Would it be terribly restrictive if you guys whitefonted any major spoilers in JS&MN? I'm on the waiting list for it at the library, but if it's inconvenient I'll happily unsub for a few weeks from the thread.

No problem on my end, Wolfram.

Thanks Erin!

I haven't read anything really GOOD in a while. It's so annoying. Just mediocre stuff, and I find my mind wandering.

I need recs. Or new writers. Something. Anything.

"Fortress of Solitude" by Jonathan Lethem. It has a little of everything.

"Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides.

Augusten Burroughs.

I've been meaning to read both Robin's and the Spectral Bovine's but have not gotten to either yet. And y'all know about my literary Pelecanos-crushing, if you're looking for a non-Grabien new mystery.(Funny to even think of them as writing in the same form. Cause they don't. Not really. And that's not a preference for one over the other...they are like pickles and ice cream. I love both, just not together.)

A fun article about the founder of Bookslut.com. (Chicago Tribune, reg. required.) Loved this:

When writing about critic and novelist Dale Peck, Crispin called his work, "Not even bad enough to be trashy. I tried to read "The Law of Enclosures" until I noticed I was using the cover to try to saw through my wrist."

and this:

In publishing circles, the term "book slut" has circulated for years, says Perreault. It is used interchangeably with the expression "book whore," meaning "one who covets or hordes books," he says, but there's a subtle difference.

"A book whore wants something in return," Perreault says. "A book slut just loves books."

I finished Brett Easton Ellis' The Rules of Attraction this week while waiting at Firestone to get my flat fixed. If the characters in this book were typical of Ivy League college students in the 80s, the leadership of this country is only going to get worse after Bush.

I thought it interesting that other readers have complained about the film version dropping the affair between Paul Denton and Sean Bateman. But in the book all the references to it were from Paul's point of view, with absolutely nothing said on the subject by Sean. There's only one moment where the viewpoint of a third party (Lauren) implies that anything more serious than an unrequited crush happened between the two of them, and that instance is open to interpretation.

While Sean being in denial is perhaps more logical than Paul being delusional about having an affair, the latter is more in line with the book's motif of one-sided and imaginary relationships. Lauren invents a passionate love affair with Victor, who doesn't know who she is. Sean fixates on Lauren, imagining her to be this idealized girl that wooed him with mysterious love notes when she's largely indifferent. The actual author of the notes is obsessed with Sean to the point of killing herself over the lack of his attention, but they never really talked.

It's entirely possible, and perhaps thematically preferable, that anything more than a casual friendship between Sean and Paul was in the latter's head—just as the movie depicted .