aaah… New books. Yes, I know that’s not what you’ve come here for (yes, you), but it’s all I’ve got at the moment. I cling to them. They’re a means of escape. Here’s how I filled my basket at Borders this week and how I’m now filling my nights:
Anthology of American Literature, volumes A and B, because, well, I’m American and the price was right.
Twinkle the Tooth Fairy because we have need of another tiny purple bag for exchanges with the Tooth Fairy (and the book that goes along with it).
Stephen King’s On Writing, because deep down I’ve always loved Stephen King – despite the many times he’s scared me so that I couldn’t go to the bathroom alone, much less read the next chapter. Also because I’m afraid of loving the borrowed copy so hard I’ll be ashamed to return it.
Kit Donner’s The Notorious Bridegroom because it’s sexy!
And Thomas Pynchon’s Inherent Vice, hot off the press and into my hot little hands. But there’s something wrong. It’s not just the cover. I can deal with that. There’s this bleed of pink neon on the inside jacket at either side of the book, but I know that’s just for atmosphere. No, the problem is I think I understand it. Has there been a mistake? Is this some other “enigma shrouded in a mystery veiled in anonymity” Thomas Pynchon? The words still swirl around my head, but more staccato than the strange music of Mason and Dixon. Staccato suits it though. Thus far a seemingly hard-boiled/noir detective story, set in the psychedelic sixties. Psychedelic is the catch word used to describe this book but, when you’re reading things like
*
and that pink neon is glaring at you from the edges, ‘psychedelic’ is all that comes to mind.
Other books came home with me as well, but it was the Pynchon I went for. I was hoping for the kind of endless, erudite, mad sentence-paragraphs that, in Mason and Dixon, made me swoon. These do not make me swoon. They tickle. Not what I was hoping for, but it’s fun.
*What, are you crazy? I can’t quote anything from this book! My dad might see it!
