On the Butter Knife Edge of Culture

I just finished reading The Namesake. I got it for fifty cents at a porch sale and it was money well spent. When I was visiting Mom last week I recommended the novel to her, only to learn that she had read it already. Mom is way ahead of me when it comes to contemporary books and movies.

After reading a good book, I get the urge to start describing things, to attempt to capture an experience in words, but the urge quickly dies. Describe things? For who? For those with limited powers of perception? For posterity? For the hell of it is the only reason that seems to hold any weight. I could just as easily watch tv for the hell of it. Or think about knitting projects, or read something someone else wrote.

Even though I enjoyed most of The Namesake, I was a bit irritated to notice that it was the second book I'd read in which the characters were these smart cosmopolitan people who had attended expensive schools. Before finishing The Namesake, I had attempted to read The Timetraveller's Wife. Hopefully, if I read any more fiction in the future, it will be populated by people who are a little less fancy, say, people who went to Berkeley or something.