My favorite books and why you should like them

Rodomontade: Extravagant boasting or bragging; bravado; boastful or bombastic language.

This word comes to you from Perfume. It kind of makes me think of gardening tools.

Perfume actually had a number of words I wasn't certain about although I didn't get the chance to write them all down. Most had to do with fragrances unsurprisingly.

Civet: A substance used in fragrances. Yellow or brown, "unctuous", and harvested from glands located in the anal pouch of the African Civet cat.

I don't think I need to comment on that. And my mother wonders why I prefer body sprays. I'm fairly certain they don't contain unctuous secretions from a cat's anal pouch. Wait, I gotta go check.

Anyway let's move on. I have a long day tomorrow.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. I loved this book. Fair warning; it takes time and energy to read. A young man, Johnny, has discovered a manuscript that examines a film about a house where odd things were happening. It's not entirely clear that the film ever existed although the manuscript contains many references and reads very convincingly. A photographer and his family moved into a house in rural Virginia where a door appears out of nowhere that leads into a vast, dark labyrinth. The film is about the photographer's family and the exploration of the exploration into the frightening black space. The manuscript analyzes the film and the people in it. Johnny decides to edit what he's found and his project seems to cause a descent into madness. There are footnotes on top of footnotes and the original manuscript is interspersed with Johnny's increasingly incoherent ramblings. It's an impressive exercise in writing tales within tales. I have a fondness for the surreal.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. I think everyone has read this trilogy by now but I still want to mention it. I found this book, as well as the two following, very engrossing. If you want a conspiracy story this is far better than Dan Brown. Again though, you need to have patience. All three are thick books and there is material that could probably have been cut out or streamlined. However, there's something about Blomkvist and Salander I found very engaging. They're different from your more usual hero and heroine. Neither are really interested in conforming to other people's views but they're not in your face about being different. Blomkvist is a very earnest person who wants to see justice done but he does it his own way. Salander just wants to be left alone but she still has a surprising number of people she can count on who ultimately pull together to help her. The books are well-plotted and the ending is very satisfying.

Fudoki by Kij Johnson. I'm going to slip this one in there. This is a magical-realism story set in ancient Japan. It's more like a fairy tale or a myth and mimics the logic you usually find in such stories very well. A fudoki is explained as being a cat's tale, the story cat's pass on to one another down through generations accumulating moments from each life. The cat the story follows loses her family and home in an earthquake and thus loses her fudoki as well. She sets out to find a new place and a new fudoki. Along the way she turns into a woman, a huntress, and she meets and deals with many people and not-people along the way. This isn't always a nice book; she's a cat after all and even human she acts like a cat. The fairy tale mist this book seems to wrap itself in dampens the occasional violence. I enjoyed it a great deal.

I don't even know what to say about the earthquake in Japan. The whole thing is heartbreaking and I hope that the reports about more than 1,000 people being dead are not true. I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to have everything swept away, to have an entire town flooded and broken. Where I live there are basically no earthquakes. A little further north they occasionally have one that feels like a truck passing by. The ground is a solid thing to me. That picture in The Washington Post of the road literally split in two was awe-inspiring. Like those gigantic sinkholes that sometimes open up, it shows how fragile the terrain we walk on (or drive on) can be. The only good thing (if there can be a good thing) about the whole situation is that Japan is a developed country that has made massive preparations for just this sort of emergency. They've reinforced many larger buildings and they're not unused to earthquakes. This will not be another Haiti. My heart and prayers go out to the people of Japan and I hope that recovery will be relatively swift.

And now I will return to my (semi)regularly scheduled post.

Senescence: "The process or condition of growing old." From the OED.

