Get the Hell Out of Town! -- with Miss Edith

Miss Edith and Notarius decided to get away from it all this weekend. Notarius felt a need to be manly and climb large mountains. I felt no such need, but was happy to sit in the car and head northward with him; the game plan was that I would spend the time when the menfolk were off being manly on some mountain or other at the home of some dear friends who live near mountains. Since this was all planned sort of at the last minute, I didn't have the time to make potentially interesting social plans -- meeting old friends for coffee, for example --; people have lives, after all, and you can't ask them to drop everything on six hours' notice... So I devised my own idea of a getaway.

Accordingly, I packed carefully. I brought DVDs, a number of books, a pair of jeans (it’s sweltering here, but up North, you know, even in the summer it can get sort of chilly), a sweater. I brought things, basically, to keep me comfortable and entertained in a situation where I might otherwise be bored shitless. Miss Edith has no interest in rambling strolls down country lanes; birdwatching holds no charm for me. I admit to enjoying looking at houses and noticing that this one’s gotten a new roof since we were last up – steel to replace cracked slate – and that that house over there has been repainted, finally; it’s now a bed and breakfast. But this is the same kind of strolling I would do in my hometown. Basically, Miss Edith in the country is a bad idea, and the only way for me to be happy in the middle of nowhere is for me to buffet myself with creature comforts and not leave the house at all.

Having had the presence of mind to bring my computer with me – even though there’s no internet connection at the house – I was able to spend happy hours sitting on the porch of the house, drinking coffee and watching DVDs. When I reached the end of a movie, I read for a while. And then I had lunch, and put in another DVD.

So it was really quite a full day, and by the time the mens came back to the house, I could honestly say I’d been pretty busy while they were gone, and everyone was happy.

While on the porch I viewed, in its entirety, a movie entitled “Someone Like You” which stars Ashley Judd, Hugh Jackman, and Greg Kinnear. This movie was highly recommended to me by a dear friend not because it’s a good movie but because it stars Hugh Jackman. Why is Hugh Jackman so ill-served by his movie roles? It’s really criminal. Well, we shan’t dwell on this.

The movie is based on a book entitled Animal Husbandry, a piece of early-ish chick lit by someone named Laura Zigman. I remember reading it some years ago, when I was at the library and frustrated because there was nothing I felt like reading. Animal Husbandry seemed like it might be a decent Laurie Colwin substitute. It was not. I was sorely disappointed. You know something? The experience of reading the book is almost identical to watching the movie. You hope it’ll be very enjoyable – perhaps even genuinely clever, something to admire on its own terms. But it just… isn’t. It’s not that it’s a bad movie… but it isn’t good enough. I’m sorry. Good actors trying sort of hard…you want to be sympathetic. But this is a case where the script could not be overcome. What ought to’ve been a really charming romantic comedy just lacks zing. Sparkle. Actual wit. And Hugh Jackman’s really nice to look at, but that is not sufficient.

I also read, yesterday, a book that about eighty-six people have told me I must read, and never have until now: Augusten Burroughs’s Running With Scissors. This is, as I’m sure Edith’s readers know, a memoir by a young man who had a fairly wretched childhood. Ya know, I’m awfully sorry if this story is true, but I’m more sorry about three things:
1. that people think this is funny; there was really remarkably little comic material in here, and the stuff that’s intended to be comic just… isn’t;
2. that the book is so fundamentally incredible, and I mean that literally; and
3. that the book is so badly written.

I admit that I only find David Sedaris amusing in tiny slices, and that humor is very, very subjective – so a book that’s recommended by David Sedaris is, of course, not likely to impress me (though I did fall for Jincy Willett, another writer who’s been hyped by Sedaris), but really, folks. Who is it exactly that finds these descriptions of boys being raped by older men funny? Who can possibly read this book without thinking, “Um, if this is even remotely trye, how is it that no one ever called social services, or the police, to find out what the fuck was going on in the nuthouse down the street?” This story is supposed to take place in Amherst and Northampton, MA, and in my experience, these are places where there are plenty of do-gooders (you could even say Nosy Parkers) who’d love nothing more than to handle social problems like those in this memoir – and I mean people with social problems, not “social problems” as a larger concept – and try to take care of them. Basically, I find this book just unbelievable. Had the story taken place in an area that was really isolated, in a culture where people really are more “live and let live” – northern New Hampshire, say – then I might say, “Ok, so, these people were fucked up fruitcakes. Oh, well.” As it is, I don’t buy it. And if Mr. Burroughs and his editor can’t be bothered to spell things correctly – not even things that are trademarks, like Brylcreem – then Miss Edith shan’t be bothered to really worry about the well-being of these utterly fucked sounding people.

Would you want to read a novel that talked about Kleenex but spelled it “Cleeneks”?
No, you wouldn’t.

The only reason I don’t feel more annoyed by Running with Scissors is that it took me precisely 2 1/2 hours to read, a short enough time that, you know, I can make it up without worry. But I will not waste time with further work by Burroughs.

A P.S. of sorts:
After posting this, I was moved to go online and discovered a considerable amount of material documenting that the family portrayed in this book have contested the author's veracity, etc. etc., which basically confirms my feelings about this thing. Those who read Augusten Burroughs and think this stuff is awesome basically deserve James Frey, whose "memoir" I tried to read a few years ago but gave up on after a few pages because I was so fucking bored. Readers, readers: try having some critical thinking skills, ok?