Resolution52 – Brian Utley & Jenny Dalton

As my birthdays come around more frequently, or so it seems, I’ve been increasingly weighed down with the feeling that time is no longer my friend.  I remember when time moved slowly and I had plenty of time to accomplish my goals.  As I get ready to turn thirty-two, I can’t help but feel the panic set in. I have yet to DJ at a radio station I founded, I haven’t even begun to run that really cool I-think-I’ll be-young-and-hip-forever record shop, I haven’t saved the world, or opened an orphanage, and I’m certainly not the JD Salinger of my time. My mortality seems to loom as the years go by, and I am unable to stop it. But, despite these failures, I continue to read.

Rachman’s, “the imperfectionists” (aptly, the title is not capitalized) is a series of short stories following a group of mostlyAmericans, all connected by one thing; a small floundering newspaper in Rome.  Each character is defined by their position at the newspaper and the perfection that is required to work there, although the focus is the imperfections that surround their personal lives and the concessions they make for themselves, their lives, goals and relationships.  Although you only get a glimpse into each life, it’s enough.  You quickly realize the same perfectionism that is demanded in each character’s work atmosphere is not mirrored in their personal lives, which, seems to make it that much harder for them to accept.  Rachman has a unique way of making you sympathize and personalize with each of his characters. Though I had little in common with any, I went away understanding and even respecting the decisions and lives of each in their search for personal happiness.

Ironically, for me, inspiration came in the form of Herman Cohen, the corrections editor, who puts out a staff article every week, called “Why?” (an article detailing the staffs most recent and unforgivable literary mistakes), who also has compiled a style guide called “The Bible” currently containing 18,238 words and phrases journalists should never use, and who is often heard yelling out the word, “Credibility!” while making jabbing gestures into the air.  The character who is in the most obvious demand of most literal perfection in the work place, makes no such demand of himself or others in his personal life or otherwise (he can’t even bring himself to correct his grandchildren’s grammar). At work he is forceful, demanding, and respected, while at home, he is humble, loved, and grateful.  He’s content in a perfectly ordinary, happy life that I’m not sure it ever occurred to him to expect.  Even at the end, when he was too entranced with his grandchildren to write that novel he always thought he’d write, there was not a flicker of regret.  In his grandchildren, he had found something better than his previous ideal.

The thing is this; ordinary is subjective.  Ten years ago my idea of ordinary was very different than it is today. So what if I’m thirty-two and haven’t made my “mark” on the world? The long and short is this: My ordinary life, filled with children that I adore (mostly when they’re sleeping), a partner whom I love, admire and who inspires me every single day, family and friends who make my life rich and full and who give me more of a sense of accomplishment in thirty-two years than I could have hoped for, are to me, anything but ordinary. Like any life, I too have regrets. But, regretting that I was born tone deaf and will never sing alongside Jon Bon Jovi in a concert put on in my honor for the inspiring work I’ve done fighting for animal rights coupled with the banning of cell phones in movie theaters, isn’t keeping me up at night anymore. Because in reading this book, instead of being critical of life unexpected, I’m more sympathetic, understanding, and grateful for it.

2012, Book Thoughts, Book Updates Jenny Dalton, the imperfectionists, tom rachman

I finished last night’s book in that single sitting, something I attribute to the setting. I don’t think I need to go into too much detail about reading A Movable Feast and how much pleasure it gave me. I sat in the front room and for five hours lived in Paris and experienced what Hemingway was experiencing. Not to mention F. Scott Fitzgerald. I may be in Paris, for real, a week from today. We’ll see.

Part of the fun was that I was reading an actual book, with pages and a cover and everything. I wasn’t reading the Kindle. There is a stark difference, maybe not too stark as I didn’t fully recognize it before (although I’ve spoken of “the feeling” before), but when you are reading a bound book you always have a sense of physical depth. You know without even looking how far you are into the book. You know how much you have left to read, and you know in rough approximation what should be happening so that the book ends nice and tidy. Of course, this was a memoir so the ending wasn’t one of resolution. But that is something, one of many things, that you miss when you read from the Kindle.

I love the turning of the page, the imperceptible thinning of the book you hold on the right side and growth of the book on the left. You turn the page and the thickness in your hands doesn’t seem to change, though you know it has. The weight of the book shifts a hundredth of an ounce at a time until you’ve moved the entire book without a thought of it.

I woke up this morning with nothing but my Kindle and nothing to read. When I don’t have something to read I get anxious, and I had no desire to read from my Kindle. So I went down to my library and tried to see something that I may have overlooked and had put aside for a different time. Not all books are meant for all times.

