Book Log – Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

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Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi (via The Complete Persepolis)

A hearty thank you to curt_holman, who loaned me his Complete Persepolis that I might enjoy the second book in Ms. Satrapi’s story of growing up in Iran and other places.

The story is engaging, witty, fascinating and almost1 impossible to put down. As I mentioned in my log of the first book, it is particularly compelling to consider we are of similar age, she being just 6 months younger than steakums. Thus, when she mentions a year, I can’t help but think of what I was doing at the time. In 1991, while she was accusing an innocent man of obscenity to avoid arrest and prosecution for wearing makeup (ultimately condemning him to an unknown fate and racking herself with guilt as a result), I was making silly videos about paper airplanes.

Now, on recommendations of everyone who’s seen it, I’m going to have to put the movie in my netflix cue.

curt_holman, I have your book ready to return. I’m keeping it out of crayon-reach, in the mean time.

_______________
1 Really, you can put any book down if the alternative is allowing your 1.5 year old to continue to eat crayons.

Book Log – Sense & Sensibility

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Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (courtesy of Project Gutenberg)

I had started Sense a long, long time ago, and misplaced it about halfway through. Since some 20 years had passed, enough attrition of memory had occurred to allow a read from the beginning with only the vaguest sense of deja vu.

The toughest part of suspending one’s disbelief in a Jane Austen novel is to allow oneself to believe that it really is tragic that a Person of Quality should lose their Means, or not gain as much Means as is thought to be “deserved”. I can do it easily in a Wooster story, because the primary purpose is comedy, and usually at the expense of the idle rich.

It is much more difficult for a “serious” novel (albeit with humor), meant to evoke sincere sympathy for our heroines, all of whom possess good looks, intelligence, education, and enough money to live more than comfortably (with servants, no less). Sure, loss of love is a tragedy for anyone, but really I have trouble mustering up sympathy in the same way I don’t feel too bad for Jennifer Anniston.

Really, though, suspension of disbelief or concern for the characters is none too necessary because the appeal of Jane Austen is the language. They can go on and on about the same topic and I’m just fine with it. Unlike, say, Tolkien.

Oopie from the past

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Remember that Oopie craze from the early 90’s? That wacky unbalanced inflated ball that took the country by storm, kind of like a modern hula hoop?

No?

Probably because it never happened. I can only blame myself. And stronglanguage. And a college friend of mine who went on to become a film editor in L.A. Led by that editor, we created and entered the video below in a contest sponsored by the company that made the Oopie (Nerf? Can’t remember) and won a projection TV for our dorm. Our video highlighting the mad, crazy fun that could be had with an Oopie did not, however, succeed in convincing anyone. Possibly because of the foreboding Frankensteinian message contained therein.

That editor posted the video on YouTube a while back, and I recently received the link. I am the one on the baseball mound, being much skinnier than I am now.

Book Log – The Little Warrior

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The Little Warrior by P.G. Wodehouse

Another fine Wodehousian tale of a riches to rags to the stage to riches.

Apparently, in the early 1900’s, it was nothing to just walk into a Broadway show and get a part. At least, Wodehouse would have you think so. I suspended my disbelief, as is often necessary in a typical Wodehouse tale where in all of New York and London there are only 8-10 people who keep running into each other in preposterous situations.

Quote I liked:

“Fibs, my dear,—or shall we say, artistic mouldings of the unshapely clay of truth—are the … how shall I put it? … Well, anyway,they come in dashed handy.”

There were a couple others I bookmarked, but they just don’t translate out of context.

Book Log – Persopolis: The Story of a Childhood

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Persopolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi

This is a graphic novel about a woman born in 1969, growing up in Iran during the tumultuous times since. Full of tragedy and humor, this is a great and all-too-quick read. It really hits home given that she is approximately my age. Making comparisons between her life and mine in 1979 is very sobering.

I’m somewhat embarrassed that it takes what is essentially a comic book to get me to better understand the history of that region. But, hey, whatever works.

