Gentrification beneath Bruckner Boulevard, in the Bronx.

¶ Matins: In the space of one page, Rachel Donadio manages to reduce Literature to Logo: “It’s Not You, It’s Your Books.” I may not know whether to laugh or to cry, but I do despair.

¶ Tierce: In the paper today, two stories about the the kind of mundane change that, without paying a lot of attention, we get used to in the blink of an eye. Both, not coincidentally, forecast emptier shelves at home. Susan Dominus on The Kindle (“Snoopers on Subway, Beware Digital Books“) and David Carr on the download (“We Want It, and Waiting Is No Option “)

¶ Sext: Kathleen calls from the office: do I want to go to London in May or June? Yes! But I hope that that fix the mess at Heathrow first! (Even though we Yanks go through Terminal 3.)

 

Oremus…

§ Matins. Perhaps if Beginner’s Greek author James Collins had written this piece instead of merely contributing a bit of personal experience, the result might have been light and droll, a winking take on the shallows on which the most earnest romance can founder. In Ms Donadio’s hands, however, the exercise is merely dispiriting.

Let’s face it — this may be a gender issue. Brainy women are probably more sensitive to literary deal breakers than are brainy men. (Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books.) After all, women read more, especially when it comes to fiction. “It’s really great if you find a guy that reads, period,” said Beverly West, an author of “Bibliotherapy: The Girl’s Guide to Books for Every Phase of Our Lives.” Jessa Crispin, a blogger at the literary site Bookslut.com, agrees. “Most of my friends and men in my life are nonreaders,” she said, but “now that you mention it, if I went over to a man’s house and there were those books about life’s lessons learned from dogs, I would probably keep my clothes on.”

Still, to some reading men, literary taste does matter. “I’ve broken up with girls saying, ‘She doesn’t read, we had nothing to talk about,’” said Christian Lorentzen, an editor at Harper’s. Lorentzen recalls giving one girlfriend Nabokov’s “Ada” — since it’s “funny and long and very heterosexual, even though I guess incest is at its core.” The relationship didn’t last, but now, he added, “I think it’s on her Friendster profile as her favorite book.”

I know, I know. Wednesday’s my day for complaining about the Book Review. But I was determined to read this week’s issue, one of the very worst that I have had the bad luck to peruse, before the weekend came to an end. At about ten last night, I thought I was done, but I wasn’t: pages containing twelve reviews  had slipped out when I’d gotten up to answer a call. It was statistically unlikely, of course, that those twelve could be as bad as the ones that I had already slogged through, but all I could think of was that I’ve been covering the Book Review for three years; surely it’s someone else’s turn.

Was I just in a bad mood this weekend? You tell me. The review of John Grisham’s latest book is on the cover. What comes between that and Ms Donadio’s concluding fluff is almost consistently of a triteness.

§ Tierce. My first inclination is to say that I’m too old to be comfortable without hard copy myself. I don’t see myself getting rid of a lot of CDs any time soon — particularly because, unlike today’s twentysomethings, I have gone through the trauma of undoing the personal damage of “downsizing” twice in my life already, once when I was quite young. My second inclination, however, is to remember that I thought I was too old for iPods. Ha. Ha ha ha.

§ Sext. Would I like to accompany Kathleen to London on a business trip? That’s the kind of trip that you don’t have to pay for.* The answer is yes. YES.

As soon as I have the gross itinerary, I’m going to try to plan a tour of North London: Ruth Rendell country. When I say that I’ve always wanted to see the Archway Avenue, I can hear the natives cry, “My God, why?”

* We pay for my flight, of course. And I have to buy my own books, CDs, Liberty ties, Spode teapots, museum tchotchkes, &c &c.

Drop me a line at rjk@dailyblague.com
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