more waiting for baby
Reading like a crazy woman. Heck, I’m not working or sleeping, what else am I going to do? Bird by Bird is exactly what you’d expect from a writing book by Annie Lamott. Salome doesn’t like her because she’s frumpy, but of course that’s a key part of her schtick. Salome’s also squicked by what we shall call the faithiness, but Lamott’s Jesus seems fairly harmless as Jesi go, what with the not-wanting-to-throw-my-gay-friends-into-the-lake-of-fire. It’s not much, but I’ll take it.
Oh, and everyone who said to me “You have to read The Line of Beauty, you’ll love it”; why didn’t you add “NO, SERIOUSLY, READ IT NOW!!!”? It’s a fantastic and lovely and amazing novel that all the reviews made sound like a turgid Thatcher-era coke memoir. What makes it unturgid, if you will, is that the protagonist Nick Guest is a completely sympathetic Thatcher-era cokehead parasite nob aesthete starfucker. No, I know, but anyway, read it now, it’s just gorgeous.
On to Poppy Z. Brite’s thematically-oddly-similar Prime. I met Poppy the first time I was in New Orleans, and I’d been reading her hurricane-survival Livejournal, so even though her early horror stuff did nothing much for me, I picked this one up at the library. It’s set in top-restaurant-land, with knowing references to French Laundry and Ferran Adria that I just ate up (HAHAHAHA oh never mind), and like Beauty it’s about gay men circling in a somewhat mystified way the centers of political power. I liked Prime just fine and will push it onto my foodie friends, but did I mention that Beauty is probably the best novel I’ve read in years, and one that will still be read in a century? It’s THAT GOOD.
On again to Jennifer Weiner’s Little Earthquakes. I know I bitch-slapped her over In Her Shoes, but it turns out I like books about career women having babies much more than I like books about women who really, really like clothes and makeup and shoes. (I wear both kinds of shoe; Blundstone and Rossi.) Obviously the appeal of chick lit is largely in recognizing yourself and your friends, and I do relate to prenatal yoga classes and infant-induced sleep dep; but still, honestly, it’s a pretty limited appeal. Tell me something I don’t know.
Next up is The Time Traveler’s Wife, which I bought on defective yeti’s recommendation along with Cloud Atlas. Cloud Atlas is technically remarkable – the same character appears in six or seven stories spread out across two hundred years, changing nationality and gender as she goes. A gimmick brilliantly pulled off but still a gimmick, and in the end I would have been happy with a whole novel about the Depression-era bisexual composer. Also the 19th century section was distressingly clunky. Still, as I said to Jeremy when I finished it, I wish I’d written it.
After Wife, I’ll read EVERY OTHER BOOK EVER WRITTEN, since Miss Julia is clearly NEVER GOING TO BE BORN.
