Three fictions and a speculative truth...

Well, another week has passed somehow and, as I'm the very last person in my office of twelve people to catch this flu/cold/allergy/ebola virus (even my invincible boss caught it a week or so ago, but I still thought I was in the clear), I am here wrapped in a puffy comforter, under a pile of kleenexes and vitamins, with no excuse not to write about the four books I've devoured since I promised to start writing about them on my blog.

Were you looking closely? That was one sentence.

These are the last four books I read, not counting Jane Eyre, which I am currently reading and would be impossible for me ever to review because it's Jane Eyre and there's nothing I can say about it that hasn't been said... and because I haven't finished it yet.

A Confederacy of Dunces
By John Kennedy Toole

"V.
Dr. Talc lit a Benson & Hedges, looking out of the window of his office in the Social Studies Building. Across the dark campus he saw some lights from the night classes in other buildings. All night he had been ransacking his desk for his notes on the British monarch of legend, notes hurredly copied from a hundred-page survey of British history that he had once read in paperback. The lecture was to be given tomorrow, and it was now almost eight-thirty. As a lecturer Dr. Talc was renowned for the facile and sarcastic wit and easily digested generalizations that made him popular among the girl students and helped to conceal his lack of knowledge about almost everything in general and British history in particular.

But even Talc realized that his reputation for sophistication and glibness would not save him in the face of being able to remember absolutely anything about Lear and Arthur aside from the fact that the former had some children. He put his cigarette in the ashtray and began on the bottom drawer again. In the rear of the drawer there was a stack of old papers that he had not examined very thoroughly during his first search through the desk. Placing the papers in his lap, the thumbed through them one by one and found that they were, as he had imagined, principally unreturned essays that had accumulated over a period of more than five years. As he turned over one essay, his eye fell upon a rough, yellowed sheet of Big Chief tablet paper on which was printed with a red crayon:

Your total ignorance of that which you profess to teach merits the death penalty. I doubt whether you would know that St. Cassian of Imola was stabbed to death by his students with their styli. His death, a martyr's honorable one, made him a patron saint of teachers

Pray to him, you deluded fool, you "anyone for tennis?" golf-playing, cocktail-quaffing pseudo -pedant, for you do indeed need a heavenly patron.

Although your days are numbered, you will not die as a martyr--for you further no holy cause--but as the total ass which you really are.

ZORRO

A sword was drawn on the last line of the page.
'Oh, I wonder whatever happened to him,' Talc said aloud."
-JKT, pages 127-128

The "ZORRO" in the above passage is the hero of this book, Ignatius J. Reilly. I can't think of a single book that I've read in the past five years that made me laugh harder than this one. The characters are generally flawed, floundering, ridiculous people thrust by "Fortuna, that vicious slut" into the path of one particularly despicable, pirate-costumed, hotdog cart-pushing, riot-starting, gaseous ball of pompous genius in a green hunting cap. All of the characters, that is, except the smoke enshrouded Jones--who is a spark of brilliance all his own. Really, I can't recommend this book highly enough--especially if you're the type who is particularly fond of Irony, Madness, or New Orleans (which most of my friends inevitably are).

Person to whom I would recommend this book, hands down: Everyone. But especially my Dad and Patrick Cole.

The World Without Us
By Alan Weisman

How you respond to the following question says a lot about your character and how you view the world.

What would the world be like if every human being, all at once, simply disappeared?

Whether you view it as a the greatest possible tragedy, or a massive environmental sigh of relief, there is something is this book that will be worth reading for you if the question holds your imagination at all. Weisman's book asks "what if" from a scientific point of view. What have we created that will last until the dying sun engulfs the Earth? What seemingly-timeless structures would fall before before our pets even noticed we were missing? If you read nothing else, read Chapters 7 and 8: What Falls Apart, and What Lasts; and Chapter 9: Polymers are Forever. They contain fascinating research about subjects I never, ever, in a million years would have known anything about and am so glad to have discovered.

Person to whom I would recommend this book, hands down: Jason Holland

The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure
By William Goldman

"Fool!" cried the hunchback. "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this; 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line."
-WG, p. 165

I probably would not have picked this up if my Mom hadn't given it to me, not because I didn't want to read it, but because this story, for me, is first and foremost a movie--it's just not the same without Andre the Giant. The same applies to "The Neverending Story" (minus the bit about Andre the Giant). Of course, that's not really correct, since both novels came before their films and not the other way around. But both films came out before I was even in Kindergarten and were part of psyche well before I could read. So there you go.

Everyone knows that 99 times out of 100 the book is better than the movie. So I have NO idea why I thought this book wouldn't be that great. I just didn't. But, of course, I was wrong. If you love the movie, however, be warned: the book is so much more than what you're expecting, especially if you're not expecting to find Andre the Giant. He's in there, along with a few strokes that had me quite unable to distinguish fact from fiction. I feel like I'm typically fairly astute but I had to pull out Wikipedia a number of times to make sure I wasn't being duped, which I inevitably was. But I enjoyed falling for it.

Person to whom I would recommend this book, hands down: Amber Monette

The Tracey Fragments
By Maureen Medved

Honestly, I picked up this book because I love the title and cover. Well, more accurately, I watched the trailer for the film based on the book because of the title and the cover (and Ellen Page), and after watching the trailer decided to buy the book. Which I did. About five hours ago. I read the whole thing in about two hours and I think I may need to read it again.

The book is, aptly, a series of fragments, more like a poetic novella than anything else. Tracey is exactly the kind of frantic, confused, depressed, dramatic teenager I think I would have been if I had horrible parents, no friends, and a younger brother whom I accidentally hypnotized into believing he's a dog. Luckily, I was spared from the surfeit of tragedy that Tracy experiences; while the result of my teenage boredom and need for passion and adventure harmlessly spilled into my journals, Tracey's results in her telling this sad tale from the back seat of a bus, colorblind, naked, wrapped in a shower curtain, and alone.

If you're not keen on explicit content, stay away. If, however, you were ever a lonely modern teenager, heart all a'thumping with too many emotions and weird biological urges this one's for you.

Person whom to whom I would recommend this book, hands down: Kacie, not that I think the description above necessarily applies to her.