What is the What

11:04 AM matt: did you make it through what is the what?

me: almost! I have about30 pages left!

what were your thoughts?

matt: well

it's too long by about half

11:05 AM and maybe it was very true to the guy's voice, but it seemed pretty flat.

i wasn't a huge fan

me: yeah, that's what I thought too!

11:06 AM matt: but i did like seeing how his refuge community sort of knit itself together

me: I actually thought the "voice" changed a lot-- it wasn't consistent

and I didn't like the narrating to the present day characters-- like the nurse in the ER or the attackers' son

I feel guilty for not liking it more

11:07 AM matt: yeah i didn't like that either - really really pedantic.

11:08 AM i started to feel guilty and then realized that a david eggars book is not to be confused with the actual plight of these people, you know

me: I think he would have done better to have a different ghost writer

Eggers I think was too focussed on his own story

(heartbreaking work of staggering genius)

11:09 AM matt: i also wonder if this type of book is just the P.C. modern version of travel narratives like the heart of darkness and robinson crusoe

me: it did seem politically motivated

matt: which would sort of cast in a light of appropriation of these peoples' story

me: I did like that the story became more real

11:10 AM It made it make more sense to me

I felt sad about William K, and Tabitha...

which isn't something you get from the news necessarily

11:11 AM matt: well true. the book definitely wasn't terrible, and is effective as a educational or political tool, which is probably what it was meant as

but if i'd realized that beforehand i probably wouldn't have started it

when is your book club?

11:14 AM me: book club is Saturday!

I might be the only one who read it

Heart of a Dog

My friend Jane loves Russian literature. She gave me Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov to read years ago and I got about 8 pages into it and lost interest. Russian literature to me is dark, cold and depressing. I've read One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich a couple of times and would rather read almost anything else. But after reading Russian Journal I thought maybe I'd better appreciate it. In fact, having Ms. Lee's descriptions of average Soviet citizens did help me better understand this novella. A bourgeois professor and a doctor colleague work to create a new kind of man-- using the body and heart of a mutt, they transfer glands from a recently deceased man and the dog becomes a new man. Each of the characters is over dramatized-- the professor is batty, yet demanding, the doctor possessive of his work, the female employees timid and demure. Citizen Sharik, the newly created beast, is the opposite of the professor and his staff; he's base, crude and aligns himself with the proletariat citizens who are trying to kick the professor and his associates out of their luxorious apartment.
What struck me most about this novella was that it was hilarious! It was easy to imagine as a play with the banter between the characters and the various situations Sharik especially gets himself into (chasing cats and causing a flood in a bathroom which he accidentally locks himself in).
I found this novella easy to read and likely a good introduction to Bulgakov's satire The Master and Margarita. I give this 4/5 netflix stars.