Summer Saga Pt. 3

Times are grim. Like a rocket that's used up all its fuel before reaching its target, I feel I've exhausted myself in my summer reading. I'm not sure how it happened, but I'm having trouble bringing myself to sit down, relax, and just waste time (if waste it is) reading. Perhaps it's due to Les Miserables, which I finished about two weeks ago. Perhaps it's due to the book I started next, Catch-22, not being what I expected and resulting in a slight let-down. Or perhaps it's simply a phase that I've entered; one where knowledge, relaxation, and enjoyment aren't welcome. I don't know.

Catch-22, while being a term used by myself at least once a week, was to be a new read for me, and I began it shortly after I finished Les Miserables. I confess, though, that I did fit Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency in before I started Heller's book. Catch-22 is an amusing read, as it reminds me of British humor, but without the accent. The dialogue between characters is hilarious and totally outrageous in that it makes no sense, and I like that. The problem I'm having, I believe, stems from the intellectual and all-encompassing literary high I was on from Les Mis. Catch-22 doesn't seem to be going anywhere, and I've decided I don't like it for that reason. I'm not saying it isn't a literary masterpiece, but it just isn't hitting the spot at the moment. I put it aside, but rest assured, I will finish it someday soon. I do not leave books unfinished as it is against my nature to leave anything half done. The bookmark is still in the book.

The summer saga continues then with Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut, my longtime friend and advisor (of course, he doesn't know that and unfortunately, now, won't ever know). Player Piano was his first novel and I can tell that the style is definitely Vonnegut, but has a sense of being different from his later works. It reminds me of a conversation I was having with Utz (also a longtime friend and advisor, and he knows it). We were driving and listening to the classical radio station and he was endeavouring to determine the period the work was from. Little motifs the composer placed in the music could be all you need to tell Baroque from Classical, or Romantic. In the same way, you can see subtle differences in writing style or content of one author from book to book. Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors and it's very cool, to use a ridiculously simple phrase, to see that difference. I highly recommend him.