Summertime Reading

One of the great joys of retirement is reading anything and everything as long as you can possibly manage to stay awake.  I am a reader but, for me, it’s better than any sleeping aid.  I’m just wont to nod off…unless it’s something like Fifty Shades of Grey, which at first was a page turner but, quite frankly, was a giant bore after the first few chapters.

It’s summer time.  And, I kid you not practically every night this house is tuned into baseball.  Buff Honey can read the paper with the game on but I require quiet for reading.  Plus, I can’t watch TV without doing something simultaneously, which is usually playing Mahjongg or doing Sudoku puzzles online.  Both of which I consider a huge waste of time but rationalize it by believing I’m staving off dementia.

As you are well aware, BH loves, loves, loves his Orioles.  But what you probably don’t know is his distaste for the Washington Nationals.  “Too full of themselves.”  “Terrible bullpen.”  “Poor decision-making by the manager.”  Most of the time, they’re on at the same time so he’s switching back and forth cheering on the O’s and rooting against the Nats.  A great night is when the O’s win and the Nats lose.  Primarily, they both lose deflating the season’s high expectations.

After the game, I usually take off to the coolest room in the house, our bedroom, to read.  Such a queue I have.  I am in this new thing where I use Overdrive to download books on my Kindle from the Maryland Library system.  The problem is I’m forever waiting for the hordes in front of me to finish the books on my ‘bookshelf.’  Currently, I’m waiting for Circling the Sun by Paula McLain and The Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffmann.  In the meantime, what to read??

Of course, there’s always the movies.  Unfortunately, summer generally does not present choices I’m dying to get out there to see.  A little better this summer, though.  A couple of weeks ago, I had an appointment with the dentist so, afterwards, I rewarded myself by going to The Charles in Baltimore to see a couple of 4-star documentaries:  Listen to Me Marlon and Amy.
Must sees….there’s probably gone by now sadly enough.

Then, I saw The End of the Tour, an account of the five day long interview of David Foster Wallace by David Lipsky, then reporter for Rolling Stone.  Fascinating.  I didn’t even know who David Foster Wallace was at the time, although the name was vaguely familiar.  The End of the Tour is literally the end of the book tour in 1996 for Wallace’s tome, Infinite Jest, an intricate story of a young tennis player in a future North America that spans multiple themes, which one must read with a guide.  Time included it in its top 100 books from 1923-2005.

The movie was adapted from Lipsky’s book:  Although Of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself:  A Road Trip with David Foster Wallace.  I whisper-synced it via Amazon.  Next, I ordered the paperback version of DFW’s essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again.  Both of which I am still reading.

Lipsky’s book?  Mainly verbatim conversations on a myriad of subjects which highlight DFW’s disdain of being in the spotlight and aversion to cynicism.  The interview never was published by Rolling Stone, having been upstaged by a rock star’s untimely death and a heated political season.

DFW?  Seven essays ranging from the esoteric treatment  of television and its effects good and bad.  DFW was a relentless addict.  Now, I’m reading a hysterical essay on being sent by Harper’s magazine to cover the Illinois State Fair.  I am in complete awe of his writing style, his command of language.  Yes, I need to keep a dictionary next to me.

I also ordered Infinite Jest, its 1,079 pages sitting on my coffee table waiting my digestion.  First, I need to read a little more to inure myself to his style.  It takes thoughtful reading….obviously, not happening during the O’s game.  I figure, though, I read Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch with its nearly 900 pages, I can take on Infinite Jest.

The tragedy is the fact that DFW suffered acutely with depression.  I have no idea how he focused enough to get such extraordinary writing down on paper.  And, then, what do you write after such a huge feat at age 34?  For twelve more years, he battled on and then decided to exit at age 46.

I heard his best friend, Jonathan Franzen, interviewed the other day on NPR.  Evidently, he’s starting the tour for his new book, Purity.  Well, I’m always looking for another book to read, so I ordered his most popular one, also a Pulitzer Prize for Friction finalist, The Corrections:  A Novel.  Like I don’t have enough reading going on at the moment.

Amazon sends it.  I start reading and I’m rapt.  Fifty pages into it, I’m thinking this seems a little familiar.  By 80, I’m sure I’ve read it.  I check my Kindle and sure enough, there it is!

Can I tell you how many times I’ve done this????  I’m sure you’re thinking…it took her 80 pages to figure that out??

If I start reading Infinite Jest and it seems familiar, I’m committing myself!