286 Preparing for book club

The sun is shining and it is a nippy 40 degrees in Columbus, but there was a man sitting on the outside patio at Caribou this morning reading a textbook, Corrosion Basics. I was on the inside reading Monday night's bookclub selection, The God of Small Things, by Arundhati Roy. I wondered if he'd be willing to trade.

There are some very interesting, well-written sentences in this book--unfortunately none of them seem to be in the same paragraph. I use my Dostoevsky method--write down every name with a brief description so you can tell the dog from the grandmother from the town.

I've tried starting at the beginning. I've tried starting in the middle. The story lies beyond my grasp. Has life so passed me by, comfortable in my condo and retirement, that I can no longer read a "national bestseller," one that received glowing remarks in the New York Times Book Review and the Washington Post Book World?

Every page I turn to seems to include defecation or the male's lower body parts in their purest Anglo-Saxon simplicity. I find myself longing for the participle driven, acronym laden sentences of a library task force report, or something of comparable clarity.