Summer Reading: "Mistress of the Art of Death," by Ariana Franklin

Some novels engage their readers with a single element -- plot, character development, etc. -- that carries the book from cover to cover. Other novels succeed on multiple levels that invite the reader to dig into the narrative like a rich layer cake. If you prefer the latter type of book, "Mistress of the Art of Death" should be added to your summer reading (or listening -- more about that later) list.

On its face, "Mistress of the Art of Death" is a straightforward historical mystery set in 12th century England. As the story begins, the reader finds King Henry II juggling several political hot potatoes. He must dampen hot tempers that continue to flare up in the aftermath of Archbishop Thomas a Becket's murder in Canterbury Cathedral, and cool his countrymen's growing resentment towards his decision to offer refuge to European Jews who have been banished from the Kingdom of France. To top it all off, someone is murdering the children of Cambridge. One by one, their young bodies are discovered, bearing evidence of unspeakable atrocities; atrocities which, according to the parochial mentality of the local populace, could only be committed by those "others," the unholy Jews.

Two Jews have already been brutally executed, and Henry faces a dilemma. His decision to offer refuge to European Jewry was not entirely motivated by humanitarian reasons. Church law in England forbids the loaning of money -- usury -- and Henry is well aware that the extension of credit drives the national economy and fills the crown's tax coffers. Ethnic tensions are so high that all lending activity by the Jews (whose religion permits such activity) has ground to a stop in Cambridge, and if the senseless violence spreads, a medieval recession looms. Luckily, Henry's cousin, the King of Sicily, has access to the best modern medical experts in the world, courtesy of the medical school in Salerno, which employs scientific advances achieved by the Islamic world. The King of Sicily commissions Adelia Aguilar, the school's top student of "causes of death" (a medieval CSI agent of sorts) to help Henry uncover the true perpetrator of the serial murders. Adelia, accompanied by the King's best "fixer," Simon of Naples, and a towering Muslim bodyguard named Mansur, sets off for England, and the adventure begins.

Now, for the layer cake: Ms. Franklin has created a literary tale that includes superb character development, an intricate plot with several eye-popping surprises, sensory descriptions that encompass the reader with the sights, sounds, and smells of 12th century England, fascinating historical details, and an understated commentary on ethnic conflict, science and superstition, Christianity and Islam, Jewish persecution, women's rights, and the rule of law. She even weaves a few romantic threads into her story with a touch of wry humor that is refreshing.

Her characters will remain with you after you read the book: Simon, whose love for his wife of many years burns with a fervor that only increases with age; Mansur, whose chronic fear of excess fat (the frequent fate of a eunuch) conflicts with his budding crush on a middle-aged cook whose food is a slice of heaven; Ulf, a scrappy urchin straight out of Dickens; the local prior, who suffers from a personal medical issue that only Adelia can remedy; rotund Sir Rowley Picot, the much-reviled local tax collector who proves to be more than he appears; and, of course, Adelia herself, whose humanity, clear-headed logic, and stubborn doggedness in the face of ignorance make her an ideal and complex heroine.

I listened to the unabridged recorded version of the book, and I highly recommend it. The reader, Rosalyn Landor, has a rich, well-modulated voice that brings the book's dialog alive for the listener. She varies her voice and accent for each character, and gives the recorded book the aura of a well-acted play that you don't want to end. Luckily, this novel is the first of a series that should be well worth following. An excellent discussion of the book, complete with timeline, author's notes, etc. can be found at www.mistressoftheartofdeath.com.

A Page Too Far

There are four movies that I'd love to see next weekend -- The Reader, Revolutionary Road, The Wrestler, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button -- but I can only spare the time to see one of them. Obviously, a bit of cinematic triage is in order. I favor The Wrestler over The Reader by a tad, but The Reader was released first, and my inner stickler enjoys viewing things in their proper order. Revolutionary Road sounds riveting, but I'm vaguely leery of a movie pairing Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio (sorry, Titanic fans). The obvious choice is probably Benjamin Button -- it received thirteen Academy Award nominations -- but I'm embarrassed to say that the length of the movie - almost three hours -- gives me pause. Benjamin Button may age backwards during the course of the movie, but I'm pretty sure my rear end will be aging forward in a fashion that will render it numb by the time the closing credits roll, and I'm not sure I'm ready to make that kind of commitment.

