Memorial Daze

It's Memorial Day, and I finally remembered to actually continue with Riverwords.

I haven't posted in some time. Time has a way of knocking a fellow around. I managed to read a few things in the meanwhile, and endure some ups and downs in life. I've been fighting a minor medical malady that doesn't seem so minor sometimes. And, stress piles on among a blast of joys. Oh! And graduate school sneaks in there, too. I'm pursuing my MBA part-time, which started in Janurary.

Anyway, since I last posted, I've only managed to read about one book from my reading list from last year. But, I did manage to read a couple other books, too.

I finished White Noise a few months ago, but never posted my review. (I did bother to post a grade of C+ on the reading list entry.)

Of course, the problem with collecting my thoughts on a book I finished a few months ago is that they're as fleeting as a dream now. The book is clever. Delillo's nothing if not clever. The protagonist's friends and family suffer all manner pop-culture neuroses, the most obvious of which is the mysterious chemical explosion that erupts over their town.

The post-nearly-apocalypse for the family becomes a tense affair between the protagonist and his wife (among which are nestled bizarre hypochondriac interludes involving mainly his children), and I think I started to suffer my own neurosis because I wanted the characters to stop talking like clever Don Delillo and start acting like smart people who are frustrated and unhappy.

When I finished the book, I tried to describe it to someone like this. "Well, it's entertaining and funny, I guess. But, I just wanted the characters to stop talking like a writer and start talking like people."

Delillo has something to say here, and I think there are times I agree with his black humor commentary on modern existence, consumerism, and family. I even giggle a little. But, whether or not his quirky academic protagonist and quirkier (if possible) friends and family have a point, I just can't bring myself to care about their plight. Or, thus, ours. And, considering the climactic love-affair-gone-attempted-murder, I think I should. I can’t count the number of times I wanted to smack them around a little bit for being fools.

White Noise: C+

It could be worse. I still think Delillo's a highly admirable writer. I can't say that of Paul Coelho. The wife and I decided that we needed a hobby together. So, we thought reading a book together to talk it over would be a good way to go. We toured Borders and settled on The Alchemist by Paul Coelho. I had suspicions then that this was a thinly disguised self-help book, which I don't see as a benefit.

Turns out I was right. I caught on pretty quickly. Coelho’s tale is a well-meaning fable of a Spanish shepherd boy who learns his Personal Legend (capital letters and all) is to seek out treasure buried near the Pyramids. So, he goes out to seek his Personal Legend and travels across Gibraltar and through the Sahara.

I don’t mind the tale. Oh, it’s contrived, certainly. But, the short little narrative is reasonably entertaining with it's adventurous romp. The boy encounters some personal calamity, and waivers on whether to continue his Personal Legend. He meets others variously failing and succeeding on their own Personal Legend. He meets a terribly uninteresting love in the desert. He meets other mostly uninteresting characters, too. And, in the end, he finds his treasure after learning some accept-it-on-faith lesson about wisdom and patience (or something).

The tale is inscrutable. It’s exactly the kind of book that, when faced with criticism, can be answered with something nonsensical like “Well, then you just aren’t pursuing your Personal Legend.”

I can’t say the book didn’t make me think about what I’d like to accomplish in life. For that, I give it credit. I can say that the book reminded me that one of the things I want to accomplish in life is not to succeed by attributing success to interpreting omens set before me by supernatural agency!

The Alchemist: D

I think I needed to get those reviews out of my system and flush out frustrations I had about not posting here. I look forward to posting more frequently now.