A WRITER'S WIT
Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him.
Maya Angelou
Born April 4, 1928
Seafaring Landlubber
Patrik Svensson April 7, 2014, Jonathan Lethem, “Pending Vegan”: Paul Espeseth is coming off an antidepressant and visits San Diego’s Sea World with his wife and twin four-year-old daughters. ¶ Lethem seems to capture that netherworld between an on-drug/not-on-drug life. His nameless wife is but an aloof caregiver, as if he is another one of her children. And in any number of ways he is. Paul renames himself Pending Vegan, fully aware of the questionable methods by which meat-eating is achieved, yet loving the saltiness of pork. With the thought of having to postpone his hunger-busting behavior, Paul buys a turkey leg to gnaw on. His wife is annoyed, and he becomes a victim of his love for meat. ¶ I enjoy Lethem’s writing very much. His literary references, his cultural and spiritual references, are all in service of the narrative, in this case, about a man caught between two worlds. Paul Espeseth, too, like F. Scott Fitzgerald, whom he cites, has the “capacity to keep two opposed ideas in mind at the same time.” Read to find out how! Lethem’s most recent novel is Dissident Gardens.
Patrik Svensson, Illustrator
TUESDAY: MY BOOK WORLD
Patrik Svensson, Illustrator
TUESDAY: MY BOOK WORLD
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