OM had a random midweek blog post a few weeks ago. (Cool Buckyball, btw.) I'm probably not going to do that, ever. It's hard enough for me to plow thru 12p of FW, then howevermany pages of Tindall, then blog about it all and sound coherent. If I have passably intelligent insights between posts, I'm sure as shit gonna save them for next time. I'm actually working one on Vico and Bruno for a week when I have nothing to say about the text or the guide. This isn't that week.
Why? Because I don't have my books, and I can't even read. Ugh. I'll spare you the details of my socalledlife, but I'm away from home every Wednesday. Sucks. This particular Wednesday, I had to work-work. Actually, I've had to work during commutes and over weekends and at night for a few weeks. At some point, I took FW and Tindall out of my backpack to make room for a pile of important papers. That pile has gone back and forth with me every day this week, and didn't cough up its spot. Or I didn't remember to put the books on top of the papers. Which really sucks because I finished my work-work early enough to actually catch up tonight (OM is on a Sunday-Sunday schedule, and I've slipped to a Wednesday-Wednesday schedule - don't worry, O, I'm still here), and didn't remember that I flaked. It was the bright spot I expected after a long, trying day, and it wasn't there.
Anyway. I'll do 12p tomorrow, and, hopefully, get back here. In the meantime (like anybody but you is reading, O, lol - kinda cute to frame things for an "audience"), no abstract title and no cool header image. Here's my kid story, now that OM's done two.
My youngest son (8 y.o.) is fascinated by this book, and my older son (11 y.o.) is not. I read them an excerpt (sort of inspired by Chabon's piece that I mentioned a few weeks ago) recently because they had noticed FW and Tindall on the dining room table, and asked what's up with that, and if I had finally quit on DFW's Infinite Jest (um, no). Anyway, here's the somewhat edited exchange:
Me: Hardest book evah. [I talk to them like bros - or, actually, like Mordecai and Rigby from the Regular Show - sometimes.]
11: What do you mean? [He's thru the Hunger Games and almost thru the Harry Potter books, and page length is a major concern.]
8: Yeah, what do you mean? [Echoing happens.]
Me: Hardest novel written in the English language, let's say. Because it's not actually in English.
8: What??
11: Dad, read some to us!!
We read aloud alot, various stuff (right now it's this and this), so I did. Just a paragraph, using the best phonetic pronunciation I could for JJ's words. 11 tuned out, which is fine and cool and age-appropriate; 8 freaked out, which is also fine and cool and something besides age-appropriate. 11 is a reader, and loves fiction. 8 is a self-described non-fiction guy, ha. And hearing what JJ did to the language that he fought so hard to learn - tbh, not that many years ago - blew his shiny mind. Not necessarily in a good way. It's kid-specific, I guess. But he said that he wants to read "a few pages" soon. Go for it, kid. You might understand more than me.
Peace,
JF
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