The other night I couldn't get to sleep for a few minutes, not because I was stressed about work(which I am), or money, or anything like that, but because I feel like I've made relatively slow progress on this project thus far. Yesterday, I finished The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, by Oscar Hijuelos(winner of the PP in 1990), but I've decided that even though I've read 47 books this year, only 20 have been Pulitzer Prize or Governor General winners. That means I've got a lot of ground to make up before January 1. There are two more months left in the year, let's see how much further I can get. Mambo Kings brings my total thus far up to 30 Pulitzer Prize winners, 31 Governor General winners. Today I was trying to pick out what I want to read next and I have a TON of the prize-winning books at home on my shelf, not to mention one more from the public library that I'm sitting on(The Fixer by Bernard Malamud), so I have no excuses due to lack of access or anything. I've been working actively on this project for a little over a year and a half and sometimes it's depressing. I still have quite a ways to go. But, I suppose I also have to look at how far I've come. I've read more of these lists than certainly anyone else I know, and that's a pretty decent accomplishment, as well as the fact that this WILL be relatively impressive when it is all said and done. Well, enough of the personal pep talk. The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos was a conundrum of a book for me. I think, overall, that I enjoyed it, it was a great read, but I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone that I know, certainly not any of the female readers. Mambo is about two brothers who play Cuban dance music in the mid-20th century, how they come to the U.S., their lives that ensue and also all the memory that they left behind. It is told for the most part through the eyes of the older of the two brothers, Cesar(Nestor, the younger also has his story told at various flashback-style points)who is a complete and total chauvinist, very driven by his penis. It was unbelievable the amount of raw, rough, male-driven sex that was described in this novel. At first it made me somewhat uncomfortable, and even a bit queasy, and this is coming from the girl who was reading dirty books at the age of 15!!! I think what bothered me the most was that the sex was so much about domination and showing how much of a man this guy was and how good he was at getting women to do what he wanted, whether they wanted to or not(emphasis on the last part). What makes this book good, though and also complex, is that the character is human. He has partied too hard in his heyday and is now in a somewhat humiliating decline. So, as the reader, you are disgusted by him at times, but you also pity him. Oftentimes in the book you are reminded of the fact that this man is reliving his own life story, while having one last boozefest in a hotel room that was a favorite place for him to stay with his lady friends when he was successful. A room that, like its occupant, has seen better days. Cesar Castillo is the poster child for poor planning for retirement. He would strut his stuff on the dance floor in front of an orchestra crooning Latin love songs, drinking too much, womanizing too much, and now is dying with a few albums to his credit, but no money, a job as a super, and failing bodily organs. He outlives his brother Nestor by at least a few decades. Nestor's soul died of a broken heart long before his body did, and he would use violent sex with his wife to replace the void in his heart of the woman who left him long ago in Cuba. I've talked about this before in postings, but these men show, yet again, how we all carry around so much historical baggage regarding our lives/memories. For them, it's not just an accessory, it's a truck. The women in the novel, the few that are actually discussed, are shown to be strong in a backhanded sort of way, for they are the ones who witness the downfall of their men and make the decision to leave to save themselves or they, in the case of Nestor's widow, wait until the appropriate time to fulfill their needs. What is also quite fascinating here is how the men in the novel use the women as a crutch to fill whatever is missing in their lives, almost frantically holding onto them, claiming value through them, all the time(esp. in the case of Cesar)claiming to be men who can do what they want with "their women." Despite all of the characters shortcomings, though, the book was enjoyable, a glimpse into a era and lifestyle of which I know so little. the life of dance halls, fast feet and Latin music. Also, the really cool thing was that Nestor and Cesar's big life moment was when they went on the I Love Lucy show after meeting Desi Arnaz while out performing one night. Their 15 minutes of fame immortalized them forever on the television and made one song of theirs "Beautiful Maria of My Soul" at least somewhat famous, captivating their neighbors and the Latin community while tying them forever to probably the most famous Cuban after Castro. This book was turned into a movie AND ALSO a musical. I kept trying to think how they had made it into a musical(Hijuelos, the author, wrote the libretto, I believe)for the book is intensely complex(and long! like 448 pages!), but I suppose I would have to travel to NY to find that out. I think that the next book that I read(I'm pretty sure I've decided to read James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific), was ALSO a musical, the basis for South Pacific. It's a novel that is a collection of interconnected short stories that take place in where else? the South Pacific, during WW2. I'm tired of writing, I'm going to watch Biggest Loser.:) PPs-30, GGs 31.

A few hours ago, I finished Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Talk about a novel that has built up for me over the years, and NOT in a good way. Everyone that I've ever talked to about it that has actually read it, has told me it is the most boring, anti-climactic piece of shit on the planet. Well, to tell the truth, it wasn't that bad. Thankfully it was only 93 pages, and this edition had pictures! Now, if I had had to put up with hundreds of pages of it(which believe me, with this project I've already had my fair share of boring and I'm sure there's plenty more where that came from), then I might be whistling a different tune, but it was a pretty quick read, and an easy way to move myself up into 29 Pulitzers(I have two more Pulitzers from the library that are waiting for me, so yet again, we'll be tied on the lists pretty soon). I'm not a huge fan of Hemingway. I guess I just don't see why he's SOOO GREAT. I mean, really, they even gave him a Nobel Prize for his "contribution to literature." His style is so simplistic, which I guess works for some(obviously not me), which makes it easy to read, but I don't find him very engaging at all. Even A Moveable Feast which I read in the hopes of having a great food memoir combined with narratives about Gertrude Stein and her lover Alice B. Toklas was a bit disappointing. There are some great descriptions of Paris, but I find Hemingway to be extremely, well, MALE, and not something easy to relate to for me. I suppose it doesn't help that Hemingway is one of an ex-roommate of mine's favorite authors, so every time I read him(which thankfully isn't often)I'm reminded of her. I find a lot of hopelessness in Hemingway's characters, including the title character in The Old Man, or hope that is extinguished in some way. In the case of The Old Man and the Sea, this guy is trying to bring in this mammoth of a fish, the Moby Dick of marlins, overcoming physical impediments due to his age, only to lose his prize to sharks at the very end(I'm not spoiling it, who out of the three people that read this blog is ACTUALLY GOING TO READ THIS BOOK, especially when I just gave you the jist), hauling into the Cuban coast a skeleton of the majestic fish, I guess a metaphor in itself for the old man himself, who was at one time a strong able-bodied fisherman. I spent most of, if not all of the book looking for some kind of a deeper meaning, because there HAD to be more to the novel than just a guy on a boat fishing. Which of course there is, it is an elongated metaphor for life struggle and the hopelessness in that(I don't believe it, but remember, Hemingway did end his own life). I don't have much more to say about Hemingway except for that now, I don't have to read anything else by him unless I want to.:) GG's 31, PP's 29.