Self-Induced Literature

I was just thinking, I've read all of these within the past year. On the one hand, I'm proud. On the other hand ... what's wrong with me?

Tolstoy Is My Boy

I'm sure you're dying to know—but I did finally finish War And Peace. And I take back my earlier remarks. It ripped! Tolstoy's a master historian, and I learned all about Napoleon's Russian campaign. But that's not the thing that got me. What roped me in was the sheer narrative force—a slow, sweeping current that you're helpless in the face of. It is a novel in the old-school sense, with these incredibly complex, human characters that struggle against themselves and each other and the world. Natasha! Prince Andrew! Pierre! I'll probably still think about them all from time to time for a while.

I was at Powell's this morning and saw the very fitting sign above. Tolstoy IS my boy now.

In other news, we rode downtown last night in the April rain to see a photo show by father and son Kanights. Yep Bryce and his dad self-published a photo book on Blurb.com and this was the opening party or whathaveyou. How cool, that snapping images runs in a bloodline.

As you can see, there were a bunch of babes there, but the music was too damn loud to talk and so we were driven back out onto the dark, damp streets and across the bridge to our northeast haven.