What does any of this have to do with books (other than the "curious" fact that Benjamin Button was ostensibly inspired by one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's short stories)? I've known many people who routinely avoid movies exceeding two hours in length, even when the movies at issue are, by all accounts, well worth the time. No amount of cajoling will force them into a movie theater for longer than the standard 120 minutes, period. Although I tend to reproach this absolutist attitude by time-skimping moviegoers, it's possible I'm their literary counterpart when it comes to reading "big books."

You know the kind of books I'm talking about. In my world, books with four hundred to five hundred pages should be approached with caution, books with more than six hundred pages fall squarely into a personal red zone, and if minuscule print is part of the mix, an alarm begins to go off in my head. I may not realize it at the time, but there's no way I'm reading that book. That's not to say, however, that I don't try. Take, for example, my earnest attempt to read The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss, last year. The Name of the Wind, the first volume in a projected three-volume fantasy series entitled The Kingkiller Chronicles, received astounding reviews in the year of its release (2007). Orson Scott Card and Ursula LeGuin fawned over it, fantasy sites immediately pegged it as THE fantasy debut of the year, some reviewers dared to make favorable comparisons with Lord of the Rings, and others crowned Rothfuss as Robert Jordan's heir. If I was going to dive into a fantasy novel (not my usual fare), this was the book to read, despite the fact that it weighed in at 897 pages.

Initially, things went swimmingly. The first page of the book swept me in with a cadenced lyricism and poetic weight that took my breath away. As I continued reading the book for the next few days, I continued to marvel at the author's ability to create vivid images and complex characters in a world that was totally alien, and yet strangely similar, to my own. The plot was engaging, the writing was wonderful, and then, about two weeks into the book, I caught myself performing an act that presaged doom. I paused my reading, turned the book on end, and measured my progress on an "inches" basis. I estimated that I was about one quarter of the way through the book. Not content to make do with a rough estimate, I took note of the page I was on and performed a bit of arithmetic. Not good. As I continued reading the book, I gradually began concentrating more on my "progress" than on the story. I returned the book, unfinished, within the week.*

David Foster Wallace's untimely death in September of 2008 catapulted his mammoth novel, The Infinite Jest, (1996) back into the literary limelight. Despite its gargantuan proportions (the paperback edition is 1088 pages), I decided to give it a try. I returned it to the library after two days. The first sentence of a Publisher's Weekly review of the book says it all: "With its baroque subplots, zany political satire, morbid, cerebral humor and astonishing range of cultural references, Wallace's brilliant but somewhat bloated dirigible of a second novel . . . will appeal to steadfast readers of Pynchon and Gaddis." (I can't say I wasn't warned.) I found myself wondering whether the novel's title was not so much a title as a description of Wallace's joke on the hapless reader. Infinite jest, indeed.

Never one to place much value on past experience, I recently checked out all 912 pages of Robert Bolano's "2666", published posthumously in November of 2008. Once again, I was taken in by glowing reviews; how can you resist descriptors like "astonishing . . . a world-encompassing masterpiece . . . the finest novel of this century . . . "? Even those reviewers who felt morally compelled to warn prospective readers of the novel's deadly length were positive in their assessment. Publisher's Weekly dubbed it a "brilliant behemoth" and Barnes and Noble called it a 900-page cinderblock of a book, but in a good way. For me, it was mostly in a bad way. I gave the book to another reader after a week of earnest attempts to wade into the water and swim the distance. (In all fairness to Bolano, he initially intended for the book to be published in five separate parts over just as many years. In all fairness to me, I don't think I should feel guilty about returning a book that Mr. Bolano thought I would need five years to read.)

I tend to be skeptical about people who say they've read and enjoyed books of mind-numbing length, and apparently I'm not the only one. I remember reading an article (Books section of the Sunday New York Times??) about The Crimson Petal and the White, a 960-page historical novel by Michel Faber. The book enjoyed effusive reviews when it came out in 2003, and apparently it was talked up as "the intelligent person's historical novel" in every NYC cocktail party worth attending. The article's author contended that upon close investigation, it could be determined that none of the book's devotees had actually read the book. They were simply choristers in a literary echo chamber; some had begun reading the book, others had read the reviews and intended to read the book, and so forth. I don't doubt the writer's experience in the least. I am particularly suspicious of people who tout lengthy books that are known for being intellectually brilliant and/or a vanguard of innovative literary expression. I may believe that you enjoyed (and completed) Gone With the Wind, (hardback, 1048 pages), but I'm going to have to take your same statement about Ulysses (paperback, 816 pages) with a grain of salt. I don't see how a book like that can be anything else but excruciating. Add around 500 more pages to it, and I think you've come up with a diabolical alternative to Gitmo.

