The Xmastime Likes Dudes Book Club

I've been reading Vanity Fair, which is frustrating because the dude is like Dickens, if Dickens was amped up on 'roids and fucking nuts.  After a page of circuitous sentences with conversations between people who have the same name, you're like "wait - what?"  Three pages into one chapter and you're like "even for this guy, this is making no fucking sense," and then all of a sudden Thackery takes a moment to tell you that the previous pages were just nonsensical filler, as the chapter itself was rather short. What?

I guess that's just the style when writing serially, as VF was done. But as loopy as it can be, I'm totally hooked and it's worth the work - the characters are great, it's funny, and apparently I'll read anything set in 19th-century England, since I'm a goddam fairy.

Of course, the real reason is so that when I revisit my Almost Matters, Michael Lund, who has written several books about Thackery, will have no fucking idea who the hell I am be thrilled to see his favorite student return, and I'll find myself hanging out with his buddy and my literary hero Eric Kraft, during which we'll sit around in cable-knit sweaters and write stories about our youths that probably didn't happen. Sigh.

I'm also reading Gaskell's North and South. What is it about reading about English girls getting the vapors 200 years ago that's so appealing to me? Should I just give in, and start dating men? Fucking hell; I might even go back and give Pride & Prejudice another try. Grrrr.

At least no kids have matter-of-factly died (yet), unlike in her short stories.

What's funny is every Gaskell short story is like a season of The Real World to me. As I start each story, at page one I'm like "oh, this one's gonna suck, I'm not gonna care about these people" etc. By page three I'm pissed re: "what the fuck is going on, nothing's happening, I'm completely confused, this is stupid fuck this..." and then of course by page 5 I'm completely hooked on the characters, I think they're my real friends and by the end I'm heartbroken it's over and already insisting there's no way I'll care about the next story as much as this one. Kicking off the cycle again, of course.  - XMASTIME