*****
It's not that I need a bag, it's just that the bags that I have don't exactly fulfill all of my bag requirements. Some are too big, and some are too small. My current favorite work bag is almost big enough, but not quite; and it's an open top bag, with no zipper or closure at all. So I can fit a lot in there but then everyone can see everything I'm carrying. It's not ideal. And stuff falls out, too.
I guess I could carry less stuff.
Ridiculous. I'm not here to spout nonsense.
*****
One thing that I don't tend to carry around is books, because I read on a Kindle. I carry the Kindle just about everywhere, because you never know when you'll have a spare few minutes and it's always best to have something to read that has nothing to do with Donald Trump. But the Kindle doesn't take up very much space so it alone would not and could not justify purchase of a new bag of any sort.
*****
OK, so I just bought a tote bag. I can always return it. It might be the Holy Grail of tote bags and if I hadn't bought it, I'd never know, now would I? I'll report back later.
*****
Back to the books. Here are some short reviews of some recently read books:
Goodbye Mr. Chips, James Hilton. Did you read Lost Horizon when you were in high school? I did. I think I liked it, but my memory isn't what it was and I don't remember much about it other than Shangri-La. Attempts to create perfection on earth are always interesting fodder for literature, since they always end in disaster. Relentless tote bag hunt aside, however, this post isn't about perfection-seeking. It's about books. I loved Goodbye, Mr. Chips. I read it in the car on the way to the beach (it's very short, less than 100 pages), and the short break from work was the perfect time to think about how a person can accomplish the thing that they were put on Earth to accomplish, which is what this book is about more than anything else. A lovely book.
Frances and Bernard, Carlene Bauer. I liked this, though I was prepared and fully expecting to hate it. It's a true epistolary novel, 100 percent letters, mostly between the two title characters; and although I didn't accept the premise (the book was supposedly inspired by the friendship between Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell) for a hot second, I still liked the characters and the writing and the story very much. Bauer imagines Frances Reardon, the O'Connor character, as a working-class Philadelphian rather than a landowning southerner; but the Robert Lowell character is very much like I imagine the real Lowell probably was. The very idea that Flannery O'Connor would sleep with Robert Lowell or anyone else outside the confines of marriage is ridiculous (not offensive, just ridiculous). It's not clear why Bauer chose to relocate the Flannery character from Georgia to Philadelphia but not the Lowell character who was a Harvard-educated New Englander in the book as in real life. But the letters are beautiful and the story is compelling as long as you don't try to sustain any belief in the O'Connor-Lowell idea. I liked this well enough that I'm going to read Bauer's memoir, Not that Kind of Girl (a very popular memoir title, by the way).
*****
I had second thoughts about the first tote bag, so I bought a second tote bag. I'm not 100 percent sure about either of them, really. Print vs. solid, large vs. really large--so much to think about. At least one will go back, and possibly both of them.
*****
Back to the books.
Say Nothing, Patrick Radden Keefe. My number one book of 2019 so far, in a year that includes Graham Greene, Joan Didion, and C.S. Lewis. I wrote a whole separate post on this, which I'll publish soon. It's missing something (the post, not the book). I'll figure it out.
Thatcher, Jacob Bannister. Believe it or not, this showed up in my daily cheap books newsletter the very day that I finished Say Nothing, so I read a biography of Margaret Thatcher right after a book about the IRA. This was very short and superficial, running from the IRA hunger strikes to the Falklands war to the coal miners' strike to the fall of the Berlin Wall in just a few quick chapters. I didn't learn much about Margaret Thatcher that I didn't already know, except that she started her career as a chemist. That was something new.
*****
Tote bag #1 arrived today. It's lovely and well-designed, and appears to be very durable. It's also absurdly too large. I could carry a microwave oven in that bag, with room left over for the popcorn. Ridiculous. So now it's a decision between tote bag #2, or returning to the drawing board. I do earnestly hope that tote bag #2 will work. I don't think I have the mental capacity to start this whole process over again.
Maybe I should carry less stuff.
*****
I'll Tell You in Person, Chloe Caldwell. This reminded me a little bit of Domenica Ruta's With or Without You, though Caldwell is much more matter-of-fact and less dramatic about her drug use and other high-risk behavior. That's neither praise nor criticism. I liked this book better than I expected to. Caldwell seems to be writing to try to shock women her mother's age, but she comes across as droll and rather sweet, not bratty and self-important. I'll watch Ms. Caldwell's career with considerable interest. If I ever run into her, I'll tell her to be more careful. That way, she'll know that she rattled at least one middle-aged lady.
*****
Tote bag # 2 arrived today. I think it's the one. It has a zipper, and everything fits--computer, notebooks, lunch, pencil case, cosmetic case, water bottle, empty coffee cup, and even an umbrella if I need one. It's a nice shade of pink that might show dirt too easily, but I can wash it; and I work in a Federal government office, not a coal mine, so how dirty is it going to get?. Mission accomplished.
*****
South and West, Joan Didion. I read this a while ago, and I don't remember a darn thing about it, except a part where Didion eats a grilled cheese sandwich. I haven't had a grilled cheese sandwich in years.
Educated, Tara Westover. This is another one that I read a few months ago, and I remember almost everything about it. It's an extraordinary story. I heard about it from my son (well, I heard about it from the entire world, but my son urged me to read it), so I knew the basic outline going in: Young girl grows up off the grid in a fundamentalist quasi-Mormon family with no birth certificate, Social Security number, or papers of any kind, never enters a classroom until age 17, and ends up with a Ph.D. from Cambridge. There's so much more to the story than that, so much that's unexpected, and Tara Westover's writing is beautiful, very stark and spare but vivid. Very highly recommended.
*****
Day 1 carrying the new tote bag. The bag fell off my car seat, as they do, and nothing fell out because everything was securely zipped inside. The red and white striped lining is cheerful and pretty, a nice contrast with the pink. And it's comfortable to carry, even at full capacity. Altogether a good purchase.
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| There it is. It's bigger than it looks. |
*****
Right now, I'm reading a very long history of postwar Europe, aptly titled Postwar. It's very good and very readable but it'll take me a few weeks to finish. I'll probably alternate between a chapter or two of Postwar and another shorter book. I have about ten in my queue right now. An embarrassment of riches. If only I had an embarrassment of time. Does that even make sense? You know what I mean.
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