I like to finish what I start. Sometimes it takes longer than one might expect; over 25 years, for example, to finish my bachelor's degree (Summa cum Laude, of course, but still--25 years!) If I start reading a book, I will usually force myself to finish it, no matter what.
Or rather, I used to force myself to finish it. In the last six months, I've abandoned four books. A combination of too-busyness and age have made me hyper-conscious of how relatively little time I have in the world; how relatively little time any of us have, in fact. I have a lot to do, not just in a day, but forever. A lot that I need to do before I die.
*****
Well. That took an unexpected turn, didn't it? Maybe I need to turn off MSNBC for five minutes. Back to the books.
Walker Percy, of all people, wrote a satirical self-help book called Lost in the Cosmos, which was published in 1983. I'd never heard of it, and I thought that Walker Percy had died years before 1983, but Lost in the Cosmos ended up on my bookshelf one way or another, and I started to read it. Maybe my sense of humor is lacking, because despite tons of reviews that describe this book as hilariously funny in a sly tongue-in-cheek way, I just didn't get it. And I find also (age-related again, probably) that I just don't have any patience with casual sexism, even taking historical context into account. So I bailed on Walker Percy, right in the middle of chapter 2.
That meant that I had to find something else to read. I started on Christina Stead's House of All Nations, which is the kind of book that I usually love, but I put it down about 10 pages in. Maybe I'll try to read it again, but not now. I'm not really sure why I didn't want to finish it in the first place. It's a period novel set in pre-WWII Europe. What's not to love? Too French, maybe, in the way that a novel about the French written by an Australian (or any other non-French author) would be. So much jaded upper-class infidelity and intrigue; so much sophisticated elegance and glamour, and all in the first chapter. I couldn't keep up that pace for 300 or more pages.
House of All Nations is set in Paris in the late 1930s, and the late 1930s is an historical period of particular interest to me, especially now. Two years or so ago, I was sure that the world order that most of us Americans and Europeans have taken for granted for the last 70 years or so was soon to collapse. I wrote about this here, and here, and here. In fact, I've been preoccupied with political upheaval and the breakdown of civilization for pretty much my whole life, from age 10 or so on. I'm a lot of fun to hang out with.
Part of this is just because I'm a recreational worrier. The worst case scenario is usually the default option for me. But now, I feel that I have a real, actual reason to worry, based on just looking at and listening to the world. Until very recently, I didn't talk much about the end of the world as we know it (or once knew it, because it's probably already too late), even with my friends. I was sure that they'd think I was crazy. Now, though, I'm right in the mainstream. It's 1999. Everyone is waiting for everything to hit the fan.
*****
But again, back to the original problem: What to read? I didn't want to finish House of All Nations, but I did want want to return to the mid 1930s, and not just because I wanted a how-to manual for history that's about to repeat itself. A few weeks ago, I bought a Kindle edition of The Cazalet Chronicles, so I started on that, and now I'm pretty sure that I'm going to accomplish nothing until I read all thousand-plus pages. SO good. I have no idea how it's possible that I had never heard of either the books (it's a series) or Elizabeth Jane Howard, the author, but for the next few days, I'll be all agog as the Cazelets and all of their servants breeze through 1937 and 1938 without a care in the world, only to be thrown headlong into the cataclysm of 1939.
I almost feel sorry for them, long-dead imaginary people that they are. They have no idea what's coming.
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