I finished Perfume by Suskind last night. I stayed up late to do so. I hated it by the end. I was trying to be nice and give it the benefit of the doubt earlier but really? It was kind of boring and obnoxious. The writing was beautiful but the plot and the characters were rather uninteresting. There is very little dialogue in this book and as a result there is very little meaningful character interaction. The main character, Grenouille, is the only one that is fully developed. This would be fine but I found myself increasingly disliking him. I honestly couldn't tell if this was the author's intention or not. I did not find myself supporting Grenouille in his endeavors. I was wishing that he would fail. Admittedly this was because he was murdering young women but also because I had no vested interest in seeing him succeed. It was actually the opposite; I wanted him to be caught and punished.

There seems to be some sort of moralizing going on in the book. People are easily influenced by Grenouille's scents because their baser instincts come through in reaction to odors regardless of the civilized veneer they present to the world. Grenouille has no scent himself and is not affected by the perfumes he creates. I have several problems with this. One, I know we are all animals driven by base instincts that we counter-balance with higher feeling. There's little more irritating than being lectured by someone who thinks they've discovered some new truth when they haven't. Two, I just don't believe smells can have that much of an effect. You can't sneak by people just because you are wearing eau-de-wall-flower. People would still see and hear you. Sound is a very powerful force as well. Maybe Grenouille didn't rely much on sight but other people do. I won't even comment on the ridiculous nature of the final perfume. It was just plain stupid. Third, Grenouille is presented as having basically no human feeling (and believing himself to be above human instinct) and this is linked to his odorless state. One quibble; he does have human feeling. He smells a scent that sends his heart racing and he wants to possess it. He is obsessed with owning something that has great meaning to him. He wants it even as he knows that having means its eventual destruction. This is a very human trait. I could probably argue for others but this is getting too long already so I'll move on to a couple other annoyances in the book.

Beautiful virgin girls apparently smell the best of all. Oh good fucking hell. Really? You're going with that? You're going to compare the harvesting of their scent to harvesting flowers? Budding breasts and blossoms. Picking flowers to deflowering a virgin. Oh how clever. Suskind, your imagination knows no bounds, I'm sure.

There's more to be annoyed about but I'll stop there. Suffice to say that this is a surprisingly boring book with lovely, sensual prose and an abhorrent main character.

I'm still reading Life in the Cul-de-Sac and I'm also reading Missing by Karin Alvtegen. The idea of having a homeless woman as the main character is intriguing. She's on the edge of society and her life on the run (she's been falsely accused of murder) is exacerbated by her lack of funds and a support network. We'll see where this goes.

It's entirely possible that at some point I will write a short story

Callipygian: "Of, pertaining to, or having well-shaped or finely developed buttocks." From the OED.

You can't hear it but I'm snickering. There's a word for everything, isn't there.

Wedding was wonderful. Myself, my sister, and two of the other bridesmaids went to get our hair done in the morning and then had sushi for lunch. We lugged our stuff to the bridal room in the parish house and spent the next while getting ready and having our pictures taken. I laced my sister into her dress and she looked just gorgeous. The wedding ceremony was meaningful and sweet and the reception afterwards was full of good food and fun dancing. Several of us went to the hotel a few of the guests were staying at for another drink after everything was cleaned up. I had a grasshopper; one part creme de menthe, one part creme de cacao, one part half and half. A couple at the far end of the bar tried to get into a fight. There was a shoving match and the woman tried to slap the man but she was pretty plastered and just ending up smooshing her hand in his face. The bartenders broke them up fast and sent them on their way. But not before they were reminded to pay their tab.

The next day we had a brunch for out of town guests to say thanks and bye. We were all well-pleased with how smoothly everything went.

I finished Let the Right One in. I think, on the whole, I liked the book. It could sorely have used some editing, I really think Tommy's part could have been cut out somehow, but the ending was good and the characters were interesting. This is the sort of book you read while half-cringing though because you know that bad things are coming. But I'd read another book by this author.

