OK, so I’m not exactly up to date with this book. It came out two years ago, and I didn’t know anything about it until I stumbled on it in the library a couple weeks ago. A new library, at that. One with info signs in Russian as well as English and Spanish. And a blonde librarian with high cheekbones and an accent that made me want to tango.
Resisting the urge to find out anything at all about Stephen Hall, I am confining myself to the delight I experienced reading his book. Reading should be fun, books should make us fall in love with reading all over again, make us feel young of brain, and clever. Check, check, checkcheck. Textured, thoughtful, grown-up fun.
It’s not the characters so much–postmodern, anxious, alienated, and pretty clueless about themselves (Ian, the cat, excepted)–or the situation: loss of memory, quest for self (though I am a bit of a sucker, especialy where language is concerned, the plumbless depths of words, etc.)–I’d have to say it’s the high seas adventure of it. No literal seas, although that could be argued. It’s more of a meme.
And when one feels lost, Hall will throw you a rope and haul you back in the boat. He’ll even paddle around waiting for you to catch up. I like feeling a little lost here and there, unless it’s Paul Auster, in which case I break out in hives and return the book to the library.
“Who Are You Really, And What Were You Before?” With a chapter title like that, you can just sit back and drift for a while before reading the chapter. Words in the shape of a shark, swimming toward you across successive pages, then opening its mouth–scaryfunny. There are so many facets tempting one to natter on and on. I may have to read it again, just to refresh the nattering.
It is good to have a hero. I have wanted to have one for a long time, but just didn’t know it. Then I met Neddie Wentworthstein, protagonist of Daniel Pinkwater’s The Neddiad: How Neddie took the Train, Went to Hollywood, And Saved Civilization. sigh. That was a sigh of contentment. Neddie is perfect for me. He’s a happy kid, truly cheerful, and ready for any adventure that comes along. He reminds me that our lives are full of adventure, they really are. I mean, look at your parents: Who could have imagined them? Not to mention spouses and children and friends! Yes! We get to have friends in this crazy adventure, like Yggdrasil Birnbaum (who appears later in the book). When Neddie asks her if people call her Iggy, she says, “Yes they do—once. Then I pop them in the nose. Care to give it a try, military school boy?” My friends say cool things like this ALL the time! I bet yours do, too. Neddy makes me happy. He does go to a military school, because his friend Seamus goes there, but it’s a military school run by retired movie actors, so it’s different from what you might expect. The book is crazier than a box of weasels (chapter 17). There’s a shaman named Melvin, an actual mastadon, a ghost bellboy, the La Brea Tar Pits. sigh. It’s heaven. I may just have to read it again. Mr. Pinkwater, thanks for Neddie. 
I like it better as a verb, though. Getting something started, lighting a fire. Which is why it was chosen as a name for an electronic book. I have no plans to own one, preferring the old fashioned feel of paper, turning pages, using random objects for bookmarks, losing my place, misplacing the book and finding it under a chair after the Christmas tree is taken down, that sort of thing. Amazon is responsible for the Kindle, my husband tells me. He has just formatted an electronic version of my book, “For Glory”, so that it is Kindle-ready, should someone with a brandspankin new Kindle want something to put on it, possibly to read. He was also busy creating an ordinary ebook, for the equally rare person who might wish to read it in that format. Go, Rare People! I applaud you! You spark my imagination. I would have said kindle, but that would have been way too over the top, one of those things we are free to think but really shouldn’t put down on the page. Or blog. I am equally inspired by the random, rare, possibly imaginary blog reader, as well. Go, you. The one feature of the Kindle that makes me think that I’ll probably ending up using one one day is the adjustable font. You can make the print really large. Large enough that if I misplace my reading glasses, it wouldn’t cut into my reading time. The resulting page reminds me of a children’s book, the kind with 20 or 30 words per page. Which might be a problem. With the words isolated like that, I tend to get distracted from the plot and start playing with words. Which would be OK on another level because it would mean I could still think about words and not be lost in dementia. Thinking of one’s writing as kindling is kind of sad, though. Or frightening. It was the word dementia that got me here, intimations of a lost self before death. No dementia in “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” did you notice that? Everyone keeps their marbles right up to the moment of peacefully closed eyes at the end. Very soothing. So, let me know if you have tried a Kindle. We’ll chat about death another time. Happy New Year.