Book 'em.
Until this week, I had a pretty pristine record of having read almost every book I ever started (movies too, as I managed to hold my lunch through the suckfests that were Pearl Harbor and Superman Returns). Until this week, I had only ever stopped reading Catcher in the Rye and Moby Dick. I went back and read Catcher at the behest of one of my ex-gfs. It was her favorite book, and perhaps the only major matter of taste on which we entirely disagreed.
I stopped reading Moby Dick for the following reason: The first 9 pages promised an epic tale full of overly long allegory and mind-numbing descriptions of things that don't really matter. I could be wrong. I've never read the book.
I have read some dooseys while in service here, including a book that switches from the first person view of the plucky reporter protagonist to the third person view of a scroungy fed whose only friend is the bottle and the dead man whose murderer he is chasing. For good fun, it sometimes jumped to a third person cut of the assassin whose dark and mysterious backstory was entirely laid out in the first chapter into which he was introduced. The good guy wins and gets the girl in the end, in case you were wondering. I read the whole, poorly written catastrophe.
But in the past week (the same week in which I read the book mentioned above), I picked up two books which were so boring as to make me put them back down again without the normal twinge of guilt I feel that keeps me reading (and watching) crap.
Book 1: Real Sex
The first was a book called Real Sex which I somehow gathered was a book written by a Christian about how chastity is not a Christian virtue, but can be exercised in order to bring one closer to god. I was interested in this notion, as someone who is practicing Chastity until he meets the right person.
In this book, I was tricked twice. The first trick was that it is actually about how Chastity is one of the most important virtues of Christianity because it is the most unnatural and is therefore the hardest virtue to exemplify (forget patience, everyone has that in spades), so it just talks about how Chastity is hard, but you just gotta do it goshdarnit. Too bad God is the only one who can help (read: allow) you do that. And I put this book down because I don't see the point in reading a book which tells me that only God can help me chaste. If that is true, then what is the point of the book?
The second trick was that it was written not by a Christian, but by a Jewish woman who converted to Christianity. I have to admit that I put Converts into a different camp than Christians. And so I expound:
Conversion
I don't know quite what it is. Maybe it was the talkings to (chastisements) I received from many born agains in grade school (which, I guarantee, were totally unwaranted other than an off-hand mention that I was Agnostic). More importantly though, I think, it is that I frequently encountered people who seemed to think that if only I tried hard enough, I could believe, as though faith were merely something one exercised, like one's biceps. But (and this is an important but) faith cannot be attained through a few daily reps of patience or a number of laps around the Chastity Belt.
Faith, really, is something you are raised with or perhaps something that is inspired (by, say, having your life spared or by losing a loved one). And I don't think I have ever heard of an Athiest or Agnostic who was raised outside of a religious family converting to Religion. If it happens, then it isn't happening in droves. So what does this have to do with my weird feelings about converts?
As someone whose mind will never change on the subject, it is very difficult indeed for me to figure out how someone who didn't previously think that Jesus Christ, Son of God, is our Lord and Saviour who died on the cross for our sins out of an immortal love for mankind (amen) could come to believe that Jesus Christ is indeed just that. Many people say, "I just know," but that doesn't serve us non-believers at all. And what, then, did they feel before? Did they just not know?
This phenomenon is especially opaque to me in the case of people converting from one religion to another. Okay, you were a Muslim, and spent your entire youth and teenage life praying to Allah and respecting the teachings of Mohammed, and then you decide to become Christian (which mostly involves changing a prophet into the son of God and possible removing Mohammed's prophet status...I'm a little hazy on Islam). And I don't really understand why? This, admittedly, is most likely because I spent my formative years in a society (the secular collegiate one) which basically took for granted the notion that Faith is a by-product of your upbringing. Rarely do you see childran raised in a Muslim household becoming Christian. Heck, I rarely see Catholics becoming Lutherans or Episcopalians becoming Baptists (and these latter conversions seem mostly to happen around the time of marraige).