I finished The Way Through Doors today. A circular story and most definitely not for everyone, it has a dream-like quality to it where things only make sense in a nonsensical sort of way. I occasionally like to read books that don't entirely make sense as long as it's on purpose. There is a common thread throughout the book; Selah Morse is looking for a woman with amnesia. He was taking care of her and now she's lost. One story bleeds into the next and comes back to Selah and then looks at an earlier story from another point of view and so on. It's wandering. I liked it.

Now I'm reading Perfume: The Story of a Murderer by Patrick Suskind. I don't know how I feel about this one. It tells the story of Jean-Baptise Grenouille who was born in 18th century France and has an incredibly powerful sense of smell but is completely without any odor himself. So far it's recounted his life from birth through apprenticeship to adulthood. He has killed one person thus far but it has had little relevance to the story. I'm on page 153 and I keep waiting for that early murderous experience to have some impact on his life. I assume he'll kill again but so far it's been an exercise in writing a fictitious (magical-realism) biography. There is very little dialogue. Well...it's entertaining. I'll finish it and I'd even read something else by this author but I'm a little disappointed. I expected something a little more Jack the Ripper only with perfume than the roving of someone with an amazing olfactory apparatus.

Wine was good; forgive my rambling

Pyritic: Of or relating to pyrites; consisting of, containing, or resembling pyrites.

Well that's not interesting. I would have thought something to do with fire. Pyrite must be a type of rock. Hmm, yes. A stone or mineral that can be used to for striking fire. Let's see if OED has something better to suggest.

Nebsy: Prim, precise or Brusque, impudent, cheeky, ill-natured.

Something tells me I won't be using either of these words anytime soon.

Rehearsal went well. Our Priest is a pro. And very funny. Dinner afterward was great. The waiters kept filling the wine glasses up like they were water so it was hard to keep track of how much was drunk. Tomorrow is the big day.

Let the Right One in has gotten really gross. And weird. If there is a scene in your book where the walking undead is about to sodomize a prepubescent vampire, congratulations, because I never thought I would ever be able to write something like that in a review. The me up there feeding the ducks? Totally scandalized. The me now? Asks what do you write for an encore?

Oh. The thing that comes after, with the nursery rhyme and the stone trophy. Well, I'm just disgusted.

For those with strong stomachs and tolerance for rambling I still recommend the book. But get it out of the library.

Words go here

This photo proves my grandmother has been making the same "don't take my picture" face her whole life.

Phillumenist: A collector of matchbox labels or matchbook covers.

I...really? There's a word for that? Of course there is, what am I thinking? What else do you have for me OED?

Crabologist: A student of collector of Crabs.

Conchologist: A scientific collector of shells.

Oologist: A collector of birds' eggs.

U'lero: A collector of rubber.

Wikipedia offers - Arenophile: One who collects sand samples.

Galantophile: A collector of snowdrops. (The plant. which makes so much more sense than I first thought.)

Pteridomania: A craze for ferns. A Victorian era thing because that sexual frustration had to go into something, I guess.

Tyrosemiophilia: A collector of cheese labels. ?!?...? Sure.

Still reading Let the Right One in. It's kind of slow but I still can't put it down. Half of it is devoted to the whole vampire plot and the rest of it is domestic and school relations. Actually a lot of it about personal connections. Between lovers, parents and children, classmates, friends. There's a lot of focus on each character's particular situation. Lots of character building is what I'm saying. It's interesting watching how everyone deals with the subtle and not so subtle effects of the vampire living in their neighborhood. And this really is more of an old-school vampire as I mentioned before. A child vampire, creepy, sweet, gross, and awkward. Who falls on people from the shadows and plays wounded to get at prey.

I'm also reading Life in the Cul-de-Sac by Senji Kuroi. About a small street in a Japanese suburb and the people who live there. I like how he shows what the characters imagine and how it contrasts with what is actually there. We all do that, we all imagine how something is going to be or how we think something will look and then sort of surprise ourselves with how it actually is. It's a clever writing technique.

