All books are one book:
In Vernon God Little, Ella Bouchard; in Main Street, Ella Stowbody (not that the name Ella is that uncommon or that the characters are similar. In the former, the family name Gurie; in the latter, Gurrey; plus, in Nightbirds on Nantucket, gurry is the slimy residue left over from rendering whale oil.
Reading Main Street, set in Minnesota in the 1920s, makes me think about Betsy's Wedding, whose time I know only because of Betsy and the Great World. I really don't want Betsy to turn into Carol, but then Joe isn't Will Kennicott or even a doctor. But Whatsisname the Laurie character* from Anne of Green Gables is, isn't he?
*Gilbert. Sorry.
Kaland I went to a corn maze today. Thank heavens the maze was printed, though an inch square, on our tickets, because otherwise I'd be in there yet. The Botanic Gardens called it the most challenging yet, and it was at least devious. I wanted to get to the tip of Chapungu's beak, because that seemed like the heart of the five acres. We went through the words, which were good to orient ourselves by and led to my insisting on recognizing an E as an E when I ought to. C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair. A bridge at the base of the spine of the R in "Denver" led not to the eagle's left wing but to a loop without an outlet--the printed maze was small enough, and the actual maze lacking enough in traps and monsters, that we didn't plan ahead. When I thought we were in the southeast corner but then I saw the bridge again, I swore, because I'm a class act in front of your children, and because the foothills were behind, not in front of me, but it was, aha, a second bridge. This one carried you deviously over, instead of to, the path to get out, so we twisted and turned some more, and I made bad puns about dead Ns, and I might have crawled through the desert gasping for nutrients in the last few yards but--as with a national park--being so close to the trail head meant there were stacks of people, so I didn't.
The maze is open until 8, and it would be fun in the dark, I guess. Maybe. A flashlight doesn't reveal a whole letter at once, or shed enough light to show the foothills (and thus the compass points). When I got home I saw an email indicating that Denver No Kidding was supposed to have gone at 12:30. The group's expanded, and they're not all or even mostly kid-haters, I think, but I'm glad to have gone as I did, with Kal. If I'd gone with RDC he would've wanted a GPS and a slide rule, and if I'd gone with No Kidding, would I have had to listen to complaints about how the place swarmed with littluns, as if this were or should be an adult-only affair? Or been part of an indecisive mob with a lower common denominator than Kal and mine? Because ours was fairly high, and all the kids I encountered only enthusiastic (and decisive).
Haitch, come back: I know where to have your birthday party!
I bought a pumpkin that I hope will orange up in the next couple of weeks, and we discussed Hallowe'en costumes. She was recently Between a Rock and a Hard Place and I am considering being Macaroni this year, if I can find a cap to stick a feather into. After the strain of nearly having to cannibalize the nearest Girl Scout in the rigors of the maze, we required dessert. Of course. I had a milk shake, a proper milkshake of a proper size (meaning, with the extra (and there was extra) served in the silver mixing cup alongside), hooray, and spent the evening reading Vernon God Little in Vito the reading chair.
Blake weighted my shoulder and preened: I'd showered him in the morning so he was a marvel of not dust but filoplume, and without dust his feathers lay sleek and almost shimmering, but he was so busy preening that I wasn't allowed to snort him.
I have to look up why DBC Pierre earned the Booker for this. I thought that prize went only to British commonwealth authors. The publisher has offices in Edinburgh and New York, so maybe that's it. Aha! Although the author blurb says merely that he split his first 25 years mostly between Mexico and Texas (only in Texas is that a parallel pair), he was born in Australia and now lives in Ireland. But I still need to find out why a pen-and-ink drawing of a capybara appears in the front matter, when the book is the lesser for its lack of capybaras (as so many are) and the animal doesn't seem to be the publisher's device.
Pierre's figures of speech are hysterical and original and his mother and her "friends" remind me of the mother in The Corrections. I loved his voice and style.
This book is the third I've read in less than 10 months drawing from the assault at Columbine High School (the others were Douglas Coupland's Hey Nostradamus! and Francine Prose's After). The Coupland was okay, and I thought this was great, but they're my last Ripped From Today's Headlines (at least that one) novels for a while.