Monk

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“Does it hurt very much?”

Her answer was simple and honest. “Yes.”

“Is that the hardest you've ever been whipped?”

She turned her head to look at him, and her hair flowed like enchanted gold between sculpted shoulder blades. The instant was so beautiful that Charlie forgot to breathe until she'd turned away again.

“Not by a long way,” she said. “You could have gone further, if you wanted. You could have gone as far as you liked. That's what I'm for.”

-- "Spike Trap" by Han Li Thorn

Ah, that sounds so promising, doesn't it? And it is true that this is what we call a rereadable, which is not readily true for erotica, since it is so pointed in purpose and it is hard to get something that scratches your most particular itch. This does a good enough job, but the bottom really falls out as the novel lands square in safe politically correct territory.

It is not "Story of O," which goes to show that only a woman can write erotica with an uncompromising misogynist air, and maybe nobody can really do so in these days of feminist enlightenment.

Mind you, Monk is all for egalitarianism, totally and absolutely. But can one not be allowed to be a male chauvinist pig in the realms and media of fantasy!?

xXx

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The King is backing off.... He is always afraid of making a mistake. Once the first impulse is passed, he is no longer tormented by anything but the fear of having done an injustice... it seems to me that in government as in education one should not say "I will it" until one is sure of being right. But once having said it, never slack off from what you have ordered.

-- Madame Elisabeth, King Louis XVI's sister

Hindsight is 20-20. The tide of democracy was rising, and the French just may not have had as good a ground work of democratic institutions to make that transition more smoothly, in the way the English and the Americans did, relatively speaking. If Louis XVI was vacillating between paternalistic repression and idealistic cooperation with the rebellious masses and lesser aristocrats, it may be because there was just no easy way out of that historical jam, though it is also true that this king was no Abraham Lincoln or Theodore Roosevelt - and certainly not the Sun King.

After finishing the "Suicides" chapter this morning, Monk is content to put aside Schama's "Citizens" for the weekend, and to finish off the rather frenchier "Spike Trap" this afternoon. All work and no play make the primate-protagonist a dull reader.

xXx

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Monk finished rereading "The Big Sleep." God, that book goes down smooth. It is worth revisiting every few years. One of those perfect works of art.

Next on the hit-and-run parade is Han Li Thorn's "Spike Trap." This means we are loosening what was the one hard constraint on this reading. This is a first reading, but Monk is thinking that erotica novels are plotted simply enough that it is okay.

xXx

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“Whatever I do,” Valentino assures us, “however I find a way to live, I will tell these stories. ... I speak to you because I cannot help it. It gives me strength, almost unbelievable strength, to know that you are there. ... I am alive and you are alive so we must fill the air with our words. I will fill today, tomorrow, every day until I am taken back to God. I will tell stories to people who will listen and to people who don’t want to listen, to people who seek me out and to those who run. All the while I will know that you are there. How can I pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as you pretending that I do not exist.”

-- Francine Prose for The New York Times

I have only heard of Dave Eggers and have not yet read his work. It looks like I may be getting around to that with "What Is the What." In this fictionalized autobiography of a refugee from war-torn Sudan through Africa and to America, Mr. Eggers apparently fuses art with high purpose, and by this glowing book review, succeeds in every way, in both substance and fun.

( Book Review )

xXx

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“Chandler did not write about crime, or detection - as he insisted he did not. He wrote about the corruption of the human spirit, using Philip Marlowe as his disapproving angel, and he knew about it, down to the marrow.”

-- George V. Higgins

Ah, just the way I like my prose - smooth and nasty.

___ ___ ___

I liked Higgins' blurb so much that I did some quick googling and found this cutting thought of his about being a writer:

If you do not seek to publish what you have written, then you are not a writer and you never will be.

Ouch! I wonder if blogging counts. Probably not. I suppose people have to care to part with some of their money for your lays and sighs. But whatever gets you through the day.

(Source: Wikipedia)

xXx

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“Do you like Orchids?”

“Not particularly, ” I said.

The General half-closed his eyes. “They are nasty things. Their flesh is too much like the flesh of men. And their perfume has the rotten sweetness of a prostitute.”

-- "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

I have only read a few of Chandler's novels, but I imagine that this is the only one I will feel the need to come back to time and again. I think Chandler got everything he could out of the genre on this one. Even "The Long Goodbye" is a clear second.

xXx

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“Tall, aren't you?” she said.

“I didn't mean to be.”

Her eyes rounded. She was puzzled. She was thinking. I could see, even on that short acquaintance, that thinking was always going to be a bother to her.”

-- "The Big Sleep" by Raymond Chandler

Yup, Chandler will work. Why not?

So, is this what we are down to: erotica and fast-moving narratives with an attitude? The main concern is that it is probably too limiting. I do not think Monk has that many books like that.

Indeed, although "Chatterton" did not work, I no longer want to give up on more serious literature all together. Particular favorites in which Monk really likes to lose himself in may work. After "Big Sleep" I will give "1984" a shot. If "1984" does not work, then I know that I am down to porn and noir, but I am actually feeling confident that it will be fine.

"Chatterton" is nice and enjoyable, but it is not really a personal favorite and therefore requires more force of attention. This is the happy theory anyway.

xXx

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Another change in reading plans. Actually, it is a reversal of a few changes.

Monk is finding Perkell to be rather slow going. He is not tempted to cast it aside, but, for instance, he closed it early this afternoon in favor of spending some more time with "O." Monk enjoyed this ready option so much that he realized this is what he needs his hit-and-run reading to be: ready pleasure on command.

That means his narrative histories cannot be taken into the hit-and-run rotation. However, he is not dropping the histories. He wants to go back to the idea of taking them up as part of his weekend readings.

What about the "Aeneid"? In conjunction with how slow the exegetic text is going, Monk also wants to go back to his practice of reading them together by turns. And there you have it! I think this is where we were a couple of plans ago, and now we are back, for the time being.

This weekend might be a little awkward. If we get Fagles' "Aeneid" as expected, on Friday, then it will be a little hard holding off until Monday. But Monk may be able to content himself with a good taste of the poem on the afternoon before the weekend.

xXx

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The woman when she saw him put her arms around him and held him. Oh, she said, I am so glad to see you. She would talk to him sometimes about God. He tried to talk to God, but the best thing was to talk to his father and he did talk to him and he didnt forget. The woman said that was all right. She said that the breath of God was his breath yet though it pass from man to man through all of time.

-- "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy

Divine inspiration held Monk off on rushing to the last page of "The Road." A full emotional reserve of energy was put to good use. Congratulations, Mr. McCarthy, you got Monk to cry. And you're a guy!

xXx

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Leaving C-SPAN2's BookTV running in the background, as he reads "O," Monk catches a presentation by an author, Adrian Goldsworthy, who has written a biography on Julius Caesar. He does some checking on Amazon, and in spite of the mistake of having gotten those two volumes from H. H. Scullard on ancient Rome, Monk comes upon a spate of books from the period that he is tempted to try.

Monk thinks the best bet to start out with is Robin Fox Lane's "The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian." He remembers enjoying Lane's work on Alexander the Great. And an emphasis on Homer sounds like a winning approach to him.

But Monk is still wincing from those Scullard texts, which cost him around seventy or eighty dollars, which is pretty expensive for a paper weight and a luxury that he can ill-afford. He feels more than a little wariness, still healing from that burn.

xXx