I’ve recently finished “Childhood’s End” by Arthur C. Clark. A friend recommended it. Usually, we have the same taste in books, but this one sort of unnerved me. Maybe it’s because I am not so into Sci Fi anymore.

And now I’m reading “Never Let Me Go” by Ishiguro. I didn’t know it was another piece of sci fi!

Sigh

Fingers drumming.

The book is annoyingly well-written such that I don’t want to give it up. I’ve got less than 50 pages to go, so I will finish it tonight if it kills me. But, I dislike the premise of the book. The story is, all the people in the book are clones that were created as infants, and then raised up to adulthood in order to have their organs harvested.

Horrifying.

But they add this interesting twist to raise the question of the status of the clones souls. Do they have them? So far, the people seem just as ordinary as anyone else, except for their absurd willingness to allow their organs to be harvested..

It’s creepy. And I don’t believe it. What society would allow children to be raised to adulthood for the purpose of slowly killing them by taking an organ at a time? Let’s be real, the first thing that a society that would do that sort of inhumane things would do to clones is turn them into a prostitution ring. That’s what my co-workers thought of immediately, anyway, and then began to plan how a netflix type situation of “releases” off their favorite models would be arranged for their convenience.

Almost as creepy as the book, that. Sometime the male-dominated workplace has its trials.

Anyway, the book is annoying me. And two books in a row that annoy me…It’s hard to take.

I haven’t found a new thread…I mean, a new author to read through or a new genre..I don’t know. I can’t find a good set of books to get me through.

I’m about ready to go back to Victorian times. Some Henry James would set me up for a long visit in the book-world. And I can TRUST a man like James not to creep me out about the existence of clones.

But I can also trust him to take FOREVER to finish. I loved the victorian long form of novel when I was a teenager. I had all the time in the world then. Austen? Dickens? No problem, what else was I doing with my time? Although I will admit, I got put off Dickens after finishing “Little Dorrit.” Lord in heaven, THAT was a chore to finish. I guess Dickens had his crank-’em-out-you’re-on-a-deadline works, too.

A good chewy, but not too chewy book, that’s what I need. I’d like to find an author that’s still alive that I enjoy.

I already finished all of Amy Tan. She would be perfect. But “saving fishes from drowning” was a deadline kind of book. I’m sure she has more hooks in her, but she needs some time off to find them. Take it slow, Amy. Let it come when it’s ready.

Haruki Murakami, MOST excellent. But I finished all of his a while back.

Gregory Maguire was fun, with “Wicked” and all the other fairy tales re-explored. But finished those too.

Philip Roth is okay. But he’s an on-again-off-again kind of writer. Also influenced by the publishers deadlines. I’ve read a lot of his, but…Well..many of them are regrettable losses of time.

John Irving is pretty good, as well as still alive. But I started in on “The world according to Garp” and got as far as the part where the kid gets his eye put out through an accident that happened because his parents were separately cheating on each other. I simply could not forgive the author for that act of violence on an innocent child. It was maybe a third of the way into the book, and I was willing to let the characters convince me of their worthiness. But once the kid got hurt, I had to take a stand. NO! The author had to right to take time to unwind the story, but that violence was a cheap shop. I couldn’t do it.

I could give some of his other books a try though. Maybe.

John Updike is still alive. But he is so…so…Baby boomer. I should read the Rabbit series. But it’s probably very navel gazing and existentially angsty.

Is it too much to ask that a story act like people have a chance of influencing the course of their life through the choices they consciouly make?

Is it?

Okay, yes, we are at the mercy of larger societal forces, and acts of God such as the weather. But can we have a protagonist that remembers to pack an umbrella and a little honest ambition, and therefore gets a little bit of a foothold while managing to NOT die of consumption?

Maybe I should respond to the subtle urgings of my 7 year old friend and read Harry Potter. I am not certain, but I have an inkling that maybe children’s books have a possible edge of optimism left in them

Sucking post-modernist world view. What’s the post post modern thing already? Can’t we move on?

Alright. Before I get totally bitter, I’ll head for the children’s section. A few flights of fancy would do me some good.