Originally published at Thus Sayeth the Lord…. You can comment here or there.

MUSIC

I Love Everybody– Lyle Lovett

Spurred on by my adventures in Ensenada, I checked this album out of the library.

I was disappointed. There were very few standout songs on the album, namely ‘Skinny Legs’ and ‘La to the Left.’ I felt like I was listening to a conversation full of in jokes, and I could never quite. . . get. . . in.

Ultimately, I think this is an album that TRIES to speak to the simple and the everyman in all of us, but winds up talking like a Beatnik instead. I found it full of innane verse.

The Visit– Loreena McKennitt

Not my week for good music. I’d heard good things about this artist, but alas, was disappointed yet again. This may be entirely due to my prejudice against Irish-sounding musicians who fill their albums with ivy and holly, and beltane celebrations, but lack any real PUNCH. Good heavens, am I getting cynical?

At any rate, I don’t dispute that this is a good album for some folks– generally (SNARK AHEAD! BEWARE!) the Elf-loving, pseudo-pagan/neo-druid, paleskinned crowd. One thing that is GOOD about this album, and I suppose the artist by association, she distinguishes herself from the High-priestess of this genre very well. She’s no Enya, and I think that works in her favor. Where Enya relies on technology to weave her musical spells, McKennit’s sound is distinctly more acoustic. (That doesn’t mean better– it is a refreshing difference, but I don’t think it qualifies as superior)

The Ghost of Tom Joad– Bruce Springsteen

I wanted to hear ‘Dancing in the Dark.’

Instead, I got ‘Philadelphia.’

I would have settled for ‘Born to Run.’

Alas. Alas. Alas. 0 for 3.

BOOKS

All Our Yesterdays– Robert Parker

It’s the first non-Spencer book I’ve read of his, andI found it as needlessly vulgar and cynical as the worst of academe. Reading this book made me pity the people in Boston, all of whom are apparently foul-mouthed adulterers. I think Parker makes the
mistake of thinking that a ‘complex’ character must needs be a despicable one– there’s hardly a character in the book that the reader can latch on to root for.

If there had been even ONE major character who wasn’t on the take, or sleeping with every member of the opposite sex who didn’t move away too quickly, I think the book would have worked.

I’m a prude, what can I say– I like my main characters to have some sort of redeeming quality. . .

The Robber Bride– Margaret Atwood

Just started this one, and it’s not faring very well. I only check one audiobook out at a time, and this may be the first that I stop after the first cassette. It’s not that I find it objectionable, or that the writing is bad. . . I made it through Caleb Carr’s ridiculously vile ‘The Alienist’ and the travesty of King and Straub’s ‘Black House,’ after all.

The Robber Bride suffers from two things: nothing happens, and it’s pretentious.

NOTHING HAPPENS: This doesn’t mean it’s boring. I am actually one of those odd ducks that likes reading about the little details in character’s lives. To a point, anyway. Atwood entices us with the idea that there is this horrible, terrible woman, Xenia, or Zenia (it’s audiobook, folks, doesn’t come with spellings. . .) that messed up her protags lives, then died. And then she spends an hour and a half (I know, cuz that&#8
217;s how long my commute is) talking about the small details of one of her protag’s life.

I know what this means. It means that for the rest of the book, I’m going to have to wade through flashbacks. Where the events that WERE are juxtaposed on the events that ARE. Oh, heavens. I hope not. I hate the flashback as a literary device. The flashback is cheap storytelling. If it’s so interesting, why not start the story THERE, rather than HERE? Write a series if you need. Series are supposedly what all the publishers are publishing these days. . .

Of course, publishers are still publishing Atwood, so maybe she’s doing something right. . .

PRETENTIOUS: This is a catch-all term for writers that use devices like. . . well, flashbacks. And present tense. And artsy metaphors that screech ‘I’M A WRITER, WRITING SERIOUS FICTION! SEE! SEE ME WRITE!’

🙂

And I’m NEVER, EVER guilty of pretension.