Monday, August 13, 2007

Blind Spots of the Wine and Cheese Set

In Truck, a Love Story, Michael Perry writes of being "hosted at a wine and cheese party attended by a woman of some academic tenure."

He goes on:

"While I was cruising for cheddar in the kitchen, I could hear her in the drawing room, comparing the attorney general to a pair of Nazis. She was particularly dramatic on the issue of privacy, becoming visibly excercised regarding her confidence that right now someone was preparing to peek in her bedroom and plotting to pull her library card. 'Terrifying!' she kept saying. 'Terrifying to have these people in power.' Fair enough, and pass the brie. But my interest was piqued when five minutes later she declared she didn't understand why -- if people had to own guns -- why they might be loathe to submit that information in written form and accept some 'reasonable government oversight.'

Suddenly Himmler and Goebbels are Andy and Barney."


Well said, and well thought.

This is book that gets a high recommendation. It's about rebuilding a truck, planting a garden, cutting your hair, and finding true love. Not too surprisingly, in the right hands, those are the kinds of topics from which you can riff a pretty good book if you are a very good writer. Perry is up to the task.
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It's always amazing to see the change in opinion depending on whether or not it's YOUR ox being gored. Amazing, but not surprising.

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