BOOK HER, DANNO

Every month our local Friends of the Library group designates a book for discussion. I rarely suggest one because I rarely read the books. Seems like I’m always reading something else, and my pea brain cannot process reading more than one book at a time. But last week when the club president was reading through a list of Pulitzer Prize novels, I stopped her on, The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder.

“I read that book when I was a sophomore in high school. It’s short.”

“What’s it about?” someone asked.

“Oh, it tells about the lives of some people who fall to their deaths from the bridge when it breaks. If I read it when I was 15, it can’t be too difficult. Plus, it’s short.” (Did I say that before?)

Well, short and simple sounded fine with the others, so upon my recommendation The Bridge of San Luis Rey was chosen for discussion next month. Library Lady would order up a bunch o’ the books and we’d be set.

So, after a 46-year break, I once again read The Bridge of San Luis Rey this week, and I think I’m going to be in big trouble. Yes, the book is short, 176 pages, but I found myself reading passages a second and third time trying to understand what in the world was going on. Did I really read this when I was 15? I must have cheated with Cliffsnotes. Here’s a sample from page 110:

“Limeans were given to interpolating trivial songs into the most exquisite comedies and some lachrymose effects into the austerest music, but at least they never submitted to the boredom of misplaced veneration.”

What the hell does THAT mean? Practically every other paragraph is like that, plus some of the same characters have multiple names and keeping track of them isn’t easy since they are in Spanish, y mi no habla espanol muy bien. Now, I’m afraid the other FOL members are NEVER going to let me pick out a discussion book EVER again. I might even be blackballed from the group for being a lousy picker-outer. And, if it comes to that, I may just have to---throw myself off a bridge in despair from misplacing my veneration. Talk about a lachrymose effect!