The Next Dark Age

The Dogs of Babel was another book club favorite, and written by Carolyn Parkhurst, an AU alumna. I picked it up at the Library’s Used Book Sale. The premise is that a lady was found dead in her backyard having apparently fallen out of her apple tree. She was discovered by a neighbor that heard her dog barking when he arrived home from work.

The death is ruled an accident, but the husband, Paul, starts to think it might have been a suicide. He determines that the dog is the only witness and decides to teach the dog to talk.

OK – so this is a book about crazy-grief. And a dog named Lorelei.

I liked the concept, but was not half-way through before deciding that the wife was a nutjob and the husband a fool. Then I got to the part about the criminally insane people using surgical techniques to get dogs to talk. Then Lorelei disappears and I don’t care about what shocking thing might have happened in the next flashback because all I want to know is if the dog is ok.

She was. Mostly.

The conclusion was incredibly anti-climactic, but even if it weren’t, I left the book feeling utterly disgusted.

I was in the local section of a book store in the French Quarter. I should do a full post about the bookstores in the French Quarter. Michael Ondaatje is actually Canadian, and is most famous for writing The English Patient.

Coming through Slaughter is a much earlier piece. It was in the local section because it is a speculative piece of fiction regarding the mysterious life of Buddy Bolden, a rather famous musician at the turn of the century who is credited with pioneering, if not outright creating, jazz music. You know what? The book summary can do this better:

“At the turn of the century, the Storyville district of New Orleans had some 2,000 prostitutes, 70 professional gamblers and 30 piano players. It had only one man that played the cornet like Buddy Bolden. By day he cut hair and purveyed gossip at N. Joseph’s Shaving Parlor. At night he played jazz as though unleashing wild animals in a crowded room. At the age of 31, Buddy Bolden went mad.”

These appear to be the facts. Bolden was never recorded and there is only one, poor photograph existing of him. Ondaatje imagined the rest.

The other cool thing is that this piece appears to be an early attempt of a poet branching out into narrative fiction. So besides being not entirely linear, the perspective changes. There is also train of thought and script dialogue and lyrics. It is a short enough piece to pull off the effects rather well. From Bolden’s perspective:

“…me with a brain no better than their sad bodies, so sad they cannot afford to feel sorrow toward themselves, only fear. And my brain atrophied and soaked in the music I avoid, like milk travelling over the boarder into cheese.”

He was talking about the prostitutes. The end doesn’t tie things up very nicely, but that is both true to the history and true to the poetry. In the end, it just feels sad – in the “we missed out on something great” way.

As luck would have it, they know a guy that is friendly with a guy so clearly based on Emeril that even I spotted it. The Emeril-guy goes in with them as a silent-ish partner.

So. A funny/satire/kinda suspenseful book about the New Orleans restaurant scene? I am in.

The characters didn’t suck, the plot was only half-convoluted and I was really interested in the commentary on the industry. I particularly like the contrast between cooking for the locals and cooking for the tourists – apparently the locals take issue with Emeril catering so completely to that crowd.

Hello. That’s where the money is.

I learned that the strawberry sno-cone is the official hangover treat of the gods. I learned that a new restaurant has to be tough with the vendors right from the start or they will be supplied with bad tomatoes for all eternity. I learned that some people will really try anything.

Because Travis was younger, the first third of the book bounced between Bowie and Crockett. Crockett, as we know, was a congressman. His schtick was to be the Western Everyman – very Jacksonian. Except that he was far too independent for the true Jacksonians and they managed to have him voted out of office, which is how he landed in Texas. A lot of that “I’m my own man” stuff was a bit too much for me on the heels of McCain.

Bowie was a land speculator. Perpetuated major fruad against the federal government. I felt sleazy just reading it. Went to Texas when his other deals fell through.

Travis was a young lawyer so far into debt that he fled to Texas, abandoning his wife and two young children. Nice.

Suffice it to say that the Alamo redeemed them all.

This was not my normal pick for subject matter, but I was at the Alamo in January so I gave it a try. It was well-written, but now I am done.