The Guardian abets my Listmania

Today, D's roommate walks by and finds me gazing raptly at the computer screen.

"I thought you were going for a walk," she says.

"Um.  I was.  I should have," I reply.  "Now I am doing something considerably less virtuous."

"What," she scoffs, "are you looking at porn?"

"Bibliophile porn," I reply. 

I have been ensnared, you see, by the Guardian's 1000 Novels Everyone Must Read List.

Now, you all know how I feel about lists.  I have a bit of an addiction, to be honest.  I can't seem to resist them: they are just so filled with possibility.  They seem to promise (always falsely) that there will be no disappointments here: these are vetted pantheons of greatness, just waiting to be wandered by me. 

I have been deeply in the thrall of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die list and the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list for a number of years now, with the lasting effect that I now think about my own mortality in terms of how many books and films will remain unexperienced.  Oh god, I thought the other day, someday there will be a book that I just ... never finish.  This struck a distinctly tragic note with me.

The Guardian's list is considerably less historical in its orientation and notably more generic in its organization.  The result is that there are a lot more mysteries, sci fi and fantasy works, and graphic novels than the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die has room for.  I am doing slightly better with the Guardian's list than with the other, but I have still only read about 17% of the list. 

Let me repeat that: after twelve years of uninterrupted academic study of the field of literature, I have only read 17% of the list.  And I am astonished at how few of the works from the lists I have read in recent, stressful years.  Admittedly I have been focusing more narrowly on my field (drama) in these years, but still.

Tsk.

The Thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?

My partner works very hard behind the scenes on a well-known television crime procedural.  Yesterday, D gets home from a 14-hour workday at 2:30 a.m. I begin to complain solipsistically about the mountain of papers and exams I have spent the day grading. 

D sighs: "Tomorrow I hope I have time to take a shower. My hands are all covered in blood." 

Pause.

Longer pause.

He glances over at me absently. 

Then, urgently: "Fake blood. Fake blood!".

Is this a fairly common conversation to have with your beloved?

Dreamers of the Golden Dream

(In pale tribute to Joan Didion)

I read a book about modern-day Fausts on the plane to Los Angeles.  When we flew in over the city, I was struck as I am every time by the vastness of its sprawl.  Its infinity.  A thousand Halifaxes could fit inside it.  (Or so it seems.)

In the shuttle on the way home, I sit next to the driver.  As he drives through the streets of LA, he types on a laptop, flicking his eyes between the street and the screen.  I vaguely contemplate whether he is at work on a screenplay.  Later, he processes my credit card with an old-fashioned manual slide machine while driving up Palms Boulevard.  Note that this process should require two hands, at the very least.

As we pull out of the airport, he points to the highway.

"It's moving!", he cries.

"I beg your pardon?" is my witty rejoinder.  I wasn't sure I had heard him correctly, and had mostly caught the wild gesticulation.

"The freeway! Look at it!"

"Yes."  I try to match his enthusiasm.  "I've never seen it moving so fast!"  But really, you have to be an Angelino for this level of traffic-based glee to ring true.

We both look at our watches on the on-ramp, dumbfounded by the really remarkable absence of vehicles.  It is the height of rush hour.

"Is it a holiday?", he asks.

"Um," I reply.  Have I lost track of the schedule of major American holidays?  Is this how quickly one becomes Canadian?  Oh, nepenthe of the north....

"In my country, this is a holiday. But not a major one."

I can't place his accent: "What holiday is that?"

"Anniversary of the first man in space.  Gagarin."

"Ah yes, Gagarin!  The first cosmonaut!"

"First cosmonaut.  Yes."

We grin at each other. 

He goes back to processing my credit card, bored already by the vast emptiness of the rush hour highway.