Now, the only thing left to do is decide what to read....

Going backwards

I just closed the cover on Andrew Sean Greer's The Confessions of Max Tivoli, and I'm finding myself at a bit of a loss. On the one hand I'm thinking, "Yeah, and Audrey Niffenegger did a similar idea much better," but on the other, it has a certain quaint old-timeyness to it that's appealing. The voice is authentically overwrought for Tivoli as a product of turn-of-the-century San Francisco high society, as amply demonstrated by such *thud* lines as (and I shit you not that the following is a quote - see p. 167 of the PB edition) "Reader, she married me." As much as I feel the voice fits the character and the times, it's still annoying as hell to read because it keeps me from connecting to the emotional heart of the story. I can't grasp this grand love affair that's going on between Alice and Max because it sometimes reads like a teleplay soon to appear on the bastard love child of Lifetime and The History Channel. So for all that the writing is tight and everything is just so, there's a hollowness that needs filling, I think. It could be that the hollowness is Alice herself - I mean, I just finished this book 10 minutes ago and I can give you exactly one character trait (free-spirited) that I remember. True, it's from Max's perspective and he doesn't really know her, but damn does that make it hard to root for them to be together when as a reader you don't know her at all.

Greer also frustrates me with his gimmick of Max aging in reverse. It's a fine idea, but it's weird and when you use a bizzaro biological idea you really need to think it through and establish clear rules and boundaries for how that weirdness is going to work. The early parts of the book suffer a lot because I just can't bend my head around what exactly is happening with Max as an old baby. Why is Max capable of remembering his childhood in great detail, when he's only old physically, not mentally? I get the concept, but the execution doesn't pass muster when you start to ponder some of the conflicts.

But in spite of the six dozen things I can find that I didn't like about this book, it still resonates because the theme of being out of sync with your life and feeling like you're missing out on happiness because of circumstance is deeply affecting and real even when the book's artifice gets overwhelming.

I don't have the right scale to rate this one right now - I'll update if I can settle on something.

Posit This.

As my 1.5 faithful readers know, I'm a library school student by night. My classmates, though diverse, by and large subscribe to the "gosh, books and reading and writing and stuff are nifty!" school of thought. A great many of us (though not me) were English/Literature/History/Humanities majors in college. Typically, one might expect librarians to be smarter than the average bear in the whole Knowledge of the English Language sphere.

However, this appears not to have stopped a classmate of mine from remarking that when I used the word "posited" in a recent recap of a group discussion, I clearly must have meant "posted" because "posited" is not a word.

To wit:

pos·it
tr.v. pos·it·ed, pos·it·ing, pos·its

1. To assume the existence of; postulate. See Synonyms at presume.
2. To put forward, as for consideration or study; suggest: “If a book is hard going, it ought to be good. If it posits a complex moral situation, it ought to be even better” (Anthony Burgess).
3. To place firmly in position.

---

[From Latin positus, past participle of ponere, to place. See position.]

Source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

I mean, I know that I'm prone to dime-word syndrome, but please - this word is not a hard one. In fact, as a librarian-to-be, you should have a dictionary at home and you should use it, a lot, because it's basic freakin' reference. Hell, you could take the two seconds I just did to bop on over to Dictionary.com and type it in. Nothing is more embarassing than a librarian who can't be bothered to look something up. After all, that's kind of our whole job description over here.

You know what? You're an asshole!

...or so says Livia to her famously non-committal boyfriend/companion/whatever, Inspector Salvo Montalbano, star of Italian author Andrea Camilleri's long-running mystery series. Camilleri's books are gradually making their way stateside via translations by Stephen Sartarelli, and they are truly a delight. I recently raced through two of Montalbano's adventures, The Terra-Cotta Dog and The Snack Thief, and both were absolute charmers every step of the way. Montalbano is certainly not the kind of cop you typically find on American TV; he's mercurial, well-read, a gourmet, and will do anything to avoid that terrible fate known as promotion. While he's clearly outsized in every way, Camilleri injects just enough humanity that you forgive Montalbano all his faults. The supporting cast is fantastic as well, including the hot-headed Livia, the showboating colleague Augello, and the frustratingly incompetent Catarella. I think my favorite's probably Adelina, the easily offended housecleaner/cook Montalbano interacts with only through hilariously accented notes.

Camilleri's stories are wonderfully crafted little gems, and ideal for anyone daydreaming about Sicilian seafood spiced with a little madcap comedy.

Forgive the pimping....

But this really is a good cause! Sars over at Tomato Nation is sponsoring a spring contest in which she hopes to raise $25,000 for NYC public schools via DonorsChoose. Her contest is less than 20% away from reaching the goal as of this writing, and I'd love to see that goal blown out of the water. DonorsChoose is a great organization, and it's my charity of choice because even the small amounts I can afford to give each month really do make a difference. So please, if education matters to you, consider participating.

To check on the status of Sars' challenge, click here.