Tag: books

Tuesday’s Trivia

Politics and books took over my bandwidth last week.

  1. Books are such time thieves. Writing them takes time, energy, and attention. With energy, I’m referring to intellectual, emotional, and physical energy. The effort absorbs everything. Don’t know if that’s true for other writers, but this is how it is for me.
  2. Reading books also sucks away time and energy. I read a C.J. Sanson novel last week, Tombland. Tombland isn’t a small novel, registering at eight hundred packed pages. The latest in the Matthew Shardlake series, like the other novels, I was compelled to read, almost as if I’d been cursed. The mystery is relatively thin but that is incidental to the history, period, and characters. His voice is authentic, and the characters are alive and shifting. You feel it all.
  3. But reading that book meant I was doing almost nothing else. It was that consuming. I was also trying to read it to return it to the library. It was due 10/22, but I had other books on hold. My wife also had library books to return (The Plover, and The House in the Cerulean Sea). (She’d read Tombland before me.) So I was pushing to finish to turn the books in, limiting our library visits and its potential COVID-19 exposure. They do a good job at the library, but exposure is exposure, right? Right. After returning Tombland, I returned home and had an email from the library system: they’d extended Tombland for me. Nice of them but unnecessary.
  4. I recommend Tombland. This particular novel swirled around murders in Norfolk in 1549. Somerset was the Lord Protector for the young king. It being England and that era, politics around rights for the common people the Kett Rebellion, differences in the church (Protestants vs. Catholics), power struggles among lords and ladies (including Edward’s sisters), and enclosures – fencing off common land that set aside for animal crazy. All the sinister and cynical conniving among the wealthy to increase their power and wealth, and their attitude toward the lower classes, and the subservience expected from the upper classes strikes amazing similarities to what’s happening in the United States in this century.
  5. Tombland was a fresh reminder of what England endured and how they prevailed and developed as a democracy. Turmoil and bloodshed are occurring in the U.S., but not at the levels seen in England at that time. I want to add, yet. It may come to that.
  6. The monstrous poverty and homelessness of the era also brought out sharp comparisons to here and now in America. It provided rich fodder for heavy thinking.
  7. Of course, reading a book that I enjoy helps inform the novel that I’m writing. Nothing I read made me want to tear up my manuscript (or delete it) or start anew. It did inspire nuances and new flavors to fold into the blend, and of course, fuel up the need to sit down and write.
  8. The skunk and I (and my wife) continue our non-violent confrontation. I don’t want the skunk to go under the house to live; the skunk wants to. I’m not a violent person, and love animals. Watching the skunk (and studying it through the window as it emerges at night) gives more appreciation to who it is. Yet, I know it’s damaging our foundation, insulation, and weather barrier. I empathize with the little critter, though. It’s a tough life out there, and it’s only trying to exist as I’m trying to exist. It certainly has the same rights as me.
  9. I blame some of my sympathy to the skunk to the Netflix documentary, My Octopus Teacher. A wonderful love story, it revealed standard details the octopus and its tough existence. Naturally, after watching it, I transferred the octopus’ struggles to ‘my’ skunk. There is a difference between the octopus and skunk: the octopus isn’t invading ‘my’ territory. Anyone can argue, the skunks were there first, and that I’m the trespasser. I know; that doesn’t make my job dealing with the skunk any easier.
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The Library Dream

Randy and I were going to the library. Randy is a friend who died of colon cancer five years ago. He was a few months older than me.

In the dream, he was the Randy I always knew, although he was driving a black Mustang GT, which is unlike Randy. When, in the dream, we got out of the car, I said, “I like that car. I’ve rented one three times now, although they were the next generation. All of them were white. One was a convertible.”

Randy said, “I know, you told me.”

We went into the library. It was a modern brick and glass building. They’d called me to fix something there. Randy was just giving me a ride. Then he and I were going off to have a beer.

In the library, I sought the head librarian. She gave me blueprints. They were highlighted by supports that I needed to fix. She went off immediately. As I studied the blueprints, Randy asked, “Why are they having you do this?”

I replied, “I’ve done it before, and they know that, I guess.”

Studying the prints and the building, I found where the supports were to be fixed. But as I studied the situation, I decided that what they intended wouldn’t work.

Off I went to find the head librarian.

She was in another section with a man, working on fixing something else. Seeing me, the man said, “Oh, just fix it.”

Showing them the blueprints, I explained to them what I thought was wanted and why I didn’t think they’d work.

The head librarian said, “Well, you’ll have to take it up with him. He’s the one that sent the plans down. I’m just a messenger.”

I’m like, “Who is him? How do I get old of him?”

But the librarian was ignoring me.

I went off again to reconsider the supports and the fix. I remained convinced that they wouldn’t work.

People started entering the library. Some event was going on. Randy and I found books and then sat down to read, along with dozens of others. Most were men.

A woman introduced a man. The man, small and dark, began speaking. I stopped reading to listen to him but he was speaking so softly, I couldn’t hear and understand him.

Randy kept reading. Seeing that, the man walked over and handed Randy a card, and then walked away. He was still talking but I couldn’t hear him.

Holding up the card, Randy said, “What’s this? Let me take my glasses off.” He couldn’t do that because he had a book in his hand. He handed me the card. I read, “See what you’re missing when you don’t listen?” on it. Randy took his glasses off, handed them to me, and took the card. As he read the card and I held his glasses, I realized that my palms were sweating and his glass lenses were getting wet and smudged.

I apologized to Randy as I handed his glasses back. That’s where the dream ended.

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Flooftagonist

Flooftagonist (floofinition) – The animal who is the principal character in a work of fiction.

In use: “Enzo, a dog, is the flooftagonist in The Art of Racing in the Rain, a novel about a man’s life, and the dog’s role in his relationships.”

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Book Light

She loved reading books, and not just reading them, but researching what to read next, talking about her reads with her friends and family, and prowling book stores with her book list in her hand. Non-fiction, fantasy, young adult, historic novels, mysteries…they were all on her list. She read everyday, often reading four or five books a week. Finding a new author that she enjoyed was her greatest pleasure.

Then her mother died, her mother, who’d always encouraged her to read, introducing her to The Three Detectives series and Nancy Drew Mysteries, her mother, whose idea of a day out was taking her girls to the public library, where each was allowed to check out one book.

With her mother gone, she no longer wanted to read. It was like her book light had gone out, and would not come back on.

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