That being said, I welcome your suggestions about any "big books" you have read that were well worth the time. Ever the optimist, I'm currently on the waiting list to borrow Anathem (Neal Stephenson's latest fantasy novel, purported to be brilliant by professional reviewers and, more importantly, my own daughter) from my local library. Page count: 960. Here we go again.
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*Most science fiction/fantasy readers have an ability to deal with lengthy books, and if you are fantasy fan, I recommend that you check Rothfuss's novel out tomorrow. (My daughter, an avid fan of Neal Stephenson, has patiently explained to me why many science fiction/fantasy works are so long. When an author creates an entirely new and unique universe, he/she can no longer call upon the reader to "fill in the blanks." The author is obliged to fill in every detail of the unprecedented mental canvas he/she is creating, and that takes more descriptive space than usual).

Review: Lionel Shriver's "The Post-Birthday World"

The first chapter of Lionel Shriver's "The Post-Birthday World" describes the kind of "perfect" domestic arrangement that most people dream of. Irina and her partner of ten years, Lawrence, are enjoying a pleasant ex-pat existence in London. Irina's modest success as a children's book illustrator dovetails nicely with Lawrence's rising career at a prestigious UK think tank; their circle of friends is small but rewarding; and their home life has settled into a seamless, comforting routine. One small detail, however, has begun to occupy Irina's thoughts with niggling persistence: although their sexual couplings are frequent and satisfactory, Irina and Lawrence no longer kiss. Indeed, Irina is lucky to catch a dry "air peck" from Lawrence as he heads out the door each morning.

Irina's book collaborator, Jude, is married to Ramsey Acton, a champion player of "snooker" -- a British version of billiards. Ramsey is a popular celebrity in the UK, and although most Americans are immune to the charms of snooker, Lawrence loves the game and prods Irina into striking up a couples friendship with Jude and Ramsey. Through a series of fateful twists and turns, Irina finds herself unintentionally alone with Ramsey on his birthday. The awkward situation leads to overdrinking, and Irina is shocked when her long dormant sexuality asserts itself with a force that simultaneously thrills and horrifies her. Every molecule of her body tells her to kiss Ramsey; every dictate of common sense tells her not to.

At this point, the narrative splits into two parallel stories. Chapter 2, marked with a black square, proceeds to tell what happens when Irina chooses to kiss Ramsey. It is followed by Chapter 2, marked with a white square, which proceeds to tell what happens when Irina chooses not to kiss Ramsey. The book proceeds with alternative chapters to the end.

If you think that Shriver's novel sounds like a banal chic lit romance that happens to employ an interesting plot device, think again. "Post Birthday World" explores the psychological and physical aspects of attraction with intelligence, insight, and unflinching candor. Lionel Shriver is known for pushing the bounds of raw honesty, and she steadfastly refuses to resort to trite convention or comforting bromides in this novel. She is anti-PC with a vengeance.

Once Irina makes her momentous decision (such a small act -- a kiss -- with such profound consequences), she is driven to filter her perceptions in a way that will support her fateful choice. When Lawrence returns home from a business trip the night after Irina kisses Ramsey, she perceives Lawrence's face to be killingly familiar -- utterly devoid of any remaining mystery or charm. His pet name for her suddenly strikes her as cheeky and presumptuous, and when he embraces her in bed, his heavy arm and warm chest suffocate her. When he prods her with his pelvis, it has the pesky quality of a poking finger. She has made her choice, and she shapes her experience to reinforce her judgment call. How could anyone stay with Lawrence, really?

