School and Recreation

Readers! It's almost Thanksgiving and the holidays have started!! Last you heard from me, I was reading Nabokov's Pale Fire. I finished that and quickly had to move on to Thomas McGuane's Ninety-Two in the Shade, which was for the same psychological novel class. I just finished the last page and I really loved it.

The short novel (not quite 200 pages) written and set in the 70s follows Tom Skelton, a young student who leaves his university after feeling disillusioned with the path he had chosen for himself, mainly studying biology. In a drug-induced haze, he just up and leaves to go back home, to the Florida Keys. Here he hopes to be near the ocean, for though he may be confused and lost in his life he knows the ocean is what he needs. "I like fishing better than ichthyology because it's all pointless and intuitive. I mean, there is no value equivalent in biology for the particular combination of noise and sight of the blackfin tuna working bait in the Gulf Stream." (94)  He decides to become a skiff guide, and though some laugh at what they see as his lack of ambition, he has greater issues to contend with. Nichol Dance, one of the two guides Tom now must work besides, is unhappy--with his own life but also with what he sees as this intrusion in his profession. Dance promises to Skelton he will kill him if Skelton continues to follow his dream of guiding.

The book is not for everyone, but I loved it. It is written very poetically, so much so that I even brought out my quote book again and added twelve quotes from Ninety-Two, some of which I will share with you all. On top of that, though, it is written quite dry. The events, often violent and unexpected, happen with such suddenness and lack of show that I had to re-read a few times to make sure they really happened. When Skelton meets Dance for the first time, for example, Dance impales the dock master for hardly nothing at all. This was early on in the book and the passage was written so blasé it wasn't until he "disempaled" the guy that I realized yes, that did really happen (14).

Still though, there is much to say about this little book. I really got to love and feel for poor Skelton, and his relationships with his girlfriend Miranda and his parents were complex and real. The tale moved slowly and often in foreseen directions, but that did not make it any less wonderful.

I also finished my second reading of Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which I won't talk too much about. It's a very accessible novel and the pages literally fly by; the writing is addictive in its flow. (Spoil alert!!!!!) Both of these reads ended sadly in the deaths of the protagonists, though neither of them were a surprise. The title of Oscar Wao makes it no secret that he dies young, and as for Skelton's death, well, Dance's threat never seems empty. This is something Skelton, his family, his friend, and his readers know.

I get to finish THURSDAY NEXT! I took a break when I got around 70% (Kindle style) because all these school reads (doubling as recreational) were more immediately necessary. I'll finish that at least by tomorrow, hopefully, so I can move on to all the great books waiting for me!!

I want to read more Nabokov, more David Mitchell; I need to get to Proust's third volume, as well as Woolf's The Waves. J.K Rowling is still on my list, but grudgingly so! I also ran into a book called The Traveler of the Century by Andres Neuman and though I don't really remember what it was about, I know it's been calling me ever since I saw it in my school bookstore!! I am also going to the Book Fair International today, so who knows what I'll find there. These were the last of my school-readings, so now I have free reign! I'm also looking forward to Christmas break; a euro-trip with my family is going to give me more reading time than I'll know what to do with! I'll probably have to buy most of these books on the Kindle to save my back.

Anyways, I'm off. I hope you all enjoy your weekend!! Here are a few quotes for you all:

Let us make barking up the wrong tree a way of life. -125

...concrete thought about something desired made him lose interest in despair. He had long since learned that the general view was tragic; but he had simultaneously learned that the trick was to become interested in something else. Look askance and it all shines on. -155

Skelton was thinking, You could get what you want and have a laugh a minute, take a pill, see God, play a record, weep poignantly, and discover mortality on a form letter beginning "Greetings." Or you could just lie there. When we came in, he was just lying there. Or you could louse up. You could fail to get the joke. You could life up thine eyes. Skelton thought: I think I'll lift up mine eyes. -127