.  I want to read this again.

Pastrix, Nadia Bolz-Weber - Church of Christ girl becomes outrageously liberal/progressive church founder/minister.  A must read.

Brain on Fire, Susanna Cahalan - Because if you were ever foolish enough to trust our medical system, you won't after reading this.

Fiction favorites:

The Secret History, Donna Tartt - Why did The Goldfinch win the Pulitzer instead of this?  Such an amazing book.

The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood - How had I never read any of her fiction before this?  Dystopian masterpiece. (Also read Alias Grace and Blind Assassins this year, and they were equally amazing.)

Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - I cannot say enough about this book.  I read it, and then immediately made my friends read it.  And then I read everything else she's ever written.  And watched her TedX talk and her interview on Tavis Smiley and... Can you tell I'm obsessed?

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro - My first Ishiguro (I've since plowed through most of his books.)  This one blew my mind.  So beautiful.  So original.  So perfect from beginning to end.

An Unnecessary Woman, Rabin Alameddine - Just an amazing book that you should go buy immediately.

And last, but certainly not least...

The Signature of All Things, Elizabeth Gilbert - Loved this book so much.  It was a whopper, but I flew through it like a novella.  Most wonderful/amazing/flawed/perfect/powerful female protagonist I've read in a long time.  I want to read this book again for the first time.

Looking forward to this year?

J by Howard Jacobson

The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

The Maddaddam Trilogy by Margaret Atwood

And here's my current read:

So, there you have it, folks.  Go forth and read!

Reading Lolita in the US

So today is probably a good day to work on editing my most recent short story as it's set on a cold night, and it is FREEZING here this morning.  We keep the heat set very low in our house because of my breathing issues and our giant dog (who LOVES the cooler temps) and, let's be honest, the savings.  But now I can put my shivering and layering down to suffering for my art, like "The Method" for writers.  I feel so meta.

Speaking of meta, what could be more meta than reading a book about reading books?  A few weeks ago, I read the memoir, Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi.  (Yes, I know I'm seriously late to that party.  It came out in 2003.)  The book explores the plight of women (and in particular, academic women) in Iran.  I admit that it's a tough read for a feminist (or I'm hoping, for anyone.)  These women endure such violence and oppression just for lacking a Y chromosome.  Never mind that they are trying to get an education and learn something about the world outside their narrow existences.  Professor Nafisi writes about a secret book club/class that she taught for women she'd encountered before she was ousted from her university jobs for "subversive" behavior.

The memoir is made even more powerful by its structure. It is divided into sections named after the individual books they studied, western books that are forbidden in Iran.  Remembrances and commentary are interspersed between literary analysis in a construction that is so seamless as to be nearly invisible.  Because Nafisi is something of a Nabakov expert (she's written a book about him), much of her most passionate and detailed writing is in the "Lolita" chapter.  There are so many parallels between these women's experiences and those of the title character, and Nafisi seems to feel the resonance deeply.

Because I recently read this book (and another) that referenced Lolita heavily, I felt it was finally time to read this much maligned and praised novel.  I'd been warned many times that it is a difficult read, but I was undaunted.  It seemed like a big gap in my reading, and I was determined to fill it quickly.  So this weekend, I purchased Lolita (the 50th anniversary edition, not the annotated one which was really pricey.) I began it late Saturday night after finishing an admittedly frothy Amy Tan novel, so the transition was a little tricky.  Nevertheless, I'm plodding forward.

At first the most challenging part was all the French that the narrator uses.  (I knew I should have taken French and not Spanish in high school and college.)  Also there is the rather convoluted language that H.H. uses in his narration.  At least he admits it: "You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style."  So there is humor.  And the narrator is highly educated and well-read.  I was making progress.  Then I reached the point where H.H. encounters the titular character, and all bets were off.  I am still chipping away at his attempted seduction of the twelve year old.

First let me say, I get it.  I realize that this isn't a book about pedophilia.  I understand that Nabakov is making far bigger points here.  This doesn't make it any easier to read about a grown man drooling over a child.  And I haven't even gotten to the point where he does more than pine from a distance. I may need a drink or two to get through that part.

Of course, this is not the first time I've read a difficult book (difficult in terms of stomach-churning content.)  Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin was not an easy read, and getting through the last hundred pages was almost untenable.  But there's something so much more repellant about Nabakov's unreliable narrator.  Maybe it's the perversion.  But maybe, some of it is the self-delusion.  Self-delusion is frightening to anyone who is even remotely self-aware because we know we all do it but by very definition are not able to see it in ourselves.  What are any of us capable of doing, of justifying in our own minds?  Sure, it may not be assaulting a child (at least I hope that's a rarity), but it's something.  We're all capable of doing something truly terrible.  And perhaps that's the most stomach churning part of all.