Saturday, May 15, 2021

Romans de Gare

My Dad has a lot of books out here in Bellingham, mostly of the "Airport Novel" variety.  (The French apparently call them "romans de gare," or railstation novels.)

Of course, there's also Amazon.

The thing is, I'm absolutely flying through books these days, as I was pretty sure I would.  We have a T.V., we have internet (thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster), and we have a backyard filled with birds and squirrels and foxes and yes, honest-to-God coyotes.

But my free time is mostly spent on books.

The larger point being, I'm grateful my Old Man has so many books that I normally wouldn't read.

I'm currently working my way through 1985's Lonesome Dove.  It's 945 pages long.  It's good, but it's -- ahem -- way too long.  Nothing happens during the first 150 pages.

It's funny though, because living here in the middle of nowhere and being a caregiver I can't help but think -- this book was made for me!

It wasn't though.  As I get older I really feel confident in saying that any decent author has to respect the time of his or her reader.

In any event, I'm also writing a lot and I'm enjoying the absorption of stuff -- not just authors, but whole genres -- that I normally wouldn't expose myself to.

I have no idea how long I'll be living out here, but things are good.  And when I have had my fill of Stephen King or John leCarre or Michael Crichton, there's always Amazon.

(I'd argue leCarre transcends his own genre.  Michael Crichton does not, but he's also kind of his own genre to start with.  Stephen King is really his own ongoing concern, forever and ever.)

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