Of Books and Comfy Chairs

I sat down to read a book tonight ("Just tonight?" Betty says), as TV is a vast wasteland. (Wasn't that a book by T. S. Eliot or Upton Sinclair or somebody?) Thus should tell you how my mind wandered even before I sat down with my book.

I am fairly far into Lady Chatterley's Lover. I haven't finished it yet, as I keep it on my bedside table and only pick it up when the mood strikes and I have time. (No dirty thoughts, Robomarkov.) As I commented before, I can see why the adult vocabulary and themes would have caused an uproar when the novel was published. There also was an undercurrent of women's self-realization and independence that probably was too forward-thinking for the time (but Mrs.-Dr. Lyons, my sophomore H.S. English teacher, would have loved it). Many English/literature teachers must waste students' time and brain cells by interpreting all of the social commentary also contained in the book. (Scads of it, several pages at a time.) On occasion, I wonder if Lawrence merely added the sex so he could sell an otherwise tedious book to a publisher. That is why I haven't avidly finished it.

At lunch breaks and on the exercise bike at the gym, I have been reading a collection of Ring Lardner's short stories. One of them, "The Haircut", I read in sophomore college English, so when I saw the book in the pile of my dad's giveaways, I snagged it, to see what else he wrote. Ring Lardner started out as a sports writer for newspapers. This is evident, as about a third of the stories are baseball-based (no pun intended). Another third are about the card game of bridge, with explicit descriptions of the cards bid by each player in each hand. (Note: for those of you who, like me, have no inkling of nor interest in bridge, you may skip those paragraphs and not lose the gist of the story.) The final third of his stories have characters who will not shut up. I get enough of that from Ob at work, so forgive me if I want to slap the characters silly. I can't read this collection for very long at one time, as the stories get repetitive and tedious and redundant and tedious and boring and tedious....

I have put down Don Quixote de la Mancha for several weeks now. It is a long book. Very early into it is the windmill-tilting scene. As that is what everyone thinks is the climax of Man of La Mancha or "Mouse of La Mancha", I thought, "I still have how much until the end?" Also, and this will gain empathy from Betty, there are no quotation marks and very few paragraphs, so everything is run together, and exposition and dialogue get mixed up, and dialogue can suddenly switch from one character to another, and it is very confusing, kind of like this sentence, but worse -- but at least there are apostrophes -- and I can't tell if the footnotes belong to Cervantes or the translator.

So, I decided that I need a "fun" book, one with easy language, fairly short paragraphs, and which can be interrupted at a moment's notice then returned to with little or no break in flow for you to remember what was going on. I started rereading Harry Potter & the Sorcerer's Stone. I always do this when a new H.P. book is released. Starting from the first book, I read them all in order, ending with the newest one, so I have the entire continuity before me. As this is the last book to which I am building up, this should be a good, long sequence.

I pondered starting a Harry Potter dialogue here in the blog, much like Betty's Dr. Who commentary strings, but that's probably been done to death elsewhere (no pun intended, in case I'm about to give myself a spoiler). Plus, I'd have to limit it to not just one book at a time, but maybe one chapter at a time, so the subjects don't get too far off track. ("But that's the fun of it!" Betty says.) Finally, I have only two regular correspondents, and I don't know how much exciting discussion can be stirred up by the three of us.

Another thing I pondered as I settled onto my sofa with my pretzel rods (ran out of BBQ Fritos), Hershey's Special Dark Miniatures, and orange soda (no caffeine before bed) was that I needed a comfy chair to really make this night's reading relaxing. It will be put in the corner of my bedroom, right under my torchiere lamp. I'm kind of picturing a club chair with matching (or not) ottoman. On the other hand, it would be nice if I could put the book down in my lap, lean my head back, and drift off to sleep, and the club chair's back isn't conducive to someone of my height being able to do so. In that case, I'd be better off with a recliner of some sort.

On second thought, a recliner for someone my size will be too large for the space. The La-Z-Boy recliner I have at my mom's house will be brought down for my living room some day (two years or twenty years). I'll turn my sofa to the window (mountain view) and set the recliner where my sofa is now, facing the TV. Add an end table, and my domain is complete! Instead, I might used the old, black leather chair in my parents' living room. It is similar to the club chair shown above, and it would be a better place to sit when putting on my shoes in the morning, rather than the side of my bed. (Plus, it would be a lot cheaper than buying new.)