David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Last night I finished David Sedaris's most recent book, When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

Mostly because Me Talk Pretty One Day reduced my aunt and me to tears when we read it out loud in Italy one summer, and because I got to hear him read in Omaha five or six years ago (and now hear his stories in my head as if he were reading them out loud), I buy and read all his books (albeit rather late, in this case) despite being less impressed with them. Probably the humor is quieter and more mature, but I can't help feeling like he's not quite as funny as he used to be, or at least that the novelty has worn off.

This is not to say that When You Are Engulfed didn't have its laugh-out-loud moments. The final chapter, "The Smoking Section," was definitely my favorite, even though I have no experience with smoking or quitting.* Perhaps I simply find him at his funniest when he's writing about the difficulty of learning a language?

Actually, the final section was so funny that it kind of redeemed the rest of the book for me, which I felt started quite slowly. (I did, however, finish the book in under two weeks, while reading two others; short stories--and in Sedaris's case, often quite short--do slide down awfully easily.)

I'd recommend the book for established fans who want the usual nicely-packaged, if somewhat less hilarious, morsels of Sedaris wit. If you've never read him before, I highly suggest starting with Me Talk Pretty and moving on from there if you feel so inspired.

*It occurs to me that my life might be better if I did have more experience with quitting things, generally.

Stephanie Meyer, The Twilight Books

Okay, I read the Twilight books. All four of them. In about three weeks.

My sister, knowing, certainly, that I would not take the initiative to hunt them down myself, placed the entire stack in my hands when I visited her in Seattle this summer and instructed me to read them, although, she warned, they were like crack.

Yes, I scoffed, especially when I read the first page. It's possible I groaned, "It's even written in first person?"

However, it didn't take me too long to get past the frequently less-than-elegant writing style. It did distract me occasionally, especially in the first book (though I think her writing--or at least editing!--actually did improve in the subsequent volumes), but was quickly subsumed by the highly engaging story.

And the story is highly engaging. For anyone who has ever been a teenage girl--and for me, it's been a good decade since I could claim that distinction, and closer to 15 years since I was really in the throes of adolescent angst--it is also strongly emotionally resonant. Better yet, although I'm sure we can all remember the giddy highs and crushing lows of high school crushes, this is straight-up wish fulfillment: the crush object is not only beautiful, intriguing, and completely irresistible, he is, unlike any actual high school boy, a heady combination of not only masculinity and dangerousness, but intelligence, articulateness, sensitivity, restraint, and good manners.

Further upping his irresistibility quotient, he's ostensibly completely unattainable. But because we're in wish fulfillment mode (and, really, isn't that what fantasy is all about?), he is attained, and of course is even more perfect in that state than he was as simply an object to crave! What's a little stylistic roughness compared with sweet escapist reimagining of what teenhood might have been like in a world so kind to quiet, bookish, physically-disinclined girls?

New Moon, on the other hand, made me weep (see: crier). Who knew that my own feelings of abandonment, pain, and disintegration at male hands were still so fresh? Eeps. I found myself trying to hold myself together right along with Bella.

I won't go into the last two books, except to say again that I do think the series generally gets better as it goes along, thanks to improvement in skill or editing. They really are very fun, easy reads, and, as my sister warned, quite addictive.

My theory on why we love them is that they are so emotionally resonant. My theory on why we hate ourselves for loving them is that our emotions and desires are so predictable: even the strongest, best-educated, most enlightened feminists, it would seem, still want a strong, sensitive partner to want us more than anything, to treat us like it, and to say he'll be around forever.

So, yes, I guess I do love boys who sparkle. (David sent me that link yesterday because he thought it sounded like something I might enjoy. Yay, sparkly vampires!)

Richard Adams, Watership Down

I finished Watership Down sometime in July, I think. Like Cold Mountain, it was another Walla Walla Goodwill find, and I picked it up because it was a classic and because I had the vague sense that my brother-in-law and/or sister owned and probably recommended it.

I had a hard time getting into it, but did keep plugging along, and was rewarded for that. Although it's ostensibly a children's book, an an adventure at that, it sometimes seemed a bit mired down and slow. And long! Heavens! It was nearly 500 pages.

Still, it was at times quite engaging indeed. Surprisingly to me, it also provided some keen and interesting insights on the development of religion. And despite feeling generally less moved throughout the tale than I thought I might be, I was caught off-guard by the Epilogue, which completely sneaked up on me and make me cry. As I've mentioned before, I'm a crier.