Alternatively, when Lawrence returns home from a business trip the night after Irina refuses to kiss Ramsey (Version B), Irina beams with relief and love at the sight of her partner ("There was no doubting that Lawrence's was a beautiful face . . . the kind you could dive into like dark water and get lost"), longs to have him embrace her (she insists on a long, wet kiss), and basks in the pleasure of hearing his familiar pet name for her. She has made her choice, and is determined to perceive their relationship as an exceptionally successful one.

Shriver is well aware that part of our attraction to another is based on our perception of who we are when we are with that person. Irina feels comfortably self-contained, productive, and centered when she is with Lawrence, but she also feels a bit dull. She feels adored, enlivened, and known for her innermost self when she is with Ramsey, but she realizes that she has abandoned her career and begun to eat and drink to excess. In a life without Ramsey, Irina will never know the heights of intimacy that she is capable of. She will always wonder what could have been. If she abandons Lawrence, however, a part of her will always be haunted by the years of comfortable, sustainable camaraderie that she threw away. She will always mourn the part of her that she left behind.

Shriver also realizes that time has a way of playing a cruel joke on our affections -- the thing that initially attracts one person to another is often the very thing that repulses us over time, and what we initially perceive as an irritating trait in a partner often prevails as a positive merit in the end, especially if the partner is no longer present from day to day. Ramsey's uncanny skill at snooker charms Irina initially, but she grows to loathe the world of high-stakes snooker and Ramsey's self-absorbed obsession with winning an elusive national title. Lawrence's overly casual approach to clothes irritates Irina initially -- she interprets it as a shabby failing on his part. With time, she fondly views his clothing as a symbol of his faithful and centered personality. Nature, blind chance, and the unforeseen behavior of others can also play cruel jokes, as evidenced by some of the jolting twists and revelations in Shriver's page-turning plot.

When faced with a romantic fork in the road, most people go through intense and prolonged agony due to their belief that the right choice will bring happiness and the wrong choice will bring misery, period. Shriver isn't afraid to tell us that misery will happen no matter what choice is made. Conversely, even "bad" choices can offer moments of joy and transcendence. My estimation of Shriver's intelligence, wit, and insight (sometimes subtle, sometimes ruthless) into human nature increases each time I read one of her books. "The Post-Birthday World" should be required reading for anyone who has ever made the kind of painful, once-in-a-lifetime romantic decision that invites haunting conjectures of "what if?" for years (if not a lifetime) afterward.

Pumpkin Pie and Indignation

I'm writing this entry during Thanksgiving weekend, and I'd like to take a shot at linking that holiday with, of all things, Philip Roth's newest book, "Indignation." Bear with me here.

I remember reading some pop/psych editorial piece (Psychology Today? Yahoo? NY Times?) a few years ago which addressed the phenomenon of the "College Freshman Catharsis" that occurs over Thanksgiving tables across the USA each year. You may not be familiar with the phrase, but I'll bet you've experienced the event in one capacity or another.

Freed from the orthodox constraints of home, and exposed to the liberating charms of self expression and independent thinking that are part of college life, a lot of freshman students return home each year for the Thanksgiving holiday with new beliefs and opinions that are bound to invite contention from Mom and Dad. The worst shock, of course, is reserved for those parents who successfully smothered any incipient "misbehavior" from their child during the high school years. Woe be unto them.

An uneasy détente is usually maintained during the Thanksgiving prayer (rolled eyeballs from the returning freshman notwithstanding), but sometime before the pumpkin pie is served, tempers flare when the returning guest of honor calmly informs the table that she supports gay marriage, has become a Buddhist, and is sleeping with her new boyfriend (a tattooed vegan).

Roth's book is a deeply serious one, and I don't mean to make light of its narrative. The book's protagonist, Marcus Messner, is experiencing the painful aspects of young college life. Driven to exasperation by his father's constant supervision and overly protective paranoia (Have you been drinking? Have you edited your paper yet? When will you be home?) Marcus has fled his local city college in Newark, New Jersey to attend a pastoral college in faraway Winesburg, Ohio. The year is 1951, and Marcus' continuing education is essential if he is to avoid being drafted and shipped off to Korea (his father's ultimate nightmare).

The acute sexual ambivalence that Marcus experiences at Winesburg would seem odd to today's college student. He is wildly attracted to the lovely and mysterious Olivia, but he suspects there must be something damaged about her when she willingly accepts his physical advances. Her unexpected gift of oral expertise creates a queasy mix of shock, euphoria, and disgust in Marcus that shakes him to the core and leaves him to conclude that she must be a psychological victim of her parents' divorce (a rare event in those days).

