Jumping around.

Still holding off on the Catch-22 discussion. Probably just going to make a mega-post when I finish it. The book is mad depressing in these last 100 pages. Not that I'm not still enjoying it between the crying jags.

I've done nothing to moderate my habit of jumping back and forth from book to book. I can't decide if it's a better or worse way to go about reading things. On the one hand, if I get bored with the way one book is going, I can take a break and go to another book, then go back to the aforementioned book when I've got more time. I feel this is the best way to read certain authors--for example, I read one chapter of Catch-22 and ten pages of Cormac McCarthy a night. Any more than that and I tend to get a little bogged down. With Catch-22, I feel like I'm drowning in all the words after a while because Heller's writing style is so frantic and shifts focus so quickly, so I need those breaks to fully comprehend what I've read. With McCarthy there's that similar flood of words, but McCarthy's writing style is the opposite of frantic--I'd say he comes as close as a human being can to emulating with words the desert he focuses on in so much of his work. And if you were sitting in the desert, just staring at it, for ages, you'd get overwhelmed, because there's just so much of it. But if you just take small trips out there, looking for a bit and then leaving, knowing it'll be there when you come back, it's much easier to focus on each beautiful detail, and you appreciate the beauty all the more comparing that unparalleled landscape to whatever sheltered little dwelling you're going back to.

But then on the other hand, I buy Stephen Fry's new book on a whim and of course can't just wait until I'm done with my other books, and then I can't put it down for love of Stephen Fry.

I mean, just look at him.

 
This new book is called The Fry Chronicles, and it's an account of his life mostly college and afterwards (there's a bit in there about his childhood and adolescence, but apparently he's got an entire separate book on that, which I will be acquiring in short order). The book is just a joy to read. Fry writes exactly like you'd expect him to, so he's got a really pleasant, down-to-earth (and often self-deprecating) way with words. Some might argue that I only love the book so much because I have a truly inappropriate amount of affection for Stephen Fry, but I don't think that's the case. The book is really just delightful to read. I mean, I'm only a hundred or so pages in, so I suppose it could take a horrible turn, but I've more faith in Fry than that.

My only issue with the book is that I keep calling it "The Why of Fry" in my head, because that's a much catchier title and also an episode of Futurama.

Don't worry, Other Fry, I love you just as much.

DONE!

I had all these grand plans for going in-depth about one particular section of Catch-22 that caused me to break down into inconsolable weeping, but more on that later, because I actually manage to finish one of the ten or so books I've been trying to read simultaneously since this summer.

My future home.

I always have such an undeserved sense of accomplishment after I've finished a book. I mean, honestly, all it really says is that I've managed to sit still and run my eyes back and forth across a page for several hours. But lately college isn't giving me much to feel accomplished about, so I'll take every small victory I can get.

The book in question was the third in Clive Barker's Abarat series, which I may have mentioned in here before. It manages to combine an intriguing story and a frankly totally bitchin' fantasy world with absolutely gorgeous art. I can't even imagine the amount of effort that goes into each book since I'm pretty sure all the pictures are actually paintings (as in the images in the books were originally paintings, not Barker hand-paints each and every book). This particular installment, entitled Absolute Midnight, was a bit of a behemoth at 569 pages, but Barker knows how to move a story along pretty well, and most of my delay in finishing it was due to being distracted by other books. I don't want to say too much because the series really is worth reading for yourself if you're into the fantasy genre. Barker does a great job of creating genuinely likeable characters, and the world he's created for these books really is fantastic. The art does a great job of really pulling the reader into the story. And I love to look at pretty pictures anyway, so the story is almost just a bonus for me. I will say that I think the first book is probably still my favorite, but it's a good enough story that it deserves more than one book. I just hope it doesn't get dragged out too long, because I would really love to see some sort of conclusion.

I'll leave you with this instead of further plot summary.

Anyway, now I can get back to dividing most of my reading time between Catch-22 and The Border Trilogy. Or I would, if I hadn't accidentally bought a copy of Stephen Fry's new book. Plus I've still got MetaMaus and Best American Comics of 2011 sitting on my shelf. Oh dear.

More on McCarthy.

I noticed something while reading All the Pretty Horses the other night, so I'm going to talk a bit about that instead of... not McCarthy, or something.

So I was reading about the horrifying escapades of John Grady Cole, and I came across this passage (it's when he's talking to Alejandra's great-aunt):

For me the world has always been more of a puppet show. But when one looks behind the curtain and traces the strings upward he finds they terminate in the hands of yet other puppets, themselves with their own strings which trace upward in turn, and so on. In my own life I saw these strings whose origins were endless enact the deaths of great men in violence and madness. Enact the ruin of a nation.
(All the Pretty Horses, pg 231)

Reading that section, I was reminded of a bit from Suttree when he discovers the ragpicker dead (the ragpicker is probably my favorite character in Suttree):

The old man lay dim and bleared in his brass bed. Suttree leaned back in the chair and pushed at his eyes with the back of his hand. The day had grown dusk, the rain eased. Pigeons flapped up overhead and preened and crooned. The keeper of this brief vigil said that he'd guessed something of the workings in the wings, the ropes and sandbags and the houselight toggles. Heard dimly a shuffling and coughing beyond the painted drop of the world.
(Suttree, pg 421-422)

These passages are not perfectly similar by any means, but there's a very definite similarity--both referring to the world at large as a sort of show put on by a hidden higher power, both referring to someone who was able to peer "behind the curtain" and catch a glimpse of what was going on behind the scenes. Again, this sort of attitude is so characteristic of McCarthy. If I were better at philosophy I'd try to throw some of that in for effect, but I really don't know anything about philosophy, and I'd just make a fool of myself.

I mean, I do know that this is a sort of deterministic view. But both of these characters seem less in line with the idea of an actual higher power or fate controlling everyone's lives and more of the opinion that there is some sort of malevolent force just, for lack of a better term, screwing everyone over all the time. In All the Pretty Horses, she's probably talking about actual people--government higher-ups and whatever sort of shadowy people enact revolutions. In Suttree, it seems more likely that he is actually talking about some sort of higher power, given some of his earlier conversations with the ragpicker. But Suttree doesn't seem to approve of whatever higher power he may or may not credit for everything that's happened, and the ragpicker definitely wasn't a fan of the being in the sky.

Both excerpts, and both books in general (although Suttree more so), remind me of the "tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" soliloquy, which I'm sure we all know but I'll put it here anyway.

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth)

I think if you'd asked Suttree, he probably would have agreed that life seemed like a tale told by an idiot.