"World enough, and time"

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
San Francisco: MacAdam/Cage, 2003

I need to take a break from these books that put me through some kind of emotional washing machine. (Or dryer?) I'm tired, y'all. I'm not saying it's not worth it, but it's getting to be a little much.

There really isn't any way to discuss the things I'd want to discuss in this post without engaging in all sorts of spoilers. And even though the book has been around for years, and the movie was released this summer, and how many people read this anyway?, I like trying to avoid spoilers.

Clare's and Henry's is a love story unlike any I think I've ever seen. He eight years older than she, but she meets him when she is six, and he doesn't meet her until he's 28. It's kind of remarkable, the way it all works out. Because she's in love with him by the time she meets him in real time, but if she weren't in love with his older self, and if she didn't know that's how things would be, would she have loved him? Maybe we're not supposed to dwell on this, and it doesn't really matter because their love is really quite something. But it's evidence of how little control they have - in so many ways - over their destiny. You have to act as though you have free will, but the result is predetermined anyway, and you know this, because Henry's been there, or a future Henry has come back and told you, or given you enough hints. It's dizzying. And puts that metaphysical question in stark relief.

I found myself wondering about Niffenegger's writing process, and how she managed to keep everything straight, since the novel runs in roughly chronological time (but of course Clare's chronology doesn't quite match Henry's, to say the least) and things that happen before also happen after. The decisions about whether to share a moment as it appears in Clare's life or in Henry's... again: dizzying. Before I began reading, a coworker who had just seen the movie asked to borrow the book to check something. She then returned it saying that she was just going to need to read the whole thing over. And I understand - there are moments I'd like to return to, to re-experience or to check for hints - and I don't know really how I would find them. Some are easy, but others would be require essentially rereading large swaths. (This is a real problem with Infinite Jest as well. Even more of a problem there in fact.)

So I regret nothing. But I'm going to try to take a break from books that leave me bruised and battered. Suggestions?

Nothing lasts forever, not even an Infinite Summer

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace
Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1996

I finished the book three weeks ago, but wasn't ready to write about it, to really be finished with it. But it seems like there's no better day that on the first anniversary of Wallace's death to take a stab at wrapping up my time with the novel. For now anyway. I won't try to memorialize DFW here, since Infinite Summer (and others, I am sure) have already done a far better job of that. But know he's been very much on my mind.

But the novel. My book is battered and bruised. It was a little roughed up before, since it was a borrowed used copy. But now I'm a little embarrassed to give it back. I also don't want to have to return it. This is the physical copy that I read. That means something. (I also feel this way about my copy of Fall of a Sparrow, which is why I spurned my mom's gift of a nice hardback edition.)

I have run my mind ragged trying to figure out what happened and what it all means. I'd come close to an epiphany, and then it would shimmer and disappear. And that's okay. I don't really mind anymore. I'll read it again someday, and maybe I'll see something new. I'm sure I will see something new. But it won't offer all the answers either.

I mainly just read and read. And didn't stop and note funny quotes or moments that I particularly wanted to go back to. So when I did write on my bookmark, you would figure those moments would be important. And they are, except now I look at them and I don't know what I wanted to say. What I do know is that they are all about Hal. Hal through the lens of Mario. Hal and sadness and irony and and Avril's awesome definition of existential ("vague and slightly flaky"). And Hal & Mario talking almost past each other.

'I feel like you always tell me the truth. You tell me when it's right to.'
'Marvelous.'
'I feel like you're the only one who knows when it's right to tell. I can't know for you, so why should I be hurt.'
'Be a fucking human being for once, Boo. I room with you and I hid it from you and let you worry and be hurt that I was trying to hide it.'
'I wasn't hurt. I don't want you to be sad.'
'You can get hurt and mad at people, Boo. News-flash at almost fucking nineteen, kid. It's called being a person. You can get mad at somebody and it doesn't mean they'll go away.'

It's so.... it's too big to talk about. I wish I could, and it makes me crazy a little that I can't. If I had specific questions to answer - if this were an essay exam where someone asked me something like "Compare and contrast the archetypal roles that mother- and father-figures play for the main characters" I would have something to say. But to just try to get over 1000 pages into a single post, or even several posts, it's too much.

I really hate the term WASP

...And in fact, that is probably my biggest gripe with this book.

Mating Rituals of the North American WASP - Lauren Lipton
New York: 5 Spot, 2009

I definitely did not expect to find myself so wrapped up in this book. I mean, it's a "oops, we accidentally got married in Vegas and now are going to pretend the marriage is legit for some ridiculous reason" chick lit plot. But I read a good review of it somewhere, and I was still adrift after finishing Infinite Jest (a post I still can't bring myself to write), so here it was.

And I have to say, I kind of loved it. I'm not sure why. I didn't love the characters, but then, I liked them much better when they were with one another. And maybe that's the hallmark of a good romance. And the whole poem thing is kinda awesome. Actually, the poetry may have been the key. I am a sucker for books that quote Yeats. And then the snippets of verse that lodge themselves inside Luke's head... I walked around with them too. "An aphrodisiac will disappear, delusional, like permanence or wealth" and especially "staid genes worked hot from your electric charms." In the cursed heat and smoke of late August, these lines hung in the air around me.

Or maybe it wasn't the poetry, or the love story, but rural Connecticut and old money. Snow is mighty appealing when you are starting to think that you may never not be too hot again. Or maybe I'm reliving a chapter of my youth; as my mom said to me last weekend, haven't I already done the Connecticut WASPy thing? Oh, but believe me, he was not Luke.

Whatever it was, the novel demanded my attention. And refused to let me go. And that was it.