Cruise Day Sixteen: A Book a Day

Ordinarily, on a vacation, I start out reading slowly, and then reach a point where I'm making it through a book a day quite late. This vacation was a little different. The 600+ page novel I started out reading, and intended to last me through the flight to Rome, I finished on the flight from Philadelphia to Boston. The next book, though, Terry Pratchett's "Small Gods," which I intended to make it through quite quickly, actually lasted me all the way through from the flight from Boston to Dublin until we we left Cadiz, our second-from-last stop. It was quite convenient that it did, however, because it was the only mass market paperback I had on the trip, so I could stuff it in my pocket during shore excursions. It's been read in bathrooms in the US, Ireland, Italy, France, Monaco and Spain, quite an itinerary for a work set in Discworld.

At that point, as I mentioned, I started "Old Men in Love" by Alasdair Gray, one of my favorite authors, a book I'd been saving to read on this vacation when I could savor it. I enjoyed it a lot, although it was ultimately unsatisfying emotionally, as though there was an uncooked center the author didn't take the time to bake thoroughly enough.

From the point I finished "Old Men in Love," on our first sea day out of Funchal, I did get to the book-a-day level. Not that it was all that hard, given the amount of free time we had during the day, but each of the books engaged me quite well and were enjoyable.

They were:

Solo, by Emily Barr. This was the fourth novel by her I read. It concerned a cellist in London who decides in the middle of a concert to leave her husband, and ultimately ends up figuring out why she has been unhappy living some lies and lowers her expectations to find a new life. It is a rare "chick-lit" novel that doesn't require the heroine to end up the Prince Charming. Highly recommended.

The Butcher Boy, by Patrick MacCabe. This was the book I bought in the Dublin Airport. Set in the early 60s, it describes the decline of a young street urchin in a small Irish town after he discovers that the fancy new family in town, despite outward appearances, looks down on his family. Very difficult novel to read, both because it is done in internal monologue and because it uses 40-year old Irish slang, but worth the effort.

Housebroken, a collection of three novellas by Yael Hedaya, author of Accidents, one of my favorite novels. The first, Housebroken, details the life of a relationship between an unnamed man and woman and their unnamed dog, whom they pick up as a stray at the same time they meet on a blind date. The dog's condition exactly mirrors their relationship; he is happy when they are happy together, and he ends up attacking someone when their relationship turns sour. Interesting. The second, The Happiness Game, was probably my favorite. It detailed the relationship of an Israeli woman, Maya, and her parents and a boyfriend, as she realizes that love is more than a game being played between men and women. The final one, Matti, tells through many different narrators the story of a man and the Lolita-like girl he seduces and who remains more important to him than his wife even until his death. All three are very well-written, though not as good as Accidents.

Let Nothing You Dismay, by Mark O'Donnell, whom I knew slightly in college (his twin brother, Steve, played Guildenstern in the production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead in which I had a small role as a freshman; Mark is probably best-known as the co-author of the book for the musical of "Hairspray"). It tells the story of a single day, December 20, in the life of a man who has been fired unjustly from his job, and is about to lose his home, as he attends six Christmas parties. The book has a lot of wit to it, but there were too many coincidences for a single day in New York City, and for such a down-on-his-luck character, Todd seemed to make a lot of fast friendships and get a lot of opportunities in a single day.

Fortune's Bastard, by Robert Chalmers. This told the story of Edward Miller, powerful editor of a conservative newspaper, as he descends from the pinnacle of power to near pennilessness in a matter of days. I had enjoyed Who's Who in Hell, by the same author, but actually thought this book was better. That was a tad surprising, because the premise was a bit absurd, but it was carried off with panache and didn't lose steam at the end. His ripoff of Geek Love by Katherine Dunn seemed pretty blatant, but it fit well into the story he was telling, and I finished the book in record time.

So I'm left with the book I bought in Philadelphia, The Method Actors, by Carl Shuker, which feels promising, but I'm on page 6 so I can't really say.

What's interesting is that the books were set in Australia, Discworld (fictional), Scotland, Ireland, England, Israel, the United States and Spain, with only a bit of overlap. Fortune's Bastard not only had its character visit specific places we were in Barcelona, but ended a chapter by suggesting the apes were leaving Gibraltar.

Marjorie read a lot, too.



She reads nonfiction. And a lot of it was about places we were travelling, especially the book about the Mediterranean we bought in Gibraltar. She didn't like one book I bought her; actually, she liked the book, just not the author and he tended to put himself into the book rather than the sights he was seeing. I think that's a hazard of travel nonfiction.