Looking for a good book to read.

I'm having a run of bad luck choosing books to read. In the past, I've enjoyed the mindless comedies of Christopher Moore, such as Coyote Blue (published in 2009). So I thought I would be cheered by his latest, Shakespeare for Squirrels. It's a send-up or mash-up or screw-up based on the Shakespeare play A Midsummer Night's Dream, narrated by a character not in the Shakespeare play. It features all the characters from the original -- especially Puck, the fairies Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed, and the fairy king and queen Oberon and Titania.

Let me mention that I have a great fondness for the fairies in this play, and I don't mind if they are borrowed by another writer. The very first Shakespeare re-write I encountered (well, the first one after Lamb's Tales) was written by my 9th grad Latin teacher Miss Gorse for our graduation from junior high school. She assigned me the role of Moth, and all of us had to memorize the Shakespeare scene where the fairies dance, which was fun to rehearse and not too bad to perform. However, you can imagine how the other kids reacted in relation to the four of us who were assigned to be "fairies." Never mind. Sorry for the digression.

My problem is that Shakespeare for Squirrels didn't do anything for me. The humor is crude -- no Shakespearean light touches. And the plot is forced. I didn't find it very amusing or at all enlightening as a reading of the play. I didn't even like the few food scenes, such as when Pocket helps himself from the dining table where Oberon is eating:

"I tore a leg from the roasted bird, a duck methinks, and had a taste of the greasy flesh, sans plate, settings, or goblet.
“'Oh, scrumptious. Well done,' said I. 'Do you have any wine?'” (Kindle Locations 2461-2462). 

Moore's efforts at humor just seemed to fall flat in this novel. Oddly enough, in his Afterword, Moore completely summarized my reaction (except that somehow throughout the years I've actually read virtually all of Shakespeare's plays and enjoyed most of them) --

"I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream is my favorite Shakespeare play— it’s the only one I’ve ever made it all the way through without thinking about things I’m going to eat— and you, sir, have besmirched this delightful, spirited sex comedy with murder, goblins, and gratuitous squirrel shagging. You, sir, you cad, you dilettante, you scrofulous scribbler of unscrupulous satire, have made a sow’s ear from a perfectly lovely silk purse. Why? Why, why, why?'
"Okay, harsh, but fair." (Kindle Locations 3799-3803).

A Food Novel that Missed

Another failure in my efforts to find a book that I would enjoy reading: High Bonnet: A Novel of Epicurean Adventures by Idwal Jones, originally published in 1945. Considered a very obscure classic, it was republished in the Modern Library series selected by Ruth Reichl in 2009. While I'm very fond of most of the books in this series, I just couldn't get into this one -- in fact, I didn't even finish it.

High Bonnet is in the picaresque tradition -- that is, adventures of single character who is typical of something. In this case, the adventurer is a chef, and his adventures are mostly about cooking and relating to other chefs and chef mischief.

Despite how much I like food and food books, the combination of food and personalities here didn't click for me. For one thing, the cheffy descriptions in the narrative seemed to interrupt it awkwardly rather than to advance the novel. Too many different things were going on at the same time.

Here's an example of a description that goes too far for a novel:

"We sent up the consommé. Then a baked pike à la Genoise. After that a pair of langoustes from some Devonshire cove. Jules had boiled them; he cut up the meat, stirred it into thick velouté sauce with the pounded coral, a spoonful of meat extract, seasonings, chives, sherry, a half cupful of grated Parmesan, some sherry, and sliced truffle. It was the veritable black truffle with veinings of white. With this mixture he filled the shells, baked them a while in the oven, then coated them with buttered crumbs which he browned with a red-hot salamander. Finally a Grand Marnier soufflé was put into the oven." (p. 23).

Or another one:

"Connoisseurship exacts too often its penalty. Savors pall, the taste buds dull, the palate grows as indurated as the sole of an old boot or the conscience of a judge. Guido feared it. He judged the perfection of his soups by the twitch of his nose in the steam. He was protected also by a childlike gift of wonder. This drew him nearly every night into some remote quarter, in quest of surprises. He knew all the bistros at Clichy where red-sashed navvies engulfed their ragouts. For months he made a pilgrimage to the Annamese colony in Grenelle, where he had surrendered himself to a beef-and-veal soup. It was tinctured with a few drops of nuoc-man, a briny exudation of decaying fish, mellowed for years in a jar." (p. 32).  

At the risk of too much punning, I'll say this book is neither fish nor fowl -- neither a real novel nor a real work about cuisine. Too bad.

Finally, a Rather Sensationalistic Novel 

I read this a few weeks ago. I can't remember where I heard of it. I finished it, but did not enjoy it:

Wish me luck finding something better!

Blog post © 2020 mae sander.