I came across a book that I’ve had for a few years but have never opened. It even had a book plate in it with my name in what appears to be my sister’s handwriting. I don’t recall when I received the book, Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. It was awarded the Pulitzer in 2004 so I received it around that time and in hardcover. It’s a first edition but I don’t know if that means anything since I imagine after the award several thousand more were sent to press.

I’m well into the book now, reading it in bits and pieces throughout today as I go about being a Dad, and I’ve meant to email my sister to thank her for the book (as upon further thought I only have one sister that gives books such as this).

While I feel I can write reasonably well I’m not a prolific emailer. In fact, I loathe email, the informal nature and the instant regret I feel when sending something that wasn’t properly thought out. And of course you can’t be too formal in an email, it throws the conversational nature of the medium off-kilter. So without being able to be formal, and a distaste for correspondence that is loose-tongued, I’m stuck, and emails seem to fly around with me tagging along as a CC participant and while I rarely jump in, I do enjoy reading them. So Sis, thanks for the book, and for your ability to write great emails that everyone enjoys.

Now begins Gilead, book #43.

Book Thoughts, Book Updates A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson

The only other book I’ve read of his is Empire Falls, which was obviously really good and earned him the Pulitzer in 2002. I downloaded a sample of That Old Cape Magic on the Kindle which is a really great feature. Previewing books before you buy them? Incredible. Oh wait, the library has been doing that for centuries.

I’ve been thinking about 2010 already. I’ve actually been thinking about next year for a couple months now, wondering if I’ll continue or not, wondering about another 52 and if that’s a good idea, that sort of thing. I have some thoughts but I’m still refining them. I’m thinking of taking a more thematic approach to reading. Only Pulitzers, or only Nobel winning authors, things of that sort. I don’t know exactly what I’ll do, if anything, but it’s on my mind. It’s not like TV is going to have a big turnaround next year and get more attention from me.

Book #39, NurtureShock is officially a drag. I’ll continue it, but I’m going to double-up until it’s completed so it may take me a few weeks. As long as I’m reading something else while I trudge through it, I’ll be ok to finish up on time.

Book Updates

I was fishing this weekend. I don’t fish. The last time I fished was 22 years ago, and it was the only time. Not surprisingly, I didn’t catch a thing, except for the Steinbeck bug.

So I’m in this pontoon boat and I’ve been fishing for a few hours. And by “fishing” I mean seeing how far I can cast my line and doing that over and over again without regard to the act of fishing as I’d lost my bait about 20 minutes earlier and didn’t really care because it didn’t effect my distance… So I’d been doing that for a while and I started thinking about Monterey and Steinbeck and thinking about reading. At the lake the leaves were changing and it was barely raining and it felt like Fall for the first time this year and Fall in Utah reminds me of every season in Northern California, so there you have the Fishing-Steinbeck connection in rough outline.

I’m only about 50 pages through NurtureShock and at that particular time it wasn’t appealing to put my pole down and dive into a book about caring for children. I was in the outdoors! So I started reading Steinbeck because he writes so well about the California outdoors, and has that Monterey flavor at times, so thus began book #40, Of Mice and Men. A rare doubling-up of books as I’m still on book #39, NurtureShock.

Week #40 ends on October 3.

Book Updates john steinbeck, Of Mice and Men

I’m through with The Fountainhead. Finally. This behemoth took me far too long. And I didn’t particularly like it at all. Probably the least enjoyable read so far this year. I will speak no more of it. On to E.L. Doctorow now, and Homer & Langley. Almost halfway through now, so far, so decent.

Book Updates el doctorow, homer & langley, homer and langley

I went to Barnes & Noble today to pick up a new book. This is a rarity and today it became clear why that is so. I have Amazon Prime, so I don’t pay for shipping from Amazon, I have a Kindle also. So when I started browsing books at B&N I found it very hard to rationalize spending $24.99 for a new (or old) hardcover book. How are these stores still in business? I can buy 2 books for my Kindle for roughly $5.00 cheaper than 1 hardcover book at B&N or Borders (in some cases). You are basically a sucker if you are buying books from brick & mortar stores these days.

I used to enjoy the retail bookstore experience. But with the onset of “Web 2.0″ it is becoming a much more enjoyable shopping experience at Amazon.com, or through the Kindle store on my Kindle or even my iPhone. There simply isn’t a reason for me go to a bookstore an longer. And that isn’t a sad thing.

I’m still finishing The Fountainhead, probably a couple days away. I finished book #37 before book #36, which makes things wonky, but I’m on track. Today I purchased two books which are a fourth the size of The Fountainhead so I should start and finish those in the next week. The two new books are Homer and Langley, by E.L. Doctorow and NurtureShock, by Po Bronson, both look great.

Book Updates el doctorow, homer and langley, nurtureshock, po bronson