Wednesday Reading Roster: Mostly Funny Things Edition
What I've Just Finished Reading
Samuel Johnson is Indignant is not a bad book and it's probably an admirable one, but I didn't like it. I didn't necessarily dislike it. I was just bored and felt kind of thick and heavy and occasionally mildly curious about my complete failure to like or dislike anything about it. In general, I liked the stories that were small and Kafkaesque, disliked the stories that were small and confessional without being Kafkaesque, was unmoved but not actively annoyed by the one or two line stories, and disliked the longer stories. There were exceptions to all these rules.
My favorite story was the letter to a funeral parlor objecting to the unfortunate portmanteau word "cremains." If I had read it in a journal, I might have bought this book because of it. I would have been disappointed. As it stands, I was not disappointed, but I also wasn't surprised.
Like The Beekeeper's Apprentice, a book I felt I ought to like but couldn't (probably for different reasons), reading Samuel Johnson is Indignant made me curious about why I love some things and am indifferent to others. I don't know why SJII and its narrator (there is more than one, but there is also one dominant voice, so that most of the stories seem to be about a single nameless person who strongly resembles the author) left me so cold. I don't think it's just because the dominant narrator is a successful professional with a lot of minor problems and petty grievances, or because the subject matter is quotidian and confessional, or because I was expecting a plot and didn't get one (I wasn't expecting a plot). None of these things are flaws. It just slid off me, for whatever reason.
Of the books I've read so far for the Water Damage Club, it's by far the most confidently written. The best-written, probably. Lydia Davis knows what she's doing and does it well. I respect it but I don't love it, or even wish that I could love it. This is probably just as well.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm keeping an eye out for a good representative passage in At Swim-Two-Birds, but it's hard! This book is frequently hilarious, but so much of the humor is this rolling accumulation of voice that I don't know where to make the cut. Right now, a bunch of fictional characters are interrupting each other to lay down some truth about poetry and the Voice of the People, and the hapless narrator's uncle has brought a phonograph into the house, the better to sing along with his favorite number from Patience. What is there to do but head out into the rain-mirrored streets and hunt up a decent drink? I also need to find a passage to illustrate how beautifully it captures the (apparently timeless) experience of failing to write in Dublin in between sleeping and drinking too much. Dublin is an inspiring place but not always an encouraging one.
I'm also in the middle of Right Ho, Jeeves, which is a re-read that I started by accident and was predictably unable to stop reading for any length of time. It's also extremely funny, but the selection difficulty is different: there are too many quotable passages to choose from. Here, have an enlightening conversation about courtship strategy:
"And you can't get away from it that, fundamentally, Jeeves's idea is sound. In a striking costume like Mephistopheles, I might quite easily pull off something pretty impressive. Colour does make a difference. Look at newts. During the courting season the male newt is brilliantly coloured. It helps him a lot."
"But you aren't a male newt."
"I wish I were. Do you know how a male newt proposes, Bertie? He just stands in front of the female newt vibrating his tail and bending his body in a semi-circle. I could do that on my head. No, you wouldn't find me grousing if I were a male newt."
"But if you were a male newt, Madeline Bassett wouldn't look at you. Not with the eye of love, I mean."
"She would, if she were a female newt."
"But she isn't a female newt."
"No, but suppose she was."
"Well, if she was, you wouldn't be in love with her."
"Yes, I would, if I were a male newt."
A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.
What I Plan to Read Next
Next to of course the human heart, What I Plan to Read Next is the true mystery. Pick up some poetry for a very belated Poetry Month? Continue with Father Brown? Finally open The Moving Toyshop? Dive back into Finnegans Wake? I don't know if I'm going to do any of these things next.
Samuel Johnson is Indignant is not a bad book and it's probably an admirable one, but I didn't like it. I didn't necessarily dislike it. I was just bored and felt kind of thick and heavy and occasionally mildly curious about my complete failure to like or dislike anything about it. In general, I liked the stories that were small and Kafkaesque, disliked the stories that were small and confessional without being Kafkaesque, was unmoved but not actively annoyed by the one or two line stories, and disliked the longer stories. There were exceptions to all these rules.
My favorite story was the letter to a funeral parlor objecting to the unfortunate portmanteau word "cremains." If I had read it in a journal, I might have bought this book because of it. I would have been disappointed. As it stands, I was not disappointed, but I also wasn't surprised.
Like The Beekeeper's Apprentice, a book I felt I ought to like but couldn't (probably for different reasons), reading Samuel Johnson is Indignant made me curious about why I love some things and am indifferent to others. I don't know why SJII and its narrator (there is more than one, but there is also one dominant voice, so that most of the stories seem to be about a single nameless person who strongly resembles the author) left me so cold. I don't think it's just because the dominant narrator is a successful professional with a lot of minor problems and petty grievances, or because the subject matter is quotidian and confessional, or because I was expecting a plot and didn't get one (I wasn't expecting a plot). None of these things are flaws. It just slid off me, for whatever reason.
Of the books I've read so far for the Water Damage Club, it's by far the most confidently written. The best-written, probably. Lydia Davis knows what she's doing and does it well. I respect it but I don't love it, or even wish that I could love it. This is probably just as well.
What I'm Reading Now
I'm keeping an eye out for a good representative passage in At Swim-Two-Birds, but it's hard! This book is frequently hilarious, but so much of the humor is this rolling accumulation of voice that I don't know where to make the cut. Right now, a bunch of fictional characters are interrupting each other to lay down some truth about poetry and the Voice of the People, and the hapless narrator's uncle has brought a phonograph into the house, the better to sing along with his favorite number from Patience. What is there to do but head out into the rain-mirrored streets and hunt up a decent drink? I also need to find a passage to illustrate how beautifully it captures the (apparently timeless) experience of failing to write in Dublin in between sleeping and drinking too much. Dublin is an inspiring place but not always an encouraging one.
I'm also in the middle of Right Ho, Jeeves, which is a re-read that I started by accident and was predictably unable to stop reading for any length of time. It's also extremely funny, but the selection difficulty is different: there are too many quotable passages to choose from. Here, have an enlightening conversation about courtship strategy:
"And you can't get away from it that, fundamentally, Jeeves's idea is sound. In a striking costume like Mephistopheles, I might quite easily pull off something pretty impressive. Colour does make a difference. Look at newts. During the courting season the male newt is brilliantly coloured. It helps him a lot."
"But you aren't a male newt."
"I wish I were. Do you know how a male newt proposes, Bertie? He just stands in front of the female newt vibrating his tail and bending his body in a semi-circle. I could do that on my head. No, you wouldn't find me grousing if I were a male newt."
"But if you were a male newt, Madeline Bassett wouldn't look at you. Not with the eye of love, I mean."
"She would, if she were a female newt."
"But she isn't a female newt."
"No, but suppose she was."
"Well, if she was, you wouldn't be in love with her."
"Yes, I would, if I were a male newt."
A slight throbbing about the temples told me that this discussion had reached saturation point.
What I Plan to Read Next
Next to of course the human heart, What I Plan to Read Next is the true mystery. Pick up some poetry for a very belated Poetry Month? Continue with Father Brown? Finally open The Moving Toyshop? Dive back into Finnegans Wake? I don't know if I'm going to do any of these things next.