Someone Special

"And have you anyone special in your life?" she enquired, solicitously or so I thought. When I replied in the negative she proceeded to launch into an account of her own love life, the pros, the cons and all that jazz. I studied her closely, looking for hints and tips, something that would help me snare a mate, a dancing partner, a dinner date, a friendly voice in the void of a Sunday afternoon and all I saw was orange lipstick haphazardly applied, and a face that has seen at least thirty five more summers that my own mottled visage.

The rest of my Sunday was wasted as I pondered my many shortcomings: impatience, an inability to drink myself into a stupor, two left feet, a preference for home cooking, a hatred of bigots, a dislike of organised religion, myopia, oh, and impatience. I decided by the end of the day to be positive, to concentrate on my attributes: good humour, generosity, a love of all things book related, punctuality, and a creative hand in the kitchen. No matter, the exercise was obviously a complete waste of time. I would just have to cultivate other more endearing qualities or maybe accept that it is out of my hands and in the lap of the gods. All I have to do is age well, mature, let time gently pass and by the time I’m in my eighties some equally mature Don Juan will saunter (on his zimmer frame) into my life and keep me company in the Autumn of my years. Bloody hell!!!

In the meantime the only romance I am going to get a whiff of is through the pages of some far-fetched novel where the woman always finds true love, or the man sees his future mate across a crowded room and knows in an instant that they are "the one". That brings the beloved Jane Austen to mind, but who could find fault with anything this skilled and witty novelist has written: Emma, Northanger Abbey, Sense & Sensibility, Persuasion, Pride & Prejudice, Mansfield Park. They’re all wonderful and different and yet the same in so many ways. He loves her, she doesn’t love him, father doesn’t approve, stubborn heroines, ruthless relatives, greed and ignorance, but in the end the man gets his woman and the woman gets her man and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Now leave me be while I sulk for just a little bit longer and try to ignore any possible traits I may have in common with the indomitable Miss Haversham whose fate, had she had worn orange lipstick, might well have taken a different turn.

Fear & Loathing '72

As a future son in law of Mary, I do sometimes get invited to stay for dinner and being the cheap sort of guy I am, I accepted the offer of a tasty roast chicken meal on a fine October bank holiday which, in a round about way, is why I’m writing this blog. Lounging on the coach in the recently refurbished kitchen/dining room and told I can’t gracefully retreat to the TV, I’ve been asked, via subtle blackmail and guilt-tripping, not to mention Mary’s bad back, put out while saving a trampoline from the gale-force winds, into contributing some nuggets of literary knowledge.

But what to write about? Kim Stanley Robinson’s mind expanding brilliant Mars trilogy? Or how about Max Brooks paranoia inducing Zombie Survival Guide, or the follow-up World War Z – An Oral History of the Zombie War? Or going back to my formative years, Katherine Kerr’s Deverry series (a series which is still ongoing, although unfortunately, as with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, the story has grown so large that the characters have lost much of their emotional resonance). All excellent works, and in the case of Robinson’s Mars books, the first books I truly loved, but none of them could be counted as the writer who has influenced me the most. That dubious accolade can only go to one author and, as it happens, that writer is not even a writer of fiction, although no one could honestly claim that his writing was entirely factual. However to misquote his favourite writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, fiction can express more truth than any fact. A maxim that the good doctor lived his life by, because like too few writers his work was his life, or maybe it was his life that was his work?

Most, if not all of the works of Hunter S. Thompson, were autobiographical, giving a level of insight into his personal life like no other writer before (well maybe Kerouac) and along the way giving the world classics like The Great Shark Hunt, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Hell’s Angels as well as countless columns, articles and rants, all delivered in his unique, literary and furious style. My personal favourite is Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.

Armed with nothing (especially any knowledge about politics) but a quart of bourbon, an instinct for the jugular and a quest to find the dark heart of the American Dream, Hunter dives into the world of the American presidential campaign. From private interviews with Richard Nixon in which the only topic of conversation was American football to the legendary back-biting anarchy of the McGovern campaign and the ‘Zoo Bus’, Hunter makes no pretence of being an impartial journalist and as he had no inclination to continue as a political reporter after the campaign was over, absolutely no hesitation to burn his bridges. He delivers brilliantly funny and cutting insights not only into the way campaigns were run at the time but into the cosy relationship between the press and the political players who are rightly their game. And even quickly develops and uncanny instinct for which way the political wind is blowing, which he demonstrates by betting and winning on the outcome of various primaries, to the extant that he laughingly describes how other journalists and even politicos are spotted reading Rolling Stone just to see what he’s going to say next.


Mary adds:
Not only will Eoin Keating make an excellent son-in-law, but his skills as a blogger will definitely come in handy. Mind you, next time I decide to undertake some mammoth task that requires muscle and brawn, I will cook a tasty dinner and invite my future son-in-law around before hand!