I know, I know. I’m a slacker. A whole weekend with no posts. Somehow Friday’s slipped away and then Saturday’s and now Sunday’s is up late. Blogging daily has been a good thing for me, keeping me engaged with the books, keeping me honest about my reading but twice now I’ve gone a couple of days without inspiration, without motivation to hop on the internet and tap out my thoughts.

I finished three books in the past three days. Naguib Mahfouz’s Khufu’s Wisdom and Rhadopis of Nubia and Nabokov’s Pnin. Mahfouz’s novels of Ancient Egypt are excellent. I like their style and structure. In Khufu he develops a prophecy, which like Oedipus’s is fulfilled by the very attempts made to thwart it. Nabokov is his usual off-kilter self but, amazing stylist that he is, I’m going to let him get away with it. Pnin is intriguing, employing Nabokov’s typical unreliable narrator and disorienting play with English and internal translations. I find it incredible that English was Nabokov’s third language and yet he employed it so delicately and so smoothly. Pnin plays with this as the protaganist is a Russian emigre who speaks poor English and excellent French. At a short 150 pages it would be an easy weekend read for all but the most sluggish.

We have a tentative plan for disposing of the remainder of our books. There are so many good ones still there, so many amazing books that I hate to let them go but the gigantic POD in our driveway has to move soon (and stop costing us money!). Once I have some concrete plans I’ll update you on the final resting place of Veritas.

…Oh, and Brent? You have NO room to talk…

Zeno’s Conscience is a longer book so even though I read quite a bit yesterday, I’m still only about halfway. It’s been a great books so far, truly a modern classic, and I’ve barely noticed the translation so that’s good but since starting it, I’ve had two big deja vu moments that are starting to creep me out. One was very powerful but once it was over I realized I was having whole memories that really weren’t there…odd.

I was uber-domestic, managing to do two batches of dried apples, one small batch of applesauce, ditto juice, bake Amish friendship bread (more cake than bread), do dishes, five loads of laundry, lasagna for dinner and a loaf of whole wheat bread to go with it. Whew! Full day! Since the boys were in relatively good moods, Quinn was around to watch them once in awhile, also Megan, and Jared came home early, it wasn’t too hard. I really enjoy looking back on a day like that…went to bed at 9:45…yes I’m officially old now…

A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul Page: 140

Another guilty morning post…and a guilty, mere 140 pages for yesterday. I intended (as usual) to spend and hour and a half reading last night after the boys went to bed and of course to post before bed but dinner with friends and an early bedtime took over. Jared and I went to dinner with some of our best friends, Dave and Heather, last night. They took us to Asiago’s in downtown Boise. Ostensibly it was in return for a similar dinner we had treated them to, more than two years ago. That dinner was before either of us had kids (Dave and Heather have a little boy about Luc’s age). Dinner was so very good! Conversation was sparkling and a glass and a half of wine on top of crab cakes (yum!) and my busy day meant that 9:30 looked like a good bedtime for me.

I’m finding Naipaul sad. I guess A House for Mr. Biswas is considered a classic of Carribean literature and I think that it is very well written (only a 1/4 of the way through) but another depressing novel…I’m not sure I’m emotionally up for it.