Wednesday - almost enough time in These titles mean nothing.

I’m up a bit earlier this morning. I’m in the basement with the stove. There isn’t much fire left but I think there is enough to coax back to life.

Temp is a positive 12. Wind 1 mph and humidity is 48%. House feels warmer. I’m barefoot and not cold.

I am a warm in the morning person and a cold at night person. I think it has to do with energy levels. Typing is an easier endeavor in the morning than it is at night.

I started listening to my new book on tape : Sparring with Charlie: Motorbiking Down the Ho Chi Minh Trail by Christopher Hunt. The voice reading it is familiar. I think it’s the same guy who read Bill Bryson’s account of hiking the Appalachian trail. He has kind of a confiding, ironic manner and I end not really liking him or the stories much. Keeping in mind that the book and the experience it tell is twenty years old. We and Vietnam are probably different now than we were then.

The author was too young to face the war himself. He talks about the distance his life has had from Americans who did participate in the war. When talking about his perception of American Vietnam vets, he said he shared the common idea that they were - to quote - and I quote accurately because I stopped the tape, rewound it, listened again, and then wrote down the exact words - “addicts, psychos and pan handlers”.

For some reason that hit me the wrong way. I’m going to write something dangerous myself. Right here. Right now. I am among friends. I am not going to put it in the newspaper - I did that once. You have to be careful what you say about the Vietnam war. It’s a touchy subject in a million ways. But… here goes…

Jane Fonda will never be forgiven for making rash statements for which she has apologized. She was trying to stop the war. She had the ‘good’ of many as her cause. She was young and in love with Donald Sutherland - or maybe it was him in love with her. But anyway she was under the influence of a Canadian with a good voice. Or was he under her influence? Either way.

Anyway I was not happy to hear men many of whom were there against their own will referred to that way. But I’ll keep listening to the book. Gives me something to think about.

It’s written in that ironic way that Bryson has too of looking down on everyone he contacts. That is not my favorite literary style.

Hunt also wrote Waiting for Fidel so it looks like after Vietnam he went to Cuba. He is giving us pictures of countries we would not have otherwise. I will give him credit for that. I think the term Gonzo journalism is used to refer to him, so I guess the irony and condescension are built in. And they can be fun to read, so it’s not all bad.

Ok that’s my book review for today. I think I’ll specialize in reviewing books after just reading the first ten pages. Do you ever get the idea that real book reviewers do it that way? Everything mentioned in the review happens in the first quarter of the book. I realize they are trying not to give away the whole plot but sometimes I think that’s all they’ve read.

Also - do you ever get the idea that the author didn’t know how the book was going to end until he or she got there? Sometimes they foreshadow things that never happen and I wonder if they do it on purpose or accidentally.

Jacquelyn Mitchard’s Deep End of the Ocean was a little like that. It was her first book and Oprah’s book club’s first book too (I think). It was written over a long period of time and she got a grant to go to a writing retreat and she finished it there. It is a lovely book about a woman who loses a child - the toddler is kidnapped. She eventually gets the child back but the boy has had a life of his own and he really is no longer hers, so she gives him back in effect to the kidnapper. Well not the kidnapper exactly, to the kidnapper’s widower.

There is a scene in the book while the child is still lost which focuses on a wooden chest with a heavy lid. It’s eerie. I think.... will he be in the chest? I wondered if that was a false start on an unknown ending. A plot twist lost in the raveling.

Wow. I am critical today. Nothing seems up to my exalted standards. Sorry ‘bout that. This entry isn’t good enough either.

~~

Shoes on. Coffee gurgling. Not a lot of time left. Work is less fun. Damn.

SPUD from the top. Not my photo.

Last updated February 25, 2015