Reply To: What are you reading?
Children must never, ever, be told that they cannot sing or be told to just mouth the words.
One might make an exception for acute illness. Have you never had a doctor or speech therapist tell you not to sing for a while, to give your voice a break? I realize that’s not what the author is discussing, but any time anyone says, “never, ever” I start searching for exceptions. It’s just how I am.
More on-topic, I recently finished reading both Chang and Eng, the novel by Darin Strauss about the eponymous Siamese twins. It shows itself as a first novel in a few places, but it’s still quite good, and I can’t say I’ve done any better. If I had another chance to talk with Darin, I’d have a few questions, mostly regarding where the line was drawn between history and fiction.
I also recently finished The Myth of Sisyphus, which I found rather tedious. Camus makes a great many off-hand assertions, sometimes trivially self-contradictory, that he never bothers to defend, and it meanders to such a degree as to give the impression of a fundamentally disorganized work. I seriously have to wonder how much hashish he used in the course of writing it. It’s mostly useful for the thoughts it inspires rather than the conclusions it attempts to draw.
In an effort to recover an excess of Camus, I’m currently reading King Solomon’s Mines, a classic trashy Victorian adventure novel. Sonia has been fond of it from childhood; it remained fashionable in Russia long after it was forgotten here. It’s horribly politically incorrect, and it’s a total piece of fluff, but it’s a fun piece of fluff. This constitutes my “trouser reading,” the book I carry with me in a hip pocket of my cargo pants so I have something to read if I’m ever stuck waiting in line.
I’m also still reading the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation of War and Peace. The Battle of Borodino is about to start, which means I only have about 500 pages left. I keep this book at home; it’s not terribly portable.