A New Book

It has become something of a tradition that every year, at Christmas, my dad will give each of us a book to read.  It sounds kind of nerdy, but he always picks these best-seller books that are really great and fun to read.  It sort of makes me feel guilty that I'm reading something fun and not something of monstrous literary significance.  After starting this new book, I was so struck by it that I just had to write down my impressions.  This is what I get for reading right before bed!  The book is called An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England by Brock Clarke.

This writer writes as if he were speaking the way some people I've met do: like a writer who writes the way he speaks.  I guess that's not saying a whole lot.  His sentences are at least six lines long, and punctuated with commas and hyphens.  It's easy to get lost in a cycle of appositives.  He's the kind of writer that will digress every other paragraph, and take an entire chapter to make a single point.  Coupled with this almost annoying style, is the ridiculously fast pace of the book.  The author has no problem simply stating major events in just a few words, and with the amount of alluding he does from chapter to chapter, reading thirty pages of this book is entirely exhausting.

That said, I'm really enjoying this book.  The premise is so simple, yet so unique and specific.  A man goes to jail for an accidental crime.  His life is basically ruined and the story seems to be about the affects this has on his life.  It's a tried and true premise for a story, but the author gives so many details, that it's easy to see past what would otherwise be a bit of a cliche story.  I mean, honestly,  how often do you hear a story about a man who accidentally burned down the Emily Dickenson house and killed two people in the process?  Sounds kinda interesting to me.

All in all, the book would be pretty bleak if it weren't for the author's extravagantly trivial observations.  It doesn't seem like the story teller can take anything seriously, which makes for a pretty funny read.  At the same time, however, I feel the main character's pain.  There's something so agonizingly real about being accused of something you didn't do, or didn't mean to do.  There's a kind of haunting feeling that lives in all of us when we know that someone could blackmail us, and there's nothing we could do about it.  Just hinting that the character might go through these things, instantly brings up these built-in emotions that the author somehow knows I have.

So far: great book.

Ice and Exams

Welcome to my home away from home.  I've been spending so much time in this ominous beacon of steel and cement, that I saw it fit to give it a blog entry (lucky building...).  This past week has been one of non-stop work and studying.  It seems that all my classes conspired to stress me out.  My friend from Italy was telling me about how their final exams are stretched out over four weeks.  Even with that, he said, he still has lots of things due all at once.  Still, it has to be better than having everything due within one week.  The culmination of every class, every project coming together in a single week is simply too much.  It seems that all my time is spent in this nifty building, whether it's early in the morning, late at night, raining, snowing, hailing, or raining fire like the apocalypse.

But, this is just the change the winter brings.  Out goes the warm weather, in comes the cold.  No more rain (well, some rain... Ms. Nature can't make up her mind at the moment), just lots of snow and ice.  It's not all bad, however.  Occasionally the snow falls just right, the night sky turns an inky black, and icicles reflect the light from the street lamps in a thousand different directions.  It's a welcome break from the various stress associated with this time of the year.  It may sound cliche, but there's something to be said for stopping and smelling the roses... or in this case, the ice covered branches of the trees on the Engineering Quad.  There's a funny kind of tranquility that the ice has.  It reminds me that sometimes I just have to sit still for a while and reassess my priorities, just like that frozen water is doing (should I be ice?  Should I melt and drip?  I think I will chill here for a little bit...).

In any case, all the badness that is final exams will pass in a matter of days.  The ice will melt, vacations will begin, and building lolcats will consume all of my free time.