I'm rambling again, so I need to wrap this bit on to move onto my next bit of complaining. The point is this: people's religious belief is their own business unless they plan to run a Crusade or Ji'had or...whatever it is the Jews have (sorry, not too brushed up on the Torah either). But when a convert decides to write a book about the fact that no one can help you be chaste but God, then I start to question what the point of having written the book is at all. I don't need your crummy book. Me and God either got this thing going, or we don't, so I'm just going to put your book down.
Book 2: Atlantis
I was a fool on this one. When I saw the title of the book, I thought, "If Dan Brown's name appears anywhere on this cover, I'm burning it." Lo and behold, the back cover noted that Atlantis "is loaded with real facts and highly plausible scenarios" just like The Da Vinci Code!!! The Daily Mirror (no doubt a huge publication) went on to note that it is "a gripping read," and they were certainly right... (you ready for this) if they expect you to grip the book and throw it out in order to read something else! Ha!
But seriously, I read to pg 146 of a 465pg fiction, only to find out that the author must be some kind of marine archaeologist (which, turns out to be true) since the only thing that happened in those 146 pages was a bunch of scientists nearly crapping their pants over some realistic relics which provided evidence of Atlantis possibly having existed. If that sounds exciting, then you should watch National Treasure and call it a night. This is because in National Treasure, I guarantee you it takes less than 2 hours for them to stop babbling about the latest treasure hunter technology and have at least one, measly, pitiful, action scene (something the first third of Atlantis seems to be lacking, along with character development and plot). In addition, there has been no other reason for them to find Atlantis than, "Gee, it sure would be awesome to find that place. Ya know?" No national wars will be waged if they can't find it. Poseidon isn't waiting to destroy all coastal cities. No relic of that could kill the Nazis. Not even one measly life seems to be at stake.
In short, though I put down Atlantis lest it destroy my love for the one album which reminds me of the lost city and the campaign brewing in my head, it taught me one of the more important literary lessons of my time here: Historical Fiction is shit. No. Haha. Just kidding. I mean, it is. But what I learned is that sometimes one has to resort to crummy plot-hooks or stock characters or your Fiction will read like a text book on whatever happens to be catching your fancy at the moment.
Let me make this clear to you: reading Atlantis is like watching only the parts of Star Trek in which they explain the futuristic gear, except the main character is named Jack Howard and you don't even get the fun layman's metaphors because everyone is Jordi and they all understand what is going on. Nerdy enough yet? It should be.
And just to expound a bit on why this book is receiving such truckloads of my ire: this author is a New York Times Bestseller. That title apparently means about as much as second-place in the Pinewood Derby (that's me, red ribbon, baby). I am curious as to whether or not "Bestseller" means it sells a lot. If that is true, then I question the judgment of the people buying this stuff.
I know I can be a music snob, but I feel that my book snobbery is different. For example, I do not like Dan Brown's writing style. But I read and enjoyed The Da Vinci Code because it is rather expertly done to be a fast, enjoyable tale with a mysterious bent and a good twist. In short, it is great entertainment. And there are many marketable and easy to read books out there which are worth a person's time. I'm not talking about all my favorites. I would never blame a person for not touching Crime and Punishment with a 10-foot pole. What I do blame them for is buying Atlantis when Dan Brown has historical fiction covered. And good thrillers can be found in the repetoire of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and newcomers like P.J. Tracy.
I think the problem is that people don't tend to recommend books the way they do movies or tv shows. Books make a poor topic of conversation these days, because you can't guarantee someone has read it (or read it recently enough to remember or will read it soon enough to discuss it). In addition, recommending a book is a big deal. If I recommend you a book, and you don't enjoy it, then I have wasted a gross amount of your time. Such is not true of movies, which at most will take up two hours of your time (unless said movie is Pearl Harbor or Superman Returns). In addition, we can watch the movie together, so at least you can berate me for some in-flight relaxation while the film is torturing your eyes and mind. Oops, rambling again.
