Book em, Dano

Suddenly, for the first time, I find myself in a book group. With my old knish friends Laura and Leslie and their significant others. Every six weeks, we will meet and discuss something that one of us has forced the others to read. I have a feeling that it will be a very loosely policed book group, since Leslie is already saying she just wants to drink wine and hear about dating mishaps. Laura picked the first book, Therese Raquin by Emile Zola. I've never read him, and I'm a little nervous about 19th century authors, what with all the description of the quivering hedges and such.

I just finished reading my Holiday Party Book Swap book, The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud. It took me a really long time to get into the book, probably 150 pages, because the characters were so unlikable. Just rich or pissy or self-righteous, which was the point, of course. Messud swaps POV each chapter, which made it hard to get into the story as well -- and made me wonder if even the nice people I know would be perceived less nicely if someone could read all their thoughts. I'm sure I would be.

But eventually I found myself caught up in the churning plot, so much so that I was surprised by the big old honking tragedy that arrived (hint: the book takes place in the early part of this decade).

The novel also has some things to say about friends and family and how your perceptions of them change. One minute you're happy with them and the next they've disappeared or disappointed or done something so kind that you're brought that much closer. There's also a fantastically apt section about how sad it is that you laugh less as you grow older, especially in some relationships, and then things like this bit about reading books in general: "You do need to read them. That's what it means to be civilized. Novels, history, philosophy, science -- the lot. You expose yourself to as much as possible, you absorb it, you forget most of it, but along the way it's changed you."

This quote reminded me of a line from a recent Nick Hornby column in the Believer, in which he related how a friend, after finishing a book, waits a few days before starting another one, in order to give the book "more time to breathe." Hornby, though, can't read like that: "Those of us who read neurotically, however -- to ward off boredom, and the fear of our own ignorance, and our impending deaths -- can't afford the time."

Sometimes I think that's all life is, no matter what your life entails. Whether you spend your time working 60 hours a week or raising three children or staying up all night doing coke of strippers' butts, we're all just trying to ward off boredom and our impending deaths. Not that there's anything wrong with that.