Friday, April 06, 2007

So I have the kind of mom who buys books for me without reading them because she thinks I'll like them. Because it she pays attention (to life, my interests, what else I'm reading), she's unfailingly good at this. However, when she thrust upon me Michael Cunningham's "A Home at the End of the World," I was highly skeptical, track record be damned.

Cunningham, you see, is on my author sh*t list. He wrote "The Hours," which being spun out of Virginia Woolf's "Mrs. Dalloway" was bound to be disastrous for our introduction. It took me about seven years and four full-fledged, non-mandatory attempts for me to stubbornly succeed at finishing "Dalloway," which I've now come to appreciate. "The Hours," however, still makes me want to do something - anything - but read the next page (line, sentence, word).

Mi madre was acutely aware of this, and I unnecessarily reminded her when he foisted "End of the World" upon me. She insisted I would like the book. And I insisted I hated Michael Cunningham with a fiery passion from the depths of my soul. She again insisted I would like the book. I again insisted that no, really - I hate Michael Cunningham, and I didn't think she was getting this. She again insisted that I would like the book. I decided to placate her and take it, finishing "Speaker for the Dead" and starting Michael Chabon's novella, "The Final Solution," before giving "End of the World" the obligatory toilet-time preview.

Wasn't impressed, but wasn't turned off.

One day and 32 pages later, I'm conceding: you win, mother. I present the following passage, in which the narrator's nine-year-old, slightly tipsy self finds his father in the kitchen during a party for the grown folk:

There I find our father leaning up against the refrigerator. A line of butterfly-shaped magnets hovers around his head. "Are you enjoying this party?" he asks, touching his goatee. He is still getting used to being a man with a beard.

'Uh huh.'

'I am, too,' he says sadly. He never meant to be a high school music teacher. The money question caught up with him.

'What do you think of this music?' he asks. Carlton [my brother] has put the Stones on the turntable. Mick Jagger sings '19th Nervous Breakdown.' Our father gestures in an openhanded way that takes in the room, the party, the whole house - everything the music touches.

'I like it,' I say.

'So do I.' He stirs the drink with his finger, and sucks on the finger.

'I love it,' I say, too loud. Something about our father leads me to raise my voice. I want to grab handfuls of the music and stuff them into my mouth.

And BANG. There it is. I'm D-U-N. Like Bobby and Whitney (No, really - this time it's serious. Suuuure it is, guys.) My mom has taken a solid lead in the battle of book recommendations. Blast you for making me like Michael Cunningham. That was my last bastion of literary hate. I'll get even one day.

Labels: Books, Michael Chabon, Michael Cunningham, Virginia Woolf