Summer reading

As I am a working (??) girl, part time student, fulltime mom and overtime complainer, I haven’t got much reading done the last couple of winters. I think it is mostly because of my studies; I simply feel guilty if I read anything else than my study books. Last winter went with keeping my French grammar book in my hands and empty staring in the air. For my big surprise this empty staring in the air gave the same results as if I actually had been reading the book these thousands of hours.

But the studies over, I had the whole summer ahead with more inspiring literature. In the beginning of the summer I got finished Orhan Pamuk’s “Snow” (or with JB’s title rewriting “Violence, adultery and heavy drinking amongst Turkish Muslims”). This is a beautiful story of the melancholic poet Ka and his incapability of being happy. Almost 500 pages covering just a few days’ happenings and not being boring for one second. THIS MAN DESERVES MY LOVE. The opposite of Pamuk is Jean M.Auel who was very popular in my teenage years. She wrote hundreds of pages about nothing; she could describe how a tree looked like for 60 pages. And not enough with describing the tree while Ayla was standing in front of it, when Ayla passed it and had a look at the tree again, there was a new 60 pages description of how the tree looked like from the new angle. At this point I tried to kill myself, but managed only to kill the neighbor’s cat when it got hit by the “The Clan of the Cave Bear”.

Yes, Orhan Pamuk is probably the love of my life that I haven’t met in person yet. And when he one day comes along, I must tell him that he is one husband and two kids late, but we could have been so happy together. Then he will write his second Nobel winning novel about his unfilled and unfortunate love for me.

After Pamuk, I went back to classics and read Gorki’s “In the world” (with JB’s title rewriting “Violence, adultery and heavy drinking amongst Russians”) which is the second part of his self biographical trilogy. It was very poorly translated; the language wasn’t that simple and beautiful I remember Gorki for, but there were the same, totally unsentimental reflections on the horrors of life. And again I have to discuss the existentialism with Sartre. It can never be enough that one just “defines himself”, there must be a lot of predetermined essence, and this essence (= talent) is certainly more important than the existence. Gorki became a great author DESPITE the poor odds in his childhood, not due to that. You agree, Jean-Paul ?

I shouldn’t read bestsellers or see any blockbuster movies as I always get disappointed (I never understood the hype about “Rain Man” or “Titanic”). My next book was Khaled Hosseini’s “A thousand splendid suns”, and yes, I cried a lot while reading it, but stood afterwards with a very empty feeling. It was just too much, a real Hollywood thing that Danish has a good word for; FØLELSESPORNO. This is a book that most certainly has been "the book of the month" at Oprah’s book club (no offence Oprah, and now that I have your attention, did you like the last manuscript I sent you?). There was not a misery that Mariam and Laila didn’t go through; I was almost expecting a meteorite to hit Kabul in the end but then it hadn’t had the Hollywood happy ending.

In the end of the summer I run out of my favorite literature, Madame Figaro, and longed to read something more in French. I found Albert Camus’ “L’Étranger” in my book shell; I must have bought it for hundreds of years ago in Greece as it had the price tag of 700 drachmas on it. What a bargin ! Camus, were you a very unhappy man; did you ever really love anyone? Mersault’s indifference freaks me out, and I don’t think that anybody can write about this kind of state of mind not having felt the same way. JB, help me out here! You could send me YOUR book about Camus, and in return I will dedicate my first book “Ex Nihilo Nihil Fit” to you. Please, a signed copy of your first edition. When you become a world famous author, I will sell my copy to a horny middle-aged millionairess and buy some more shoes.