So I Guess I'm not a Fan of Realism

I think about Alma Katsu's The Taker. It has made an impression. I love the beginning; Lanny is so cool. But then she twists and turns into something icy, and flippant, smoking doobies. Ugh. The story descends to a point where there are no heroes or heroines and I feel disappointed. I didn't know I wanted one so much.

But then I remember seeing Farewell My Concubine so many years ago in that funky old theater on West Gray, the one down the street from Birraporettis. Yeah, me and my best friend were into foreign flicks, but we sat through that whole film, I think it was almost three hours, flabbergasted as Cheng Dieyi's life starts out bad and then gets worse and then at the end unbelievably sinks to new lows.

Later when we went to the coffee shop to hang out with the guys who weren't so into subtitles, Estella and I tried to explain to them what we had seen. We looked at each other across the table and laughed hysterically. There were no words for the trauma we had just endured in the name of art.

So I guess I'm not a fan of realism.

Anyway...that is what the Taker felt like. You keep reading cause Katsu's storytelling abilities are pretty wicked, but in the end...you feel like the foulness of that nasty alchemist is hanging in the air all around you and you just want to get rid of it...open all the windows even if its nineteen degrees outside.

There was a time in my life when darkness attracted me. Everything damaged perverse and corrupt had a compelling draw. But it was in that same theater on West Gray, I think I was watching Tous les Matins du Monde, and I realized that period of my life had ended. I wanted light. I craved it needed it wanted to suck it into all the cracks and chasms that some part of life had left broken and shadowed.

Yeah, so now I read The Taker and wonder WTF was I thinking? Putting in a library request for The Reckoning.

I'll have to blame it on Katsu's ability to hypnotize.

There's Too Much Blueberry Jam on That Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich

I read Adair's tale in The Taker as I put down the book I can't help but think of Louis in Interview With the Vampire—a pantheon of overwhelmed men taken by immortality.

It's all so gothic.
So much sex and lust expressed sideways, squeezing out the sides like too much blueberry jam on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
You just want to lick it all off.

Lanny is getting lost in the shuffle, maybe she will resurface.
I hope so.
She's the character I like.

I have to go read...

I am reading the The Taker by Alma Katsu and I am falling in love. You know. Sometimes that happens when you read. Something happens between you and the words and the story and the characters and that's what it feels like: falling in love. I have to stop reading and all day I am thinking: I want to get back to that story. I am like the doctor. I want to find out what is happening between Lanore and Jonathan.

I think it is Lanore's frankness.
She just pulls you in and you want to know: Where is this going?

I really can't write anymore.
I have to go read ...

No one has said "Blessed Be" yet...

Spending the last few days of vacation with my nose in a book. More accurate to say my nose pressed against an LCD screen. Experiment. Makes me cross-eyed. You get the picture. Lots of Kindle Swag. Lots of reading.

Right now, I'm glued to New England Witch Chronicles by Chelsea Bellingeri.

One of the first research papers I ever wrote was about Mass Hysteria and the Salem Witch Trials. All those bored, crazy women trapped by long short-dayed east-coast winters listening to ghost stories. Sigh. Who knows what really happened, but I love all the conjecture. And most of the time when I hear Salem Witch Trials, my eyebrows lift with interest.

I peek around the shelves..."You were saying?"

So group psyche and the loss of individuality within the group, well, that's all in my wheelhouse, too,  and Alexandria Ramsey is my kinda' girl. Independent. 

The writing is smooth. It's the kind of writing where you don't know you're reading. None of this drowning in metaphor soup, where you feel like unnecessary words are dribbling down your chin like broth, and you constantly have to wipe them away to keep them from staining your jammies--cause you're reading in bed, right?

I like the pace, the dialogue, and Peter. 

I like that no one has said "Blessed Be" yet.