First non-house blog post in awhile.  That’s exciting.  Sorta…

2008 has so far not been a great year for my book reading habit.  It started off strong with a handful of really great reads: The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, kicked off the year.  It was great, as most things recommended to me by this person are.  Then my brother recommended We Got the Neutron Bomb, an oral history of LA punk rock that was awesome, especially as it hit me right when I was on a LA punk kick.  Then I read a handful of other, less memorable things and some poetry that was fine, then Herzog by Saul Bellow, which was also great.  So I was really on a roll.  Then I started reading Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates by Tom Robbins.  And I hit a wall.

I shouldn’t have been totally taken by surprise.  The first Tom Robbins book I read was Jitterbug Perfume, which I loved.  Then I read Still Life With Woodpecker, which I hated.  I guess my odds were 50-50 that I’d like it, based on past performance.  That said, when I first bought it a guy at the bookstore said it was his favorite book ever, so I had higher hopes than I might have otherwise.  Then I started reading it.  And it’s been two months and I still haven’t finished it.  Because it sucks.

I have a problem when reading books.  I can’t start one novel before finishing another, so if I get to a novel I don’t enjoy reading, it tends to stick around on my bed table for a long time while I read magazines and online stuff as much as possible to avoid having to go back to it.   It happened last year with Infinite Jest, although that wasn’t because it sucked so much as it was a difficult read, although rewarding.  The problem with Fierce Invalids is just that it isn’t any good.

I don’t know what I really don’t like about it.  Mainly because none of the characters are very likeable, they don’t seem to do anything interesting, and Robbins style can be kinda tedious.  Like in Woodpecker, the main character is a “rebel” and totally plays by his own rules.  One of those rules is apparently that 15 year-old girls are appropriate targets for sexual conquest, which, though he never follows through, I still don’t enjoy the long passages about his plans with them.  I don’t know, I guess I’m a prude.  There’s also some blather about how sweet pyramids are, like in Woodpecker, and I still don’t care.  But I’m only about 3/4 of the way into it, so I guess it still has a chance to redeem itself.  I guess I just wanted to write about my frustration with it because I hope it will kinda spark me into actually finish it.  So that’s all I got.  As soon as I finish it, I get to start Memoirs from Hecate County, which I’m really excited about, so I should put the pedal to the metal, so to speak, and power through.  So that’s all I got.  I’ll go read a bit from it now and let you know how it goes.