*blame it on the bassinova. 2002-12-21 10:23 p.m.*

i'm reading a son of the circus by john irving, which kid e gave james when she came to visit. james hasn't read it yet, but i'm a huge john irving fan so i'm borrowing it for break. it's a good 600 pages, and i SHOULD be getting caught up on my incomplete from last semester, but i can't stop reading it.

i have the same thing with barbara kingsolver and james baldwin... where i don't care what they're writing about i just want to keep reading, the words just fascinate me. what i've always loved about irving is his sense of the absurd, something that really makes me think of my dad's side of the family a lot. at least one of his sisters is an irving fan, and i'd seen his books at one of dad's cousins, too, so even before i knew anything about him except that he wrote grownup books, i've associated him with them. the more i read, the more i associate him with them. there's this picture of my dad when he was very young and had the mumps, and his face is just so proud in it, but his cheeks are so huge, and he is so small, and that picture... that picture is john irving books to me.

but yeah, up until now, the absurdity usually has tended to stick with bears and dwarves and vienna... and there's always been sexual deviance, but... this one highlights transsexuals in a way that makes me feel rather squeamish. i can't separate the author's ideas from the character's ideas to figure out if he agrees with their distaste or not. part of me thinks he's just, well, basically "humoring" them in his tone, but... part of me thinks he finds sexual ambiguity as distasteful as daruwalla does... and then i think of the few mentions of sexually ambiguous people and except for roberta in the world according to garp has not been the friendliest. and so i want to slam it down, but i'm sucked in! i can't stop reading! and my desire to figure out his opinion on trans stuff keeps me going as much as his talent in writing. but part of me is ashamed to be reading it... wondering how a few trans people i know would react to it, and i know a lot of them would be really hurt by it. i've become accustomed to irving's style from other books, and i'm reading it, thinking that maybe he's just joking... but i think this book could be very hurtful.

'cause ya know, his other books could never be hurtful to dwarves or viennese prostitutes or any of the other "odd" people he writes about.

so i mean, kid e, it's good. john irving can't HELP but be good, but... it's touching on current issues in my life in a way i'm not quite sure how to wrap my head around.

*listening to: *
<<< | >>>

*<<<<<* *<<* *<* | *>* *>>* *>>>>>*
*random* *list*