As part of my venture to improve myself and experience new things before turning 30, I’ve been embarking on a journey to read more “books that mean something.” I interpret this as classics, books that involve learning something, and nonfiction. I realize that’s fairly broad, but I’m not a huge reader normally, and my repertoire normally stops at standard chick lit.
So with that said, I’ve taken advantage of the holiday break to read a few books. One was Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn, which I won’t recap here because although it’s a step up from chick lit, it’s not exactly classic literature. But as I read more that fit my self-made mold, I’ll give you my own layman’s Cliff’s Notes on this blog so you can follow along.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
Lady in provincial 19th-century France marries kind of a moron, who is devoted to her. She spends the book gallivanting around, flirting her way into loans in her husband’s name, sleeping with other men, pawning her daughter off on various servants, and, ultimately (spoiler alert) finding her demise in the most predictably dramatic way. She is the definition of “bored housewife syndrome,” forever entrapped in a world of her own fantasy and depression. Flaubert comically and satirically captures his feelings of the middle class and its women who, frankly, need to get lives.
Summary: Ho be bored. Get a life, ho.
Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Brandon recommended this short (120 page) book to me because it seemed “up my alley.” What he meant by that, I’m unsure, because it’s insanely weird and seems to lack a plot. Nutshell, there’s a lot of people for and against Jesus, someone attempts to blind himself and can’t make it happen, another guy succeeds at blinding himself, there’s a fair bit of historical racism, there’s a 15-year-old slut who seems to have no adult guidance, any woman in the book seems hellbent on aggressively seducing highly unattractive and uninterested men, and there are quite a few scenes involving an ape costume. Unclear on the conclusions and on the relevance of the ape costume.
Summary: Call me controversial, but don’t read books by people suffering from Lupus, unless you’re also interested in a total mind fuck.
More to come.
30 Before 30 