Anyway. Rehearsal dinner Friday. Wedding is on Saturday. Got a few small things to do first. Don't think I'll have much time after tomorrow.

The vault is cold; bring a jacket

Amaurotic: A. "Affected with amaurosis."

OED that is not helpful.

Amaurosis: "Partial or total loss of sight arising from disease of the optic nerve, usually without external change in the eye."

Now we're getting somewhere.

B. "Applied to an extreme type of hereditary imbecility, with the symptoms of amaurosis."

I guess it sounds smarter than "near-sighted." or "idiotic."

Now I'm reading "Let the Right One in" by John Ajvide Lindqvist. Swedish vampire novel because, well, why not. Not the sort of vampire that has lately taken over the world of urban fantasy and filled it with shiny hair, the creak of leather, and sexy smirks. This one is creepy and sometimes smelly and kills innocent people. This is almost getting back to Bram Stoker's Dracula character. Only it looks like Eli the vampire might be making a friend in a really disturbing yet sweet turn. I'm enjoying the book but it's not a novel for those who are easily squicked.

One week to go

Talaria - Winged sandals, like those worn by Hermes.
According to the OED the word comes from the Latin tālāris which means, "things pertaining to the ankles." That's fairly specific.

My Great-grandmother is the young woman on the far right.

I have to get a hair-cut for my sister's wedding today, or at least soon. It's coming up fast. I also have to go to the library because I finished a number of books in the last couple of days.

The Swallows of Kabul was poetic, I'll give it that, and it fulfilled the author's intent to show the stark horror of the Taliban and radical Islam. However, I'm not sure it told a very good story. To go into a few of the problems I had with the story part of the book, (which should hold up on it's own, outside of the setting, description, and prose,) if Zunaira weren't so beautiful, would Atiq have had such a change of heart? He is seeing another woman as a human being for the first time in decades but does this extend to other, more common people? Would a less attractive woman have had such a profound effect on him? What if she had actually been guilty? He's been leading up to something but he still doesn't seem to have any sympathy for his dying wife. Atiq is the only character that is followed for the entire book but rather than being an active participant in the unfolding events he is only caught up in the actions of others. This sort of negates any change that comes over him. Or maybe that's the point although it doesn't really work for me. In the end nobody is really changed and the story just peters out. I felt like I read half a book. Also, where the hell did Zunaira go?

I also read DeKok and the Dead Harlequin by Baantjer and Silk by Alessandro Baricco. The DeKok book is a neat little mystery that kept me entertained. I knew that the one, obvious clue in the murdered man's past that the detectives overlooked was going to be the key to the crime and that bugged me a bit but otherwise it was a fun book.

Silk is incredibly short but is probably the most passionless lust-based almost romance ever committed to paper. The chapters are short; there are 65 in a 132 page book. Some are a couple of pages and some are no more than a few sentences. The characters are never developed, certain phrases are repeated over and over, and the whole thing is surprisingly emotionless. The only character who shows any real feeling is the main character's wife and she has a very small part. Herve is a buyer of silk eggs in mid-19th century France. During a silkworm epidemic his town sends him to Japan to illegally obtain eggs. Hara Kei is the man he negotiates with in Japan. Hara Kei has a mistress with "non-oriental eyes in the face of a girl." (This phrase is repeated several times.) Herve sees her maybe a grand total of five times on his four or so trips to Japan. Herve and the mistress never talk, never really meet, and never develop any real connection with each other and yet the author tries to present this as some almost-consuming romance. It's very strange. I get what Baricco is trying to do with the repetition of phrase; it's a short book and the phrases are a sort of short-hand for description in order to elicit emotion and set up atmosphere. However, that could also have been done with better writing. It wasn't a terrible book, I enjoyed reading it, but I'm glad I got it out of the library.

I read the DeKok book and Silk at work while posted at places where I was allowed to read and I wonder if I would have been as interested if I hadn't been just killing the time until five o'clock.

