Tuesday, January 9, 2018

My Love/Hate Relationship with Michael Chabon

Most of my free time is spent reading and writing about history, genealogy, and politics.  I abandoned fiction reading many years ago, but recently, decided to read a book my wife recommended by Michael Chabon.  I have always been turned off by sesquipedalian double talk (yes! I can do that too😎).  So I dug in and sure enough, damn!  He used the following big ass words in his book "Manhood" in a very short time:  quotidian, lugubrious, hermeneutics, censoriousness (which I'm doing here), mythomania, stupefied tedium, odorousness, inscrutable, mythologizing, altruism, anathema, and concomitant.  As I wrote these words down, with my scruples in a wad, I read all these sections again without my sesquipedalian hat on.  SHIT!  This man is brilliant!  Damn it, he paints with words.  I hate you, Michael Chabon, you set the bar so damn high.....

The reason he is so good at this....he pulls and tugs.  What does that mean?  I have no interest in comic books, but apparently Chabon does, AND he devotes just enough time to digging deeply into his obsession that my "pissed off" meter goes berserk!  I want to chuck the book out the window, stop the book on CD (I have the book, but prefer listening to this book on CD because it's read by Chabon, which adds to it's prose, lilt, contrary/profound rollercoaster ride).  Once he has you down the "I don't like Chabon" path, he hits you blindsided with "pay a-fucking attention".  Ok...you get the picture.
Happy reading!

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