On all other fronts, however, Marcus' struggles resonate with those of today's undergraduate. He looks back fondly at his childhood years spent helping his father at the family butcher shop, where his blue collar father taught him the dignity of hard work and the value of committed effort, even in the face of despicable tasks. "That's what I learned from my father and what I loved learning from him: that you do what you have to do." College widens Marcus' view, however, and opens his eyes to the myopic parameters of his parents' world. His father chides him into improving a class paper without ever haven written one himself, while his long suffering mother desperately wishes "the best" for him without the slightest idea of what "the best" might be in a world outside of Newark. Marcus' frustration at his parents' inability to absorb new ideas or take a broader view of the world is surpassed only by his frustration at their inability to perceive their benighted state in the first place.

Marcus is forced to deal with class issues (he works as a waiter at the college inn taproom, with socially toxic consequences), disastrous roommate situations (he is too sexually naive to realize that Flusser, his abrasive and verbally abusive suitemate, is desperately attracted to him), and thwarted attempts to reinvent himself (Dean Caudwell pointedly asks Marcus why he put "butcher" down as his father's occupation instead of "kosher butcher.")

Above all else, however, Marcus' story conveys the white hot indignation that occurs when a young person's budding conviction about the way things should be in an ideal world conflicts with the arbitrary and ridiculous demands of reality. Marcus is outraged that his own father has so totally misjudged his character as to suspect that Marcus may become an alcoholic or engage in barroom fights. He is furious that his fellow students treat him with contempt and suspicion because he works at the college inn taproom and refuses to join a fraternity (not even the "lame" one). He is incensed by Dean Caudwell's ridiculous assumption that he must be psychologically unbalanced because he prefers to live alone in an attic dorm room. As a matter of fact, he is incensed by Caudwell's power to call him into the dean's office at all; as long as Marcus is a good student, why must he endure Caudwell's prying inquiries into his private life in the first place? Marcus is also driven to distraction by his mother's narrow, single-minded perception of Olivia; once she observes the healed cut marks on Olivia's wrists, she is blind to any other input -- Olivia may as well not have a head.

Marcus' indignation reaches a breaking point when he is forced to attend Sunday worship services at the college chapel as part of his graduation requirement. Not content to pay someone to attend the service and sign the attendance record for him (as many students do), he goes head to head with Dean Caudwell on the issue, armed with a inflamed sense of injustice and quotes from Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not A Christian." Marcus' sense of righteous fury in all of these situations is heightened by his firm belief (correct or incorrect) that everyone he opposes is clearly less enlightened than he is. Marcus' passion of conviction is both heroic and tragic; it simultaneously serves as the catalyst of his selfhood and his self destruction.

"Indignation" is a short book -- one or two nights of reading at the most -- and despite some of the details that I've mentioned above, I haven't really ruined the plot line, which contains some shocking twists. It's well worth the time.

Happy reading, and may all of your Thanksgivings be memorable.

Kate Atkinson's "When Will There Be Good News?"

I've never been a fan of the kind of paperback murder mysteries that fill the shelves of airport gift shops like so many king-sized Snicker bars. Even the best page-turners in this genre seem to bear a formulaic, commoditized quality that is surpassed only by the prepackaged peanuts that their readers will soon be munching in flight. In both cases (the books and the peanuts), the product is consumed because it offers a momentary diversion, but the long term effects aren't particularly gratifying.

I knew Kate Atkinson's work rose above the average murder mystery when I stumbled upon her first book in that genre, entitled "Case Histories." I was browsing the shelves of my library, picked up the book on a whim (interesting cover), and was hooked after reading the first three pages. Ms. Atkinson's writing had a tart and quirky edge to it that I hadn't encountered before, and I finished the book in about two days. When friends asked me why I was recommending it, I could only say that they had to read it for themselves. Her second book in the series, "One Good Turn," didn't impress me quite as much as her first, and I was anxious to see what her third installment would have to offer.

