. Doodles In a Letter to Amy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. Outside

Better than any diploma, my professors gave me an engraved printmaker's ink knife to commemorate my thesis completion & being done.  But I don't feel done.  So I'm pretending, by not reading theory for a bit and hanging with Sasha outside.

 

. Book of the Month

This book falls into my current favourite genre of fiction - sad old men recounting their childhoods and realising they can never go back. 

Last month's version focused on how modern life is rubbish. 

This month's is more about how the act of remembering is rubbish, how memory is a scam, and history is bullshit.

The main character vacillates between pompous arse and timid, self-doubting creep.  I didn't like him much.  I think he reminded me too much of me.  Maybe that was the point.

But the thing that bugged me most was the character of Veronica, who symbolises the "mystery" of women by never giving a straight answer to anything ever.  I grew very tired very quickly of her, "You just don't get it and you never will," responses.  It's a short book, but it would have been a damn sight shorter if she hadn't been so bloody "enigmatic."

And now, for the first time ever in Book of the Month history, someone else's opinion.

Mark says:

"i loved it.  it was at times eerie as I felt the author was reading over my own journal from my shoulder.  no, i never wrote a hate letter but the shared introspect at certain times and authors' relating to me was uncanny, at times comforting.

[spoiler alert] 

"at the end of the book, like everyone else, you wonder about the kid.  I, too thought it might be Tony's but remembered they never went "all the way."  I read one posting on it and I share the wish that I read this in book form and not audible as I would have liked to go back and read those few pages of ending the cliff hanger.  it was confusing as to what really happened and the only hint of the name of the kid being the same but not Veronica's was not enough for me to "get it."  When I reviewed it, it was a "duh" moment and only wished I had gotten it on first impact and not review. 

"the unfinished line of "if tony" I also imagined being "if tony was the father...." maybe that was also implied.

[end of spoiler alert]

"I recommend this book as I loved it.  But I think I may pick up a hard copy and read the last chapters.

"For me, it was two things.  The story and the author's stream of consciousness about life.  To me, that was the book!"

Next month we will be reading Haruki Murakami's 1Q84.