Books I Re-Read

There a number of books I re-read on a regular basis. Some of these books I read almost yearly but all of them I've re-read at least 5-times.

• Kim by Rudyard Kipling
• The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
• Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
• Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham
• A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
• A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Re-reading this book has become a Christmas Eve tradition.

When I was in high school I used to read Trinity by Leon Uris every year. I think it was my way of trying to connect with my Irish roots. However, I haven't picked up that book in 20-years - so I won't count it. I guess you could also count the Harry Potter books but I've stopped having an obsession with them.

Flotsam and Jetsam

Miscellaneous thoughts and observations.

In an effort to help explain local customs let me start by saying a man blowing his nose into his napkin is the universal non-verbal signal to the waitress that he is done with dinner and that the waitress may now clear his plate in New England... OK this was funny... If I owned an NFL or MLB team with a losing record I would put myself on the roster as the the third punter or seventh outfielder because why not? I don't think there's an actual rule against it. I'd pay myself millions too!... But this was even funnier... One of the great put-downs of all-time was by Ernest Hemingway in A Moveable Feast where he described writer Wyndham Lewis as having "the eyes of an unsuccessful rapist"... I have to agree with James Woods here. People who consistently go after Melania Trump say more about themselves than about the First Lady... If I wrote for SNL I'd do a sketch about the Ginger Network which would be a regular TV network but on which all the actors had red hair. You could have Ginger DiNero and Ginger Pacino doing the coffee scene from Heat. You could have Ginger Jimmy Stewart doing a scene from It's a Wonderful Life. Comedians doing impressions of actors while wearing red wigs - simple but still funny (at least to me),,,

The Great Gatsby

I have read F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby a few times. The first time was for an English class. The next two times because Ernest Hemingway spoke so highly of the book I was sure I was missing something. Each time reading the book felt like a chore to be finished.

I agree completely with this review of the book The Great Gatsby - it just doesn't do anything for me.

For books about the same period in time - give me John Steinbeck's Cannery Row or Hemingway's A Moveable Feast (even though this book wasn't actually published till 1964 - three years after Hemingway's suicide).

I have no desire whatsoever to see the movie.

A Moveable Feast

I just recently finished re-reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast. I've always found it to be my favorite work by Hemingway. I think that is because the book is both historical and biographical and I tend to favor works on history and biographies in my reading habits.

The book's unsung hero is Ezra Pound. The book's villain is Zelda Fitzgerald and the book's fool is F. Scott Fitzgerald who Hemingway paints as an alcoholic buffoon with wasted talent. Hemingway's kind sentiments towards Pound are interesting given Pound's political leanings around WWII. I feel guilty that I've never even once felt the urge to pick up and read anything by Pound. I also feel guilty because each time I read A Moveable Feast and Hemingway sings the praises of the book Out of Africa I say to myself that I will read that book!  But I never have.

Hemingway wrote the book three decades removed from the Paris of the 1920's. In the book Hemingway makes clear that he disagreed with the idea of a "Lost Generation". I tend to agree with Hemingway. It would be one thing if the label of a "Lost Generation" was referring to a generation wiped out by war but the label was a slight originating from Gertrude Stein referring to a generation without direction. A generation adrift. I'm of a mind that generally every generation looks at the generation that comes after it as being adrift and without the same sense of purpose that they themselves possessed. The Great Depression generation probably thought the generation that followed them was a Lost Generation - even though that generation would later be given the moniker of the Greatest Generation.

Youth is wasted on the young. The saying has been true since the days of the Ancient Greeks and it is true today. I guess one of the reasons I keep coming back to A Moveable Feast is because the book allows you to get a feeling of what it was like to be young in the Paris of the 1920's. And that's a good thing.