verbingnouns

The Summer of Reading Continues

Several weeks ago, I finished The Great Gatsby, which was sad and interesting, though not particulary poignant.

I just finished reading The Count of Monte Cristo and I must say, I was pleased for the most part. Unfortunately, I did get stuck with the abridged version, which I realized half-way through - at which point I decided it was too late to start over. The introduction (which I failed to read before I started the book) said something about how the abridged version basically just left out a bunch of descriptions of places, but that was a LIE! The footnotes clearly indicate that there are entire plot lines that are omitted from the text. As Emily said, I feel I have been cheated. Someday I'll go back and read the real version...a very long time from now.

I was supposed to be reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince next, but it seems to have disappeared from my room. Maybe there's something to all the hubbub about the magic in Harry Potter.

I've also read the first few chapter in Douglas Coupland's Generation X. I'm not far into it and the thing that's struck me so far is how obsessed our culture is with irony. It seems to me that overly-contrived irony almost ceases to be ironic. I mean, I enjoy a good Wes Anderson movie as much as the next 20 something, but when so many books and movies use irony not as a story-telling tool, but as the point - to make us feel like we get something that people from other generations don't understand, it looks like nothing but insincere, manufactured, ego-stroking of a generation that already thinks we're smarter than we really are. I'm beginning to wonder if the joke is on us. Wouldn't that be ironic!*

*I don't pretend to be some kind of postmodern philosopher, so don't try to read too much into what I'm saying. You can argue that maybe I'm the one who doesn't get it, but you might just be making my point.

(So I can find this article again later and finish reading it - "Irony, Nostalgia and the Postmodern.")