Sometimes certain books are attractive enough to pick up. There are times when I've been disappointed because I bought a book cause of its cover/title/synopsis/ etc etc...and it was just inaccessible when I came down to reading it. I still wonder how can one increase their chances of reading the right book at the right moment, and avoid misreading a book just because you weren't in the right mood.

This was one of those books was just sooo attractive, but then I struggled with not knowing a damn thing about the author... so it was one that I would pick up and put back on the shelf. Borges did write the introduction for this book and compared him to Kafka and James' The Turn of the Screw. I honestly didn't feel like meshing my tired brain with someone I would perceive would be a favorite of Borges. Yes, Borges is genius but he's a tough cookie. Well down the reading line, I found out that Bioy Casares is one of the most talented and under the radar Argentine writers out there, and for once I believe the hype! Bioy Casares was his buddy, but he never had the acclaim he deserved cause Borges was in the spotlight at the time. Nonetheless, this story is eerie in a seemingly distopian time/ space (Philip K. Dick-ish), and is full of this sinister romance that you can never tell if it truly exists only in the protagonist's mind, or if it is a part of the conspiracy that surrounds him.

The story is a diary of a fugitive who retreats to this deserted resort island. He believes he's the only one there, since the resort is known to have some vaporous disease that gradually eats away at the hair, nails, skin, and flesh of humans. Until one day a gang of tourists arrive and he can't decide whether they consist of the authorities that are after him, but he ends up falling for a gypsy-type woman that he sees by the shore staring at the sunset every day. Despite his fears, he tries to grab her attention and profess his love for her.... without doing so he feels he doesn't have a point in living... but he soon finds that all she has to offer is a blank stare, and the other visitors won't even acknowledge his presence. Even the buildings and its objects wouldn't budge - the holes he tore into the museum basement are sealed, the curtains won't move aside, the doors are automatically locked during certain times, etc. As the title bears, its a pretty twisted scenario.

Yea it was a surprisingly good read... to the point that I picked up all his other books (my weakness). Cheers.

Snooze Button

Sleeping in is a love/hate. I sleep in on my days off and feel like Ive wasted my morning. I wake up early to go to work, then feel so beat and even pop advils to kill my headache - I rush home and nap for 3 stupid hours. I miss plans with friends, am stuck writing again until midnight and then geared up for another sleepless night. So Ive been in a weird kind of mood. I'm 28 years old, which is young, but not really. I'm stubbornly single, but amidst graduation and having my freedom again, I feel like I want to find that person to settle down with. Then I'm having all of these afternoon surreal dreams about having re-sparked old flings, etc etc. OMG am I going to end up as this old haggard librarian with cats and books?! Sheesh...

I have 20 more pages left... Orwell rules school.



Edit: I really like this book.... she's a 28-year old daughter of a stingy clergyman who rides her bike to and fro, and generally works to do some good for her community - even if it means massaging the legs of her old haggard neighbor, making costumes out of scraps for the church plays, and being constantly hit on by desperate, balding divorcee with 'bastard' children who ceaselessly tries to stir her away from her beliefs. The conflict is that she may not even believe in God, or does she force herself because she's a victim of habit and this is all she knows? well it doesn't really stop there, cause Orwell has to make the situation absurdly sour... so in the midst of all her charity, she loses consciousness and wakes up not knowing her identity and being banned from her old town. She ends up feeling true hunger... walking 20 miles a day with other young bums to pick barley in the fields with the gypsies, living in dingy whorehouses, then later becoming a teacher of a private school that lacks integrity (this seemed like a scene out of a R. Dahl book). All in all, it ends brilliantly, like all classics do... we find that her memory loss was caused by this sort of ignorance and poor acceptance of her fate. I guess virgins - spinsters didn't have a lot of options in those days.

Cain is the cream cheese on my bagel. I couldn't believe how much controversy, treachery, and web of alibis he packed into this skinny thing. Its really good. I thought it was similar to "the postman..." but hardboiled mysteries swing that way sometimes. Such a fan.



If Cain is the cream cheese, this is the jam! I can't believe I picked up two copies of this book on accident... whoopsies. Its like the time I picked up Block's book "Nymph" for a YA class. Yea right. Unlike Block, these are pretty fly and are written to the supherb extent of Georges Bataille. I didn't mean to rhyme, but I'm stoked.


Okay now back to writing...

I lied.

I said that Denis Johnson book would be my last leisurely read, but instead I picked up the No. 1 bestseller of non-fiction. I guess there is power in repetition, and like the Shadow of the Wind, I feel like I read a legitimate, wholesome story, but there was nothing more to it. Yea, never believe what Campbell readers pick up for their bookclubs paying with their Nordstrom credit cards.



So this is about the HeLa (hee-la) cell that is infamous in science for leading to vaccines for polio, cancer, and an endless line of other diseases. It is truly immortal, and this book not only explains the science behind the cell, but also confronts the ethics in medicine like patient's consent, property rights, legitimacy of making millions off of a living or dead being's tissue, etc. It also brings up some touchy, but pertinent American history i.e Tuskegee syphilis experiment, etc. I thought this was the most interesting, but all in all Rebecca Skloot isn't a very good writer and her white, upper class point-of-view is still that. I understand she tried to be journalistic and minimize the bias, but sometimes she just made the Lacks seem naive and thoroughly uneducated by focusing on their misunderstandings of the situation, quoting blatant fallacies and outlandish remarks. Honestly, I think that Rebecca Skloot just ran out of actual facts to write about, and all she had left was the Lacks family and her own autobiographical stance in journalistic endeavors trying to uncover this. She took the total bestseller path by cutting the scientific facts, making an emotional tie with those involved, being brief in all focuses (the science, the ethics, the history). I guess I'm being harsh, but I really felt like I was missing something... like substance. ?

Yea well I'm also procrastinating with school to write this meaningless review. It's still the No. 1 bestseller after all. How can I be wrong with thousands of dollars floating in for Miss Skloot. Wow that motivation drained quick.