"When Will There Be Good News" was worth the wait. The book begins with a horrific crime that is presented to the reader in typical Atkinson style. The reader is gently pulled into the narrative by a comfortable depiction of everyday domesticity: A harried mother gets off a country bus with her three children and the family dog. The summer day is hot, the children are flushed and sticky, and the baby stroller is stubbornly resisting every rut in the deserted lane as the family slowly trudges home from the market. Bees buzz, grocery bags are juggled, the children chatter and argue over who is in charge of the dog, and then . . . the unthinkable.

As usual, Atkinson intertwines the crime and its aftermath with several other narrative threads that collide and twist together in amazing ways. The lives of Jackson Brodie, Brodie's former love interest Louise, an orphaned 16-year old girl named Reggie, and the sole surviving victim of the crime described in the book's first chapter intersect in a series of unlikely coincidences that keep the reader guessing until the end.

Atkinson's mordant humor has a dark quality that invites comparison with Roald Dahl and Lemony Snicket (a series of unfortunate events for adults, if you will). Every character in "When Will There Be Good News" has loved someone who died in a brutal or sinister way, and almost all of the adults have made disastrous domestic choices that can only lead to tears (if not worse). And yet, a spirit of feisty resistance against despair infuses Atkinson's work: Reggie, a cheeky little scrapper who has seen the worst that blind chance can dole out, is determined to worm her way into a new "adoptive" family; Jackson, bruised and battered by multiple romantic disasters in the past, is nevertheless ready to take his chances again if opportunity knocks.

The resilient "carry on" attitude of Atkinson's characters helps to counterbalance the malevolent twists of fate that they encounter, and the result is unusually engaging.

Atkinson's books are especially appealing to American readers who prefer a heavy dose of UK atmosphere in their fiction. Reggie's diet (crisps, digestive biscuits, and chocolate wafers), Louise's unwitting connection to some dodgy real estate schemes (we're talking Glaswegian underworld types here), and many other details (inadequate space heaters, Pakistani convenience stores, etc.) make for a convincing tour of the rough northern uplands.

The last chapter of "When Will There Be Good News" leaves the reader eager to discover what course Jackson's life will take next. I'm already awaiting Atkinson's next installment.

Note: If you like the Jackson Brody series, you should also read Kate Atkinson's first book, "Behind the Scenes At the Museum," winner of the 1995 Whitbread Award. It's hilarious.

"Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21730 Pages," by Ammon Shea

This compact little book is the perfect gift for an erudite reader. Original, witty, and wildly entertaining, it offers a highbrow alternative to its "book of lists" cousins that often occupy the family coffee table, kitchen table, or bathroom magazine rack. Mr. Shea, a self-avowed word junkie, spent one year reading the Oxford English Dictionary from cover to cover, and you'll love the treasures he's brought to light. Chapters "A," "B," and "C" alone are filled with enough amusing word trivia to keep you smiling for a week.

Ammon's entries run from the delightfully useful (acnestis -- that pesky area of your back that can't be reached to be scratched), to the evocatively poetic (apricity -- the warmth of the sun in winter). You've got to love a book that introduces you to the term bed-swerver (an unfaithful spouse), even if some of the words hit a bit too close to home (anonymuncule -- an anonymous, small-time writer -- ouch). The next time I'm at a public function and my nerves are rubbed raw by someone's incessant laughter, I'll just smile to myself and think, "this guy is a world-class cachinnator (a person who laughs too much or too loudly) -- he's due for a curtain lecture (a reproof given by a wife to her husband in bed) when he gets home."

Seriously, this book is addictive. I'm already poking around in the D's, and contrary to deteriorism -- the attitude that things will usually get worse -- I'm certain that Shea's book will just get better and better. Buy it. Samuel Johnson will be proud of you.

Novel Therapy

I hold a substantial portion of my retirement fund in equities (the actuarial tables inform me that I'm too young to ride a pure cash/bond route into the sunset), and you could say that the events of the past week have focused my attention. As they say, if things seem too good to be true, they probably are. Just as I was settling into a warm bed of complacency ("This 'investment stuff' is great. All I have to do is go to sleep at night, and when I wake up in the morning, I have MORE MONEY!"), reality, in the form of capitalism gone wild, stripped the sheets and pitched me to the floor in the process.

