I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: A Life Less Ordinary soundtrack (1997).

For those keeping score: at lunch, I have been listening to all of my CDs in order. This process started several years ago and really bespeaks my growing insanity. I had long since finished the A-Z bands, and have moved onto soundtracks. So, yesterday’s lunch had the great pleasure of listening to the Little Mermaid, Lock Stock and Two Smocking Barrels and A Life Less Ordinary at lunch, while reading this book!)

[READ: May 2007] Sacred Games.

MADERCHOD! MADERCHOD! MADERCHOD! ! The word Maderchod appears on virtually every page of this 900 page monster. In fact, there is a ton of vulgarity in this book, but all of it is in Hindi, so I really had to struggle to know exactly how people were being verbally abused. I only found that Glossary today. Boy that would have been handy when I started this book. I’ve been reading it for ages. And I’ve been enjoying it, but I just HAD to interrupt it a few times for the books in the Ulysses Moore series (cf. when I get to it). This book is set in India, and is about a mafia boss and the cop who he spiritually identifies with. There is simply SO MUCH information packed into this book. Details of the life histories of just about every character mentioned. And, since one character is written as first person, and the other as third person, it really keeps the flow going in alternating chapters.

Status: about 60 pages left.

EXPOSITION: I really enjoy reading big books. I suppose it’s a pretentious English major thing, but, throw me a book with nearly 1,000 pages, and I’m there!. It probably started with Stephen King’s IT, back in high school when I was a die hard King fan–I think this is the last one of his I read. But it was fun having people look at you like “You’re reading THAT big book” (cf. really tiny books in the Good Omens write up). Since then, David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest has been a huge highlight. Don Delillo’s Underworld and William H. Gass’ The Tunnel were tough slogs and yet somewhat rewarding by the end. I guess I don’t understand the aversion to big books. I mean, if you read three 300 pages books, that the same as Sacred Games. And in a big book you really get invested in the characters. It’s kind of fun. I put down Sacred Games for a few weeks, but when I came back, I was right back in the action. I read Infinite Jest in three days when it first came out back in 1991 and the scenes and characters still resonate with me. Plus, it really builds up your biceps! Big books…try it, won’t you?