I Despise The Rain King

Not the song. I actually like the song. I was hoping it would play in my head as background to the novel Henderson The Rain King by Saul Bellow. Instead, I've been unable to drown out the metaphorical noises of my banging my head against the wall. I'm doing it, however, to the tune of The Rain King, so that's something.

Ever been caught in a book you can't get out of? One you have to finish only because it's required by some person or class? This is where I'm at. I love reading. Love to open a book, sit down, shut-up and read. I dream about reading at work. Looking forward to going home, when everything is over for the day, and beginning a new book, finishing one I've started or re-reading that last chapter because something struck my fancy. But not this book. Not this horrible, horrible book.

It won the Nobel Prize for Literature at some point in the 60s or 70s (I don't even care about when it did; I don't care about being factually correct about this terrible book). I can see why, given context of the social and literary situations of that era. It's a book about discovery; about finding oneself. But the lead character is a misanthrope; an unlovable Falstaff. One who is subject to haughty prose about nothing really, no fluid thoughts or developments of ideas, just ramblings that occasionally make sense, but not so much sense that you remember it after you close the book.

It's taken me two weeks (of course, it's the playoffs and I rarely get much done anyway) to finally see the end. Of course, the end is more like a desert oasis because in no way am I finished with this book when I finish it. Then I must write a paper, and explore the deeper significances of this terrible, meaningless work. One that takes itself much to seriously, much to important. There's humor in it, meaning in it, but it's ultimately humorless and without meaning. And that sentence is indicative of every sentence in the book.

Sorry for the rant. It's just that "When I think of heaven (Deliver me in a black-winged bird) I think of flying down into a sea of pens and feathers". None of which could ever be used to write this book.