Conventional wisdom has it that the current market meltdown, albeit grave, will eventually pass; the trick is to batten down the hatches and ride the storm through in hopes that it won't attain Katrina force. My secret for staying reasonably collected in these volatile times? When the going gets tough, the tough get reading. I have a long history of burrowing into a good book during bad times, to wit:

1. I am nine years old, it is midnight, and I have a roaring case of the measles (yes, I know, this dates me). Folk medicine of the day has it that straining one's eyes during a measles outbreak can permanently weaken your vision. In an effort to drive this point home to me, my parents have upped the ante by vaguely alluding to actual blindness. Nevertheless, I am reading a Nancy Drew mystery ("The Clue of the Dancing Puppet," as I recall) by the light of a flashlight (I've also taken the precaution of stuffing a pair of pants into the light-emitting crack beneath the bedroom door -- you can't be too careful). My forehead is hot, my flannel pajamas are clammy, but Nancy's clever detective work has lifted me from my stale sickbed into an alternative universe where measles are irrelevant. (For those who are wondering, I didn't go blind, although I am extremely nearsighted.)

2. Fast forward to ninth grade: my intellectual precocity has consigned me to the fate of a social outcast. An ugly rumor that I read Shakespeare voluntarily (ychh!), together with the fact that I'm a chronic hand-raiser in class (Pick me! Pick me! I know!) have virtually insured a dateless future. Gossip has it that most of my classmates are going to a "mixer" on Friday night, and it's fairly clear by Thursday night that I'm not invited. The rebuff is particularly painful due to the fact that "Twister" (a game invented by the devil himself if ever there was one, my Sunday School teacher tantalizingly informs me) is on the agenda for what promises to be one hormone-fest of an evening. What's a shunned girl to do? Frank Herbert to the rescue. I devour "Dune" for the next four days, transported across time and space from my small town onto an arid planet that is depending upon me to fulfill a messianic prophecy. Who needs to roll around on a plastic mat and tangle legs with Larry Hoffbeck when you can hook and ride a massive sandworm into the pages of interplanetary history?

3. Freshman year, Stephens College, Columbia, Missouri: Things aren't going well. I'm homesick, stressed out (to my surprise, it's not quite as easy to stand out in a private women's college as it was to shine in a graduating high school class of 40 indifferent students), and flirting with an eating disorder. My roommate smokes like a chimney ( a fact that she concealed until about twenty minutes after her parents bid a teary goodbye) and owns the only television set on our floor, guaranteeing a nightly gaggle of Johnny Carson fans yucking it up while I try to study. Miraculously, while browsing the campus bookstore one muggy autumn afternoon, I stumble upon a series that everyone seems to be raving about -- "Lord of the Rings." I decide to give it a try. Tolkien saves my undergraduate life.

4. California Bar Exam, Los Angeles Airport Hilton: This is a nightmare. I'm committed to eighteen hours of exams spread out over three days, I'm one day into the process, and I've awakened with a flaming sore throat. With the aid of a sunny window and a makeup mirror (why are the light bulbs in hotel rooms so damn dim?), I observe white, pus-filled plaques coating my throbbing tonsils. Luckily, there is an "InstaCare" near the airport, and I'm able to see a doctor who confirms my diagnosis and dispenses some antibiotics.

After listening to fellow test-takers bemoan the incredibly low pass rate predicted for this exam, and after realizing that my recovery isn't imminent, I toss in the towel. I decide that I will continue to sit for the exam, but I'm beyond caring. In line with this defeatist attitude, I refuse to study, and instead spend all of my free time reading a paperback book entitled "Nobel House" by James Clavell. I focus on the novel with the concentration of a dog anticipating bacon, complete the exam as a mere auxiliary activity, and fly home with a devil-may-care attitude. Interestingly, I pass the exam.

Conclusion

There are, of course, a few rules to follow when selecting a good book to get you through bad times. A page-turning plot is a huge plus, of course, and I find that the most effective "escapist" fare predictably involves unusual or imagined settings. Whatever you do, don't read a "slice of life" book that addresses the very issues you're trying to escape from. (Don't read "Anna Karenina" if you're trapped in a deteriorating domestic situation, etc.) Accordingly, "Diary of a Bad Year" by J.M. Coetzee may be high on my current reading list, but there's no way I'm going to read it during these times of economic and political absurdity. Suggestions, anyone??