A Litany for the Little Way of Ruthie Leming
Whatever you do, just read this review.
If you left home for somewhere far away, read this book.
If you left home to "make it" in the world, read this book.
If you left home because you hated it there, read this book.
If you suffer, or ever have suffered, read this book.
If you've ever wondered whether there is any cosmic meaning in suffering, read this book.
If you need to forgive someone, or if you need forgiveness, read this book.
If you love a person or a place but struggle mightily with *liking* him, her or it . . . read this book.
If you wonder whether, indeed, you can go home again, read this book.
If you wonder how you can make where you are now "home," read this book.
Just read this book.
It's not a review really, but I love it. It's great for what it is. I can't help it; I have a soft spot in my heart for buck naked propaganda.
The reviewer, James Freeman, obviously sees the book as a literary Swiss Army Knife. I like how he imperiously adds, "Just read this book" at the end. For all the dummies reading it who haven't gotten the message yet. I thought the last line was sort or unnecessary since "If you suffer, or ever have suffered" is sort of a catch all for, you know, humanity.
Pauli, it's the strangest thing but I think I heard this exact pitch just a little while ago.
ReplyDeleteI was fiddling around with my time machine like I do sometimes when I'm not here and, when I got out, there was this guy who looked just like this guy here, same pose, same sort of grin, except he was wearing a tattered top hat and a sort of patchy frock coat and holding up what looked like a pint whiskey bottle with a sepia label and this woman's picture engraved on it and he was standing in front of a crowd in front of his horse-drawn wagon and selling those pint bottles for a dollar apiece, saying "Step right up! Ruthie Leming, it's the cure for what ails ya!"
So anyways, my hands get kind of rough sometimes and my girlfriend's always saying "You oughta use moisturizer" but I'm not going to do that so instead I bought a bottle of this stuff and tried it on my hands and - nothing. But it smelled real familiar so first I sniffed the bottle and then gave it a little taste and, well, it wasn't any Maker's Mark but at I'd say 95-proof or so it was at least worth a dollar. YEEee-ehh-ahhh.
Um, sorry for my run-on sentences. I think now what I need maybe is some black coffee.
Keith
For your entertainment, Keith.
DeleteOne certainly has to ask whether he in fact got it for her.
Yeah, Pik, I saw that. The fact that rat snakes are as harmless as innertubes (unless you're a rat) only heightens my anticipation of Dreher's great test of manhood.
DeleteBut what struck me was: what sort of pre-adult idiot broadcasts his baby daughter's pictures (see also previous face pix in blog) along with her full, including middle, name to the whole world?
Sorry, but that's purely self-indulgent pimping with no regard for any possible consequences to the little girl.
The guy who celebrates "the tragic view of life", who periodically milks pity for having been hunted by Muslims angry at his rhetoric, must be feeling he and his family have passed into some kind of Steven King force field dome of safety there in St. Francisville, where any angry Muslim intent on harming his family would stand out like a sore thumb among the swarthy native French-Italian-Cajun inhabitants there with their dark eyes, black beards and curly black hair...oh...wait...
Well, at least he's got a deep bench of people there eager to have his back...
Keith
Sorry, but that's purely self-indulgent pimping with no regard for any possible consequences to the little girl.
DeleteSee last paragraph for definition of gerberization.
I'm not sure what the FMJ picture is for. are you suggesting dreher has a "major malfunction"?
ReplyDeleteThat was just suppose to be a picture of a drill sargeant. As in "Just read the goddamn book, numbnuts!"
Delete