(no subject)

A lovely Sunday morning. I had a nice breakfast with my out-of-town friend before she headed off for her conference and I now I'm sitting at my big wooden table with a good cup of tea, good music on the stereo, and sunlight coming in through the curtain. Ms. E is out buying the New York Times, and in a few minutes I'll be working on the book. It's cold enough that I'm wearing my favorite grey turtleneck sweater. I'm feeling very content right now.

I finished Life of Pi a few days ago. As predicted, I remain unimpressed. I don't know. I didn't hate the book by any stretch: it was a good story, stylistically impressive, and I love tigers, so I enjoyed getting to find out all sorts of interesting things about them. I just didn't find it to be the sort of life-altering reading experience that people have made it out to be. Very early on in the book, Yann Martel claims that it is "a story to make you believe in God," a bold statement from any author, and certainly not one that came true in my case. Perhaps my lack of appreciation for the book is connected to the fact that I am the least religious person I've ever met. I just don't have an ounce of spiritual feeling in my body; with me it's not really a question of whether or not I believe in God, because I just don't really care enough to spend time wondering about it. So that might explain some of why I failed to get it. I also didn't like the ending. I thought Martel pulled the rug out from under his own story and reduced it all to an exercise in point-proving that just made the book smaller than it could have been.

Now I'm reading Trust Me, a book of short stories by John Updike. What a writer. I've only read three or four of the stories, but that's enough to remind me once again what a genius Updike is. He has such an amazing ability to capture scenes, feelings, states of mind with just a single perfect turn of phrase. His subject matter is not always terribly appealing to me, and some of his social observances are now rather dated, but his astonishing talent means that he is always worth reading. And while I'm on the subject of Updike, I read a really wonderful story of his in The New Yorker a few weeks ago. (I'm way behind on my New Yorkers--if I read it a few weeks ago, it probably ran sometime in mid-August.) The story was called "Elsie By Starlight" and it was a gorgeous and spot-on reminiscence of teenager-hood, burgeoning sexuality, first experiences... A really excellent story, the best short story I've read in quite a while. Find it and read it if you get the chance.

In non-literary news, I saw Stage Beauty last night, and it was great movie. At times funny, sexy, theatrical, and intense, it was very well written and well acted, particularly by Billy Crudup. Highly recommended. And it gave me some interesting stuff to think about for the next book, but I'm not allowed to think about that yet, because I get too excited and want to start working on that instead of the book I should be working on...

Also, I have a beautiful butternut squash sitting in my kitchen and I'm going to use it tonight to make my winter vegetable minestrone. Good warm food on a chilly fall day. It doesn't get much better than that.