This book works. I look forward to the sequel. Hurry up with that, won’t you PaperBackSwap.com?

Book Log – Mike and Psmith

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Mike and Psmith by P.G. Wodehouse

I believe the first Psmith novel, where Mike and Psmith meet at a small private high school that they’ve both been “sentenced” to for separate reasons.

From the introduction by Wodehouse:

This was the first appearance of Psmith. He came into two other books,Psmith in the City and Psmith, Journalist, before becoming happily married in Leave It to Psmith, but I have always thought that he was most at home in this story of English school life. To give full play to his bland clashings with Authority he needs to have authority to clash with, and there is none more absolute than that of the masters at an English school.

I think you had to have gone to an English school, because I liked the Psmith, Journalist and Psmith in the City better. Not to disparage this one, as it was a fine read as well. The main reason I clipped that is to remind myself that Leave It to Psmith exists out there somewhere, though not on Project Gutenberg.

Psmith, on being introduced to Mike:

“Do I look as if I belonged here? I’m the latest import. Sit down on yonder settee, and I will tell you the painful story of my life. By the way, before I start, there’s just one thing. If you ever have occasion to write to me, would you mind sticking a P at the beginning of my name? P-s-m-i-t-h. See? There are too many Smiths, and I don’t care for Smythe. My father’s content to worry along in the old-fashioned way, but I’ve decided to strike out a fresh line. I shall found a new dynasty. The resolve came to me unexpectedly this morning. I jotted it down on the back of an envelope. In conversation you may address me as Rupert (though I hope you won’t), or simply Smith, the P not being sounded. Compare the name Zbysco, in which the Z is given a similar miss-in-balk. See?”

Book Log – Psmith in the City

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Psmith in the City by P.G. Wodehouse

The character of Psmith grows on me, but I fear that I’ve run out of Psmith books.

Rupert Psmith of the Shropshire Psmiths (he added the silent P himself to the family name to start his own dynasty) is a wealthy force of nature, overwhelming adverse circumstances through sheer force of personality. In this novel,Psmith and his Watson-equivalent Mike Jackson take on early 1900s commerce in the form of a Bank in order to exact revenge on one of upper management for interrupting their game of Cricket some months prior.

Excerpt from Psmith’s first encounter with his boss:

‘Work,’ said Psmith, with simple dignity. ‘I am now a member of the staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests. Psmith, the individual, ceases to exist, and there springs into being Psmith, the cog in the wheel of the New Asiatic Bank; Psmith, the link in the bank’s chain; Psmith, the Worker. I shall not spare myself,’ he proceeded earnestly. ‘I shall toil with all the accumulated energy of one who, up till now, has only known what work is like from hearsay. Whose is that form sitting on the steps of the bank in the morning,waiting eagerly for the place to open? It is the form of Psmith, the Worker. Whose is that haggard, drawn face which bends over a ledger long after the other toilers have sped blithely westwards to dine at Lyons’ Popular Cafe? It is the face of Psmith, the Worker.’

‘I–‘ began Mr Rossiter.

‘I tell you,’ continued Psmith, waving aside the interruption and tapping the head of the department rhythmically in the region of the second waistcoat-button with a long finger, ‘I tell _you_, Comrade Rossiter, that you have got hold of a good man. You and I together, not forgetting Comrade Jackson, the pet of the Smart Set, will toil early and late till we boost up this Postage Department into a shining model of what a Postage Department should be. What that is, at present, I do not exactly know. However. Excursion trains will be run from distant shires to see this Postage Department. American visitors to London will do it before going on to the Tower. And now,’ he broke off, with a crisp, businesslike intonation, ‘I must ask you to excuse me. Much as I have enjoyed this little chat, I fear it must now cease. The time has come to work. Our trade rivals are getting ahead of us. The whisper goes round, “Rossiter and Psmith are talking, not working,” and other firms prepare to pinch our business. Let me Work.’

I just like the way he talks.