Okay, this week, or even the past little while, has been nightmarishly busy...So, I've slowed down reading a little bit. But at 3:30 this morning I finished the second book of Alice Munro short stories to win the GG, A Progress of Love. But before I get to that, I have to talk about some other things and get some stuff off my chest. I HATE BOOK SNOBS. For some bizarre reason, I've encountered more than one in the last few monthes. People who are all, oh, that book isn't literary enough, or some crap like that. I mean, FUCK OFF! I have come to the realization that I am NOT a book snob, thankfully...my choices and loves are quite a variety and I am pretty non-discriminate. So, Gina and I started a book club back in February. It was kind of half-ass, since it was me and Gina only, we read Martel's Life of Pi and went out to talk about it. Gina and I thought it would be cool to read a book together and talk about it, but when it came down to it(both of us are former lit majors)we were so out of practice with book discussions, that it was sort of embarrassing...But, it was still fun. So, we decided to do it again, but I got slammed with all of my interlibrary loan requests and couldn't pick up a new book that wasn't already coming from the library. When it came time to pick a new book, I thought we should pick something highly controversial, to be interesting. I went on the ALA website and printed out the top 100 most challenged books in the past 15 years. Carrie was on the list. So, Gina and I decided to read that; I have never read Stephen King and always wanted to. Well, what I'm upset about is this. We invited a few more people to join the club, one being this university student Becca, who works as a hostess/front desk person at work. She was supposed to come to the first meeting yesterday, but bailed. I ran into her at a party last night, and razzed her a little. She told me that she couldn't come because her cousin was in town at the last minute, but also, she just didn't feel the book was "literary" enough, and that she wasn't into discussing it. I felt like she was belittling my and Gina's choice! She was like, "Well, if you were discussing Life of Pi like you had before, then I would be way more into it. But this, well, I mean it's Stephen King!" Then she went on to say that there was only one real theme she felt that could be discussed, which was the religious aspect and asked me what we actually DID talk about, like there was nothing else that could be talked about. OOOOH. I was not thrilled. Yes, I agree, Stephen King is no Toni Morrison, or Michael Ondaatje or even A.S. Byatt, but he DOES have his place in American literature, and is worth reading just to make sure that one has a wide acceptance of what EVERYONE is reading. Ugh. Book snobs suck. I'm glad to be a book DEMOCRAT.
So, other than that, I was dragging on books this week because Chris came to visit on Monday and Tuesday and we watched 9 movies in 2 days(in the theatres). I'm not only a bookaholic, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE going to the movies. I think it's just stories as a whole that mesmerize me. We saw a lot of really great stuff: Lucky Number Slevin, Kinky Boots, Notorious Bettie Page, On a Clear Day, Brick, American Dreamz, Thank You for Smoking and 16 Blocks. Only one movie sucked, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. OMG it was two hours of my life I WILL NEVER GET BACK. It was Tommy Lee Jones directorial debut, and a major bllllleeeeeecccchhhh in my opinion. It was so boring and the characters so bismally depressing that I wanted to kill myself...just so I would have something to do! But, the others were all good in so many different ways, that it was all in all very enjoyable. My favorites were Kinky Boots, Bettie Page and Thank You for Smoking, and they tie because they were all so unique in their wonderfulness. Thank You for Smoking was ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS in a totally inappropriate way. Two quotes that I loved from that film were "You want an easy job? Go work for the Red Cross!" and "Michael Jordan plays basketball, Charles Manson kills people, I talk. Everyone has a talent." Anywho...I wish I didn't have to work and that everyday I could just read books and go to the movies. Then I would be in HEAVEN.
Okay, back to the task at hand. The Progress of Love. Okay, so before I just liked Alice Munro. now I think she's fabulous. Progress was a better short story collection in my opinion than Dance of the Happy Shades, but Dance was her first collection so I've got to cut her some slack...:) I loved every story in this collection, they were all so finely wrought, her stories are just so...interesting. I also encountered a story that had homosexual characters ("A Queer Streak" but it's not called that wholly because of the characters I think), which I hadn't seen in her writing before. "Circle of Prayer" was funny(strange, that is) because in it, some of the characters at a funeral sing a song that I was taught by my mother: "Today, while the blossoms still cling to the vine..." which is a song I have never heard anyone else sing. I know my mother didn't make it up, but it still struck me, because if I sing it, people have no idea where I'm coming from. I don't think I have a favorite story here, all of them were good. And, like the title implicates, they all have to deal with love, and how it unfolds or unravels, between actual lovers, family members, etc; she covers all the boundaries of love. The great thing about Munro is that her characters are all so unique. So, one of a kind characters deal with love in one of a kind ways, with every page full of little surprises. Mmm...great work. There were two quotes in here, very small, that I particularly enjoyed, tiny gems. "Fifty years too late to ask, Sam thinks. And even at the time he was too amazed Edgar became a person he didn't know Callie drew back, into her sorry female state The moment of happiness he shared with them remained in his mind, but he never knew what to make of it. Do such moments really mean, as they seem to, that we have a life of happiness with which we only occasionally, knowingly, intersect? Do they shed such light before and after that all that has happened to us in our lives--or that we've made happen--can be dismissed" (Munro 160)? This one from "Circle of Prayer" was also rather poignant. "She stood outside her own happiness in a tide of sadness. And the opposite thing happened the morning Dan left. Then she stood outside her own happiness in a tide of what seemed unreasonably like love But it was the same thing, really, when you got outside. What are those times that stand out, clear patches in your life--what do they have to do with it? They aren't exactly promises. Breathing spaces. Is that all" (Munro 273)? Sigh...I have one more Alice Munro collection to read to fulfill her requirement on the list. It will probably be a while before I get to it however, since I am sitting on a ton of other GG winners, AND I plan on taking a break from the lists in a bit anyway, to read some stuff I made Keren borrow for me from UW and clear out my shelves of some things that have been sitting for years, waiting patiently to be read. I am looking forward to reading her again, though; I now definitely have a greater appreciation for the short story. I have one more book from SPL that is just as overdue as the Munro(which I'm returning today mind you!) and then a wee vacation. Heh. GG's-19, Pulitzers-15.