It is hard to write about books (or movies) I really love. I can sometimes talk to folks about them when sufficiently outside my own head. In person my enthusiasm and lack of self-consciousness can override my general concern with being completely cogent. In writing though, I can't hide behind exuberance and physicality to make up for any lack of erudition on my part. 

Historically, my sci-fi book club had been focused on some pretty heady stuff... books that often require a lot of focus and energy, which is great. A very good thing to do for ones brain. But this tendency to skew into the "hard" sci-fi realm is often exhausting and left me needing a bit of a break from all that. For our club, me and the boys do a loose sort of rotation of choosing books. It's very unofficial but everyone does seem to keep the selection frequency in mind, which I appreciate! Having not really chosen a while, and needing a break from our usual fare, but with little real pre-thought I went with one of my favorites.

After recommending The Invention of Morel I hedged a bit and threw out some mumbled caveats as it is not strictly sci-fi and a bit more "literary(?)" than previous selections. I even insisted that the group didn't have to read it... as one does after embarassing mistakes. But it is also not a slog to read, conflicting with our previously established vibes. LOL. So I was secretly pleased that everyone agreed, come what may of their reactions. Even in translation, it is a wondrously concise and a breezily poetic read. Sorry hard sci-fi! I love you but you aren't always super pretty. 

The basic gist is a fugitive is looking to escape Venezuela for unnamed crimes. He tries to flee to a toxic island that a nice person tries to dissuade him from. Het gets direction help from the same nice person to this mysterious island. He promptly and miraculously gets there... lickidy split even. With little (No) fanfare he he arrives and makes himself at home (The book also provides a handy map). He settles in a bit and assumes he is alone but one morning he discovers he is surrounded by tourists! visiting the compound. Terrified of being discovered he hides and details all his actions and fears to us with only somewhat questionable accuracy. As men on the run from the law do (I suppose even ones not on the run from the law), he becomes fixated/infatuated/obsessed with one of the women of the tourist group. He follows her around planning how to approach her. 

After some entertaining hemming and hawing he does approach her but is quickly ignored. More lamentations and then some more stalking of the island guests, led by the Doctor who the story is named after, Morel. The twist is truly one of my favorite in all the books I've read. Book club was torn on what actually transpires but we mostly agree on the basics. I was incredibly tickled everyone seemed to love it. Not just like it. Love it. They were beside themselves that it hasn't been turned into some other media or was/is more well-known. I am too. Last Year at Marienbad has some themes and maybe borrows a few things but it is definitely not a straight up adaptation. (Later, after being energized by my book club friends, I went down a rabbit hole of wikipedia and it turns out there is a movie that I'll now have to try to find. 

So anyways, in conclusion or whatever, go read The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares. Read it on a short flight or the beach or in bed or on the run.

This is a really wonderful read. Telling the story of the folks at home coming together to publish 122 million ASE's (Armed Service Edition paperbacks) for US soldiers. It's a quick read and does a great job of highlighting the differences in idealogies of the countries in opposition. Very much recommend. 

Pretty challenging read. The whole club agreed. Dense. Lots of imagery without much time to process whats going on. I ended up reading several pages multiple times and still was playing catch up. I took four four hour flights and still couldn't finish it until the last minute. 

Comparisons have been made repeatedly about the Noir/Chandler/etc influences and I guess I see it but that feels overblown. I enjoyed the caper but the characters seemed flat to me. One dimensional in a multi-dimensional world. Could have been the juxtoposition I suppose... or the fact that I hear and see William Powell when any noir is mentioned. 

This one stuck with me. I read it last year and it wouldn't leave me for quite a while. Most of my literary adventures are very private at this point in life... having left classes and discussions behind 20ish years ago. I do have my sci-fi book group but it is as much, or more, social than any actual discussion. That's fine. But for some reason this book hung out in the folds of my brain for months and I had a desire (less than a year later) to re-read it. I cannily conjured a plan to ambush two of my more literate friends from movie club by gifting them the book, thereby creating a splinter book club from movie club!

Even after the second read I'm still not totally sure what it was/is about this one that moved me to re-read it so quickly... and also strong-arm some smart friends into a discussion with me at Skylark on a Tuesday.  TBH even after another read I'm not quite sure... its hard to pin down but at its most fundamental it is human and hopeful and hopeless all at once. So, you know, life. And it's a slice of history I had no idea about before reading (I was also in Mexico City for the first read...). It's lonely. It's sad. But I do I love the whiskey preist for all his flaws written so plain and heartbreaking. 

Graham Greene has always been a name I knew, and knew he was important in the "canon", etc. etc. but had never read a single thing. Then, IDK, two years ago I was eating lunch on a weekday and put on Anthony Bourdain. He's a comfort to me and was a true prince in life and I miss him. So anyhow, I had on Parts Unknown and he is bopping around somewhere in Asia, being in love with the locals as only he can, and then he quotes a passage from The Quiet American, because, of course he does. 

I breezed through that one, The Quiet American, one of Greene's serious novels. It is really great (maybe greater than this one?). Then I read Our Man in Havana, one of his entertainments. (he likes to make the distinction) It is also great in a more mad-cap kind of way. Those two beautiful and interesting books led me to The Power and the Glory. The scenes between the lieutenant and the preist are really what makes it all worthwhile, punctuated by cinematic weather, which I always love. Many of the characters are archetypes to move the plot along (if walking around evading anti-religious authority is a plot... It probably is... No. It is.). I think I do love this book but I'm unsure where the love comes from. I will read it again in a few years. Maybe I'll still love it in a confused way. Maybe I'll see why I love it. Maybe I'll see the flaws more and not love it as much but remember the love I had. Any of those things can happen and I will be elated. Life. Time marches on. Love remains.

Because i still don't know what to say about this book... I'll leave two passages here.

...he began formally to say his goodbyes to the world;

he couldndn't put his heart into it.

This was the last chapter, and in the last chapter things always happened violently.

Perhaps all life was like that -- dull and then a heroic fury at the end. 

Oh god, what to say about this? Took me about half a year to read through it in bits and pieces. I'd get through a portion of violence (true and awful horror treated oh so casually) then not return to it for a few weeks or months until the bitterness subsided. But I was determined to see it through if only to knowingly and silently judge people who praise this book. 

I'm not even sure I engaged the book fully. It was awful (very awful) and beautiful (the prose only sometimes... not the awfulness). While reading, there were sessions that left my body exhausted and my brain blank. This is not my favorite condition to end up, being a husband and father of a five year old. 

I tried to describe my feelings to a friend what the experience of reading this book was like. It was a sunny afternoon and I was having a mezcal (which felt appropriate) and there were only 2 other patrons at the concrete bar. I excitedly compared the book to Link running around in the dark before he manages to wholly light up the dungeon. Just this little guy in green running around seeing only the horror his lantern can illuminate in front of his eyes knowing full well there are other horrors but he can't see them or even imagine them.... then moving on and forgetting the previous horrors to be only in the current horror always. 

He hadn't really ever played Zelda so he just nodded. SMH. I couldn't let it go though, so later I told another friend. He got it. Not sure its a perfect metaphor but feels right to me and I achieved the smug satisfaction of being seen.

So much has been written about this book and discussed. But this is just my personal book log so I don't think there is much more I have to say on it. 

Should you read this book? Probably no. Sorry.

Did I enjoy this book. I dont' know. Probably no. Am I happy I read it? Also probably no. LOL 

But at least now I get to be haunted by the image of the naked Judge forever. 

"He never sleeps. He is dancing, dancing. He says that he will never die."