I'm giving up on Wizard's First Rule. The writing is juvenile and the set-up between good and evil too simplistic. The idea that righteous anger can be used as a force for good weirds me out a bit. There's no need for compassion on the side of the heroes because the bad guy and those who follow him are beyond redemption. I haven't been fond of characters with "designated hero" and "designated villain" status since I was a preteen. There are too many other books I'm interested in reading.

Hopefully tomorrow I shall have a pretty dress

Ecdysiast - A striptease artist.

I know I was reading an Alan Dean Foster book but which one and what was going on? H.L. Mencken is credited with creating it from the word ecdysis, meaning "The shedding of an outer integument or layer of skin, as by insects, crustaceans, and snakes; molting." (www.thefreedictionary.com) So strippers are like cicadas, huh? According to the striptease article on wikipedia Mencken coined the term after the stripper Gypsy Rose Lee asked for a more dignified name for her job. I can't tell if he was joking or not. Maybe I shouldn't have put a picture of my grandma next to this entry. She was most definitely not an ecdysiast.

I have to go to the dry cleaners tomorrow to pick up my (hopefully) hemmed dress. Then off to buy a few sundries to go with it.

I finished U is for Undertow. I felt the book was much more low-key than the others in the series. There was more focus on the story unraveling in the past and present of the characters involved in the kidnapping drama. Kinsey still has quite a bit to do but she shares the story with everyone else. The ending was surprisingly funny in a way. Almost anti-climactic but in a good way. A refreshing change from dramatic hardened killers making desperate last stands. Not that I don't enjoy those endings, too. It's just nice to see something different.

I am really tired. Tomorrow I'll continue with Khadra and Baantjer.

I have a post-it note with words I don't know on my keyboard ledge

Tenebrific - According to thefreedictionary.com it's an adjective meaning -
1. serving to obscure or darken and 2. gloomy; dark.
Synonyms: tenebrious, tenebrous.

So, there you go, tenebrific.

I plotted the beginning of a book out in my head during work today; then I fantasized about all the accolades I would receive because it would be clever and imaginative and have well-crafted characters and then I went to lunch. I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was tasty. Maybe, if I ever become not lazy, I'll write that book. Or maybe I'll make it a short story.

Still scanning old pictures. I tried scanning some color photos but they came out pink. I'll have to figure that out later. Still reading The Swallows of Kabul. People speak in (well-crafted) monologues in this book and it skirts the line between poetic and heavy-handed.

Origins of the Specious amused me by quoting someone I know and U is for Undertow filled in some more of the main character's family history which I've found surprisingly interesting. I may give up on Wizard's First Rule due to lack of interest. 700 pages to go and I've already re-newed it once. There are so many other interesting books out there but I'll give it another 50 pages or so; see if it catches my (fleeting) attention.

Watching Castle now. Haven't watched any TV in a while so onward! Catch-up time on Hulu!

Randomizing Taboo Words

You know what, if I can't say 'retard' anymore then all you all who aren't officially obsessive compulsive are no longer allowed to use the term to describe yourselves or others when you're only being slightly anal about something. It's a slight to those of us who have been diagnosed with and live every exasperating day with, OCD. Plus, it's just plain old fucking obnoxious.

ALSO! You are no longer allowed to use the words schizo, bi-polar, psychotic, or mental as insults as this is demeaning to those who officially bear these as labels. Nor is 'pussy' or 'gay' to be used as an insult against guys you feel are wusses as it is demeaning to women and homosexuals to have your gender or sexuality used as an insult. Just come right out with it and tell the person you're bullying that they have a pencil-dick, you linguistically impotent cowards. If you are going to insult somebody, do it right.

Of course, no one is going to listen to me anyway and it only pisses me off for about half-a-minute to have someone use my life-long disorder as a mildly funny insult, so: retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, retard, you word censurers are all fucking retarded. Get a life, duckfuckers. Seriously.