Wally

This afternoon I wrapped up Brief Interviews With Hideous Men by David Foster Wallace. I experienced a lot of impatience as I was flipping through the last couple of pages; I just wanted the book to be over. This is perhaps one of my least favorite emotions involved with reading. I very rarely choose to not finish a book, despite how annoying I find it. I suppose it’s my need for closure. I don’t want a whole bunch of ‘unfinished business’ out there.

Anyway, I was ready for the book to end. Not because it was a bad book or that I didn’t like it. In fact, neither are true. I guess I just felt frustrated with some

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parts of the book and was ready for the sense of accomplishment I had been without for the entirety of the paperback.

Brief Interviews is a compilation of essays that…see even here I can’t pinpoint exactly what they all had in common. If I were to go solely by the title I would generalize the motif by concluding the book is about inadequacies of men and their nature toward the perverse, hurtful, shameful, neglectful, or foul. By saying that, however, I would be sorely misrepresenting the book. I know it is about more than that, but I am having trouble gathering my thoughts.

One essay, titled “The Depressed Person,” relates the tale of a woman (see, not even a man!) who is fiercely depressed. She drags down everyone in her Support System and interrupts their lives to try to analyze her own. She even seems to think she drove her therapist to suicide. And after the therapists untimely death, can’t help but wonder if the woman (the therapist) even liked her. Another essay “Tri-Stan: I Sold Sissee Nar to Ecko” is a weird modern-day Greek parable, whose message completely eluded me. Halfway through I gave up and went to the next essay when I realized I had absolutely no clue what was happening and no desire to try to work it out.

To be fair, there were essays  I liked. Despite the underlying sadness, and slight bizarreness of “Adult World (I)” and “(II),” I thought these stories presented an intimate look at what marriage can look like when you’ve settled in and gotten over the newness of it all. It didn’t hurt that these two were more reader-friendly and included notes by the author to help guide the reader along.

Though I was happy to finish the book I’m glad I read it. It’s a completely different idea of what fiction is and what it can do. I’ve read a non-fiction piece by Wallace as well, Consider the Lobster. While this book had it’s tough moments (he does a comparison piece on dictionaries), I thought it was more accessible than Brief Interviews. What I’m really excited for is the hunk I picked up today at the bookstore, Infinite Jest. According to the literary world, this book brought fiction to a new level and defied what it meant to be a contemporary fiction author. It is unlike anything ever before, and all that have tried to simulate its genius are sorry excuses for the original.

This 1,000+ page novel is not to be devoured. I won’t speed through it like I do so many other books. I’m giving myself one month to tackle it. I’m embracing and looking forward to the challenge. Plus, I’m going to need something to fill up my time in February…

 

Blizzard of Oz

I wish I could claim the title as my own. Unfortunately, I am neither quick nor Kansas-enthused enough for that. It works, however for the purpose of this post.

Yesterday was a steady stream of snow, starting as little tiny flakes coming down in a thick layer, and moving to bigger, chunkier flakes coming down in a thick layer. Looking in the backyard right now it’s hard to tell what our actual accumulation was because of the heavy winds yesterday, but I would say we are somewhere around the ten inch mark. Not bad for a Kansas City “blizzard.”

When Mom and I went to the store on Sunday we stocked up in the event of being snowed-in, which for all intents and purposes happened. I knew a hearty dish was key for such an event and found a “stick-to-your-ribs” recipe in the Ina Garten cookbook I got for Christmas. Weeknight Bolognese* is the perfect meal for a night like last, when you have nothing to do but hunker down, get cozy, eat as much as possible, and watch movies.

Just seeing something like this bubbling on the stove,

and turning around and seeing this gem opening up on the counter,

got me super psyched to sit down and dig in.

 

*I couldn’t find the exact recipe online, but you can definitely find something comparable that I’m sure will be just as delicious.