Tripping The Life Unbalanced

Remember the summer days of awkward pre-teen years?  When you would stumble down to the local library all knock-kneed and glazed eyes from watching hours of Jack and Jennifer on the run?  Those days when crank calling all the boys from your class started to grow tiresome and you were looking for something more to do?  And then when you arrived at the beautifully air conditioned library, full of all those BOOKS and STORIES and QUIET , you almost started crying because you finally felt like home?

Well, maybe a tad dramatic but that kind of sums up my introduction to the love of the story.  Not just books, mind you, but the story.  I spent many an afternoon engulfed in good books, like A Wrinkle In Time and The Railway Children and Half Magic.  Aside from the Sweet Valley High books I was reading (and god help me, I can’t deny I also read those), the books that sucked me in were the ones with a good story.  A little suspense, maybe some fantasy and mystery here and there.  Give me a group of kids in a quandary, most likely poor and from England, and I was set for the afternoon.

 I find myself missing these type of stories in adulthood.  I’m not a huge fan of fantasy or sci-fi now, and although I do sometimes like a good crime novel, for the most part I find myself reading books that are lacking the sense of adventure that used to captivate me all afternoon. 

Recently, though, I was lucky enough to find two books that spoke to that hungry reader in me.  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield and The Keep by Jennifer Egan are both excellent examples of these types of book:  they give good story.  They give GREAT story actually, the kind you can’t get out of your head.  The Thirteenth Tale reminds me of a very old-fashioned mystery tale, where you curl up in front of the fire while the rain pounds the window pane (oh god, I’m off on that British-children-fantasy again).  The Keep, also a mystery of sorts, is a less linear story with bits of a gothic environment and strange characters thrown in.  These two books  reek of the story-within-a-story technique, which speaks to the closet literary theorist in me (damn you, metatext!)  I’m not too proud to admit that I ignored my preschooler while wrapped up in both books (oh relax, you finger-pointers you, it’s not like she was alone! The television was on, thank you very much)

Both books are definitely books for readers.  You could argue that all books are, of course, for readers.  But some of you might know what I mean – it’s those books that called to you when you were 12 years old in the library those many years ago.  The stories that sucked you in and wouldn’t let you go.   I wish there was more of that around me these days.

My love for New York has been largely documented on this blog.  There’s just something about that city that makes my heart swell.  Perhaps it’s the comfort of feeling like I’ve been there a million times.  Although, I’ve only been there a few times on business and pleasure, and therefore just seen the first layer of the city.  It’s not like I have spent days upon days in New York - only a few here and there.  So why the connection?  I think it has something to do with the fact that it’s a city that references itself back at us in so many intriguing ways.  When you see Central Park, you feel like you’ve actually been jogging there already.  Or when you see the Rockefeller tree all lit up, you feel like you’ve been coming to view the tree-lighting ceremony since you were small.

And why is this?  Because you (I mean – I) have been watching Law and Order and listening to The Magnetic Fields and Luscious Jackson for years.  You feel like you know the city because you’ve been immersed in its pop culture and mystery since you were a teenager.  I long for New York even though I barely know its name. 

Now Los Angeles?  Los Angeles I’ve only watched at a distance, through the viewmaster of 90210 and People Magazine.  It’s never been a city I dreamed about visiting, nor does it have a real reference point of longing for me. 

All of this is to say:  I just finished reading You Don’t Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem and I have to say I feel kind of empty now.   It’s set in L.A and is largely a book about the L.A. music scene.  It felt hollow and sad almost, much like the city felt when I visited it a few weeks ago.  To be fair, I was staying in West Hollywood and it wasn’t like I talked to any real humans.  But there was no buzz for me.  No charge from walking down the street (well, NO ONE was walking down the street so it felt kind of lonely anyway).  And I flew to Los Angeles just days after I finished the Lethem book, so that probably coloured the city for me.  Coloured it in beige and off-white walls.  Much like the Philippe Patrick Starck-designed hotel I stayed in.  I felt colour starved in that city.

Funny, as I mostly enjoyed Lethem’s Motherless Brooklyn.  A better written novel, with more interesting characters and substance of story.  Much like the city in which it was based.  What is it about books set in particular cities that seem more interesting to me?  Am I that easy to manipulate?

***ummm..anyone from Los Angeles?  Please don’t be offended.  I choose to live in Toronto, for god’s sake, home of the blank stare.