First of all, I’ve been away far too long, considering Windows 7 (with which I have a love/hate relationship) makes it so easy to write on my blog – no signing in, no selecting the blog I want. Despite the ease, work has really picked up for me, and I hope it stays that way, but it makes me realize how leisurely was my career before March/April rolled in, and how exhausting it is to run every aspect of your own business with more than 1 client at a time!
Then there’s the wedding. We are moving closer to booking entertainment, if I haven’t scared off the musician we like with bridezilla requests. I also have confirmed a dressmaker, and need only get fabric and nail down the shape I want.
Then there’s the volunteer work, which Fiance does not condone in the least. I will have to cut back on volunteering if my business picks up any more, so let’s hope for it! In the meantime, I’ve been tutoring once a week (which ends in June) and I will be blogging for a literacy non-profit’s upcoming annual fundraiser (which I will miss because it is the day before our Big Day).
And then there’s the liquid cash flow job, a.k.a. bartending 2 nights a week, a huge improvement from the last server position, but still a distraction…though often a good distraction, because after my day job, I can relax a bit even though I’m working…there’s no use crying over a spilled Manhattan, after all.
Can you tell my usual joie de vivre is absent? Fatigued, I guess. Wishing the clouds would clear and the temperature would rise for good and allow me to relegate my winter clothes to the basement where they belong!
So, with that update, I’m ready to move on to something I am actually quite pleased with. I finally finished The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, a Michael Chabon novel ringing in at over 600 pages. While it was no Joyce or Faulkner head-scratcher, it was denser than a 600 page work of genre fiction (I can get through 700 pages of Harry Potter or Twilight in 2 days easy). Which is why I took multiple breaks lasting months at a time while reading it. Which is why my disjointed consumption probably disqualifies me from critiquing the novel. Which is fine, because there’s nothing to critique, I loved it.
The novel tells the story of Sam Clay and Joe Kavalier, cousins and partners in comic book creations in NYC during Hitler’s empire-building reign of terror throughout Europe. Joe comes from Czechoslovakia to escape persecution of the Jews and send for his family later. He moves in with Sam and they get to work inventing fantastic comic book heroes that fight Hitler and the Nazis. The first big chunk of the book covers Joe’s escape from Europe in a coffin holding his village’s golem, and the first few years of comic book creation and modest fame, along with Joe’s relationship with artist Rosa and Sammy’s relationship with a handsome actor who plays the radio part of their most popular character, the Escapist. The second chunk of the book covers Joe’s struggles to get his younger brother to America, along with the lesser struggles Joe and Sammy have with the exploitative owner of their comic book creations, Sheldon Anapol (which is the only aspect of the novel I would critique – somehow this reader was unable to develop sympathy toward the protagonists regarding this storyline, while the other storylines brimmed with humanity and created a feeling of empathy)………
I have decided not to go on with a synopsis. What’s the point? Then you might not read the book, and you should read the book! Like I said, it’s good! It’s full of interesting characters, tragedy, good dialogue, funny stuff, violence, and love. What I liked most about the book was the story itself. I have a hard time reading what I consider “genre fiction,” which often tells a fascinating story but in general is poorly written. This book is well-written, as is all of Michael Chabon’s work, but it also tells an exciting story. It was full of action, things happening. “Literary fiction,” which is what I usually read, oftentimes follows the internal thought processes of characters, but contains little action, or if there is action, it is pretty typical (wife dies, someone kills someone and deals with aftermath, lots of aftermaths as a matter of fact, and people sit around thinking about stuff related to aftermaths). My point is, well-written novels equipped with fascinating and original stories are not so easy to come by, so I give this book a gold star and hope for more of its quality soon.
By the way, I heard that there is a movie in production of The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, another good one by Chabon. I can’t wait – the Jewish state of Alaska intrigues me!
I’ll come back soon, with more pep in my step.