-Pocket recommends that you recommend more books to each. Pocket recommends Michael Chabon's "The Final Solution," an ode to Holmes in the form of 'young adult fiction.'
I stopped reading Moby Dick for the following reason: The first 9 pages promised an epic tale full of overly long allegory and mind-numbing descriptions of things that don't really matter. I could be wrong. I've never read the book.
I have read some dooseys while in service here, including a book that switches from the first person view of the plucky reporter protagonist to the third person view of a scroungy fed whose only friend is the bottle and the dead man whose murderer he is chasing. For good fun, it sometimes jumped to a third person cut of the assassin whose dark and mysterious backstory was entirely laid out in the first chapter into which he was introduced. The good guy wins and gets the girl in the end, in case you were wondering. I read the whole, poorly written catastrophe.
But in the past week (the same week in which I read the book mentioned above), I picked up two books which were so boring as to make me put them back down again without the normal twinge of guilt I feel that keeps me reading (and watching) crap.
Book 1: Real Sex
The first was a book called Real Sex which I somehow gathered was a book written by a Christian about how chastity is not a Christian virtue, but can be exercised in order to bring one closer to god. I was interested in this notion, as someone who is practicing Chastity until he meets the right person.
In this book, I was tricked twice. The first trick was that it is actually about how Chastity is one of the most important virtues of Christianity because it is the most unnatural and is therefore the hardest virtue to exemplify (forget patience, everyone has that in spades), so it just talks about how Chastity is hard, but you just gotta do it goshdarnit. Too bad God is the only one who can help (read: allow) you do that. And I put this book down because I don't see the point in reading a book which tells me that only God can help me chaste. If that is true, then what is the point of the book?
The second trick was that it was written not by a Christian, but by a Jewish woman who converted to Christianity. I have to admit that I put Converts into a different camp than Christians. And so I expound:
Conversion
I don't know quite what it is. Maybe it was the talkings to (chastisements) I received from many born agains in grade school (which, I guarantee, were totally unwaranted other than an off-hand mention that I was Agnostic). More importantly though, I think, it is that I frequently encountered people who seemed to think that if only I tried hard enough, I could believe, as though faith were merely something one exercised, like one's biceps. But (and this is an important but) faith cannot be attained through a few daily reps of patience or a number of laps around the Chastity Belt.
Faith, really, is something you are raised with or perhaps something that is inspired (by, say, having your life spared or by losing a loved one). And I don't think I have ever heard of an Athiest or Agnostic who was raised outside of a religious family converting to Religion. If it happens, then it isn't happening in droves. So what does this have to do with my weird feelings about converts?
As someone whose mind will never change on the subject, it is very difficult indeed for me to figure out how someone who didn't previously think that Jesus Christ, Son of God, is our Lord and Saviour who died on the cross for our sins out of an immortal love for mankind (amen) could come to believe that Jesus Christ is indeed just that. Many people say, "I just know," but that doesn't serve us non-believers at all. And what, then, did they feel before? Did they just not know?
This phenomenon is especially opaque to me in the case of people converting from one religion to another. Okay, you were a Muslim, and spent your entire youth and teenage life praying to Allah and respecting the teachings of Mohammed, and then you decide to become Christian (which mostly involves changing a prophet into the son of God and possible removing Mohammed's prophet status...I'm a little hazy on Islam). And I don't really understand why? This, admittedly, is most likely because I spent my formative years in a society (the secular collegiate one) which basically took for granted the notion that Faith is a by-product of your upbringing. Rarely do you see childran raised in a Muslim household becoming Christian. Heck, I rarely see Catholics becoming Lutherans or Episcopalians becoming Baptists (and these latter conversions seem mostly to happen around the time of marraige).
