Fictions

I've recently been reminded that just because I can read English, doesn't mean it's always easy to comprehend. After my trip to Costa Rica I picked up a Latin American author, Carlos Fuentes (from my bookshelf) and although just 30 pages into the book, felt stymied. I can often read more than one book at a time (taking one with me for my commute and keeping the other on the bedside) so I picked up another bookshelf book-- Proust's Swann's Way. Not a difficult read, but dense and long. I was getting nowhere fast. Mihee had the bookclub pick and sent us three choices: Riders in the Chariot by Patrick White , A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee and Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges . Thankful for a distraction, I ordered all three from the library. I looked them all over and felt like all would be worthwhile reads. Mihee picked Fictions and as soon as I started it, I felt over my head. Since I felt like the difficulties in my personal life were intruding into my reading, making it less fun than it should be, I started reading A Gesture Life, which was less onerous. I'll report on that one soon, but in the meantime, I gave Fictions the old college try. Which was fitting because I found a Spanish lit text from college and saw that I had read two stories (in Spanish) and apparently understood them enough to take notes in the margins. We focussed on one story for book club and you can see Steph's synopsis below. I went ahead and read the rest of the stories and appreciated the common themes of labyrinths, secrets, math and philosophy. His stories are timeless and take place in both real and imagined locations. Alternate and multiple realities are presented in many stories and heroes and villains are one in the same. When I was struggling with the stories, I talked to my mom and she assured me I'd feel accomplished once I finished the book, and sure enough I did. But just as one cannot watch foreign films and good for you documentaries all the time, one sometimes needs a cheap read. In case, I have this sitting on my bedside table to break open in case of emergency.