Wednesday, November 17, 2010

(just between us)

this time...., and do not roll your eyes up to the mighty sky thinking: here we go ,how many excuses can this one come up with!
this time i have been neglecting this space because I got lost and busy trying new literary genres, weird books and it is absolutely not my fault.
this better stay between us and it is only to be considered a sort of "intermission post", in between posts, one to keep your attention alive and your faith ( too dramatic of a word, forgive) into the existence of this blog. (back in ma'good old days and in the old country the tv intermission consisted of roughly ten, ten!, minutes of the same lovely and bucolic tune of an harp, which functioned as background to a slide show of polaroyd images representing landscapes ,little villages and monuments of Italy, like old postcards)
Anyhow, I cannot bring myself to write much because I am literally stuck with a big book a thick one. Maybe to talk about a boys' book versus a girls' book is a sign of short-sightedness, literary sexism and so on and so forth and this would be a whole new debate in need for a post-post, not an intermission-post, but I bet you if you go out on the street and randomly interview people asking them whether they have ever read people like Louis L'Amour or Asimov, you come out with more men answering positively than women; just as if you ask them if they have ever read Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights the women would count more yeses on their sides.Then ,of course you have the exceptions like Ayn Rand , Agatha Christie, Patterson or Grisham, universally ingested regardless of gender, religion,ethnicity, political party (maybe not the Ayn Rand's books ,I started noticing a pattern there). Generalizations are, by definition, outrageous but at the same time also reliable generic guidelines, and so the recurrent image in my eyes of the veteran buying Cussler or Clancy ,or the lady grabbing her purchased Nora Robert or Debbie Macomber with newly manicured and flashy square nails doesn't make the apple fall too far from the tree. However the book I am reading further shook my already wabbly theories and defied their core suppositions. The author is indubitably established and his talent widely recognized, but he seems to be flying low on the celebrity sky, not making much fuss even though he made his voice loud and clear in two genres very hard to approach as their audience is very particular about what they want to be fed (in my opinion only, this is not a fact) : Graphic Novels, once called Comics, and Sci-fi, although his books aren't sci-fi perse.
Guessed yet? (Violet, you've already won the Harry Potter contest, so zip it)
English. Ah, and a third category now that I come to think of it: young adults literature, two books, one with a female heroine (not just for girls) and one with the male hero( not just for boys).
He loves mythology....
Neil Gaiman, American Gods. A fantasy book for guys, right?
Well, I'm half way through it, I picked it up after a series of his books' appearances on the shelves of the store, and the comments made by the customers who bought them, and now I am hooked. I keep asking myself whether that is going to turn me into a female sci-fi weirdo geek ( outrageous generalizations...), and I am still suspicious over the fact that I cannot put it down ,but once the judgments and labels habits are put aside all I'm left with is a good read in my hands.