I'm rambling again, so I need to wrap this bit on to move onto my next bit of complaining. The point is this: people's religious belief is their own business unless they plan to run a Crusade or Ji'had or...whatever it is the Jews have (sorry, not too brushed up on the Torah either). But when a convert decides to write a book about the fact that no one can help you be chaste but God, then I start to question what the point of having written the book is at all. I don't need your crummy book. Me and God either got this thing going, or we don't, so I'm just going to put your book down.
Book 2: Atlantis
I was a fool on this one. When I saw the title of the book, I thought, "If Dan Brown's name appears anywhere on this cover, I'm burning it." Lo and behold, the back cover noted that Atlantis "is loaded with real facts and highly plausible scenarios" just like The Da Vinci Code!!! The Daily Mirror (no doubt a huge publication) went on to note that it is "a gripping read," and they were certainly right... (you ready for this) if they expect you to grip the book and throw it out in order to read something else! Ha!
But seriously, I read to pg 146 of a 465pg fiction, only to find out that the author must be some kind of marine archaeologist (which, turns out to be true) since the only thing that happened in those 146 pages was a bunch of scientists nearly crapping their pants over some realistic relics which provided evidence of Atlantis possibly having existed. If that sounds exciting, then you should watch National Treasure and call it a night. This is because in National Treasure, I guarantee you it takes less than 2 hours for them to stop babbling about the latest treasure hunter technology and have at least one, measly, pitiful, action scene (something the first third of Atlantis seems to be lacking, along with character development and plot). In addition, there has been no other reason for them to find Atlantis than, "Gee, it sure would be awesome to find that place. Ya know?" No national wars will be waged if they can't find it. Poseidon isn't waiting to destroy all coastal cities. No relic of that could kill the Nazis. Not even one measly life seems to be at stake.
In short, though I put down Atlantis lest it destroy my love for the one album which reminds me of the lost city and the campaign brewing in my head, it taught me one of the more important literary lessons of my time here: Historical Fiction is shit. No. Haha. Just kidding. I mean, it is. But what I learned is that sometimes one has to resort to crummy plot-hooks or stock characters or your Fiction will read like a text book on whatever happens to be catching your fancy at the moment.
Let me make this clear to you: reading Atlantis is like watching only the parts of Star Trek in which they explain the futuristic gear, except the main character is named Jack Howard and you don't even get the fun layman's metaphors because everyone is Jordi and they all understand what is going on. Nerdy enough yet? It should be.
And just to expound a bit on why this book is receiving such truckloads of my ire: this author is a New York Times Bestseller. That title apparently means about as much as second-place in the Pinewood Derby (that's me, red ribbon, baby). I am curious as to whether or not "Bestseller" means it sells a lot. If that is true, then I question the judgment of the people buying this stuff.
I know I can be a music snob, but I feel that my book snobbery is different. For example, I do not like Dan Brown's writing style. But I read and enjoyed The Da Vinci Code because it is rather expertly done to be a fast, enjoyable tale with a mysterious bent and a good twist. In short, it is great entertainment. And there are many marketable and easy to read books out there which are worth a person's time. I'm not talking about all my favorites. I would never blame a person for not touching Crime and Punishment with a 10-foot pole. What I do blame them for is buying Atlantis when Dan Brown has historical fiction covered. And good thrillers can be found in the repetoire of Stephen King, Dean Koontz, and newcomers like P.J. Tracy.
I think the problem is that people don't tend to recommend books the way they do movies or tv shows. Books make a poor topic of conversation these days, because you can't guarantee someone has read it (or read it recently enough to remember or will read it soon enough to discuss it). In addition, recommending a book is a big deal. If I recommend you a book, and you don't enjoy it, then I have wasted a gross amount of your time. Such is not true of movies, which at most will take up two hours of your time (unless said movie is Pearl Harbor or Superman Returns). In addition, we can watch the movie together, so at least you can berate me for some in-flight relaxation while the film is torturing your eyes and mind. Oops, rambling again.
-Pocket recommends that you recommend more books to each. Pocket recommends Michael Chabon's "The Final Solution," an ode to Holmes in the form of 'young adult fiction.'