There is an ongoing debate in my mind on whether or not to finish a book once I’ve started it no matter how bad it is, or to simply set it aside and move on. On the one hand, you never know. I’ve been guilty so many times of writing off a book (or movie, or person, or even food) way too soon. It makes me feel lazy and closed-minded. I want to explore. I want to push my limits, test my boundaries, question my beliefs. Life is more fun that way. But at the same time, there are just too many books out there. Why should I spend another day slogging through something that just doesn’t seem to be paying off when there are dozens—hundreds!—of books on my shelf waiting for my attention? Life is too short.
I haven’t made up my mind one way or the other. The debate rages on.
I was supposed to write a review on a book that I can’t name. I can’t name it because, at least so far, it bears a striking resemblance to a big smelly pile of garbage. I really wanted to like it when I opened it up. I mean, I did buy the damn thing. But at this point I’ve all but given up. I’m about two-thirds of the way through. I have my thoughts on it, but I won’t share them until I force myself to finish, and even then, I’m thinking I won’t name the book or the author, I’ll just give all the necessary details.
What I have been reading instead and enjoying immensely is both The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris, and The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, by Carolyn Keene. It’s an interesting combination. They both follow a smart and courageous female detective, but one is for children, and the other is most definitely not. I like imagining my daughter reading the Nancy Drew books and then one day graduating to adult mysteries. I like seeing the trajectory, how she would appreciate both far more than I ever could.
I’d never read a Nancy Drew book before The Ghost of Blackwood Hall. When I was the “right” age, I wrote these books off because I was a boy. When I was older and snobbier, I wrote them off because they weren’t “literary”. And now that I seem to be the right age again, I love them. I love this one, anyway. The writing is perfectly simple and unpretentious. There is no aspiring to any sort of higher art form. She tells the story. There’s a quaintness to the language, of course, and even more strikingly, to the innocence of the character. It was published in 1967. Nowadays, a teen protagonist would have to grapple with her private drug addiction, PTSD from a school shooting, vulgar Instagram messages, toxic food, and her parents losing work to AI. It is the sweetest relief to find nothing of the sort here.
The Silence of the Lambs is a lot of fun, too. Harris is a master at building tension and suspense. It has the most interesting Mexican Standoff sort of structure, where you have the good detective, the bad serial killer, and the ugly Hannibal Lecter all at play. That Clarice Starling is clever and pure enough to work with the Devil to catch a demon speaks volumes about her character. I love rooting for her and her innocence. I’m pretty sure it’s the same reason Hannibal Lecter himself loves her.
There’s got to be something interesting to say about the connection between Clarice Starling and Nancy Drew, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet. This is not a review of either of their books, but one might be on the way. I’ll review them together, if so, Parallel Lives style. As for the pile of garbage, well, I seem to have so much more to say about the books I don’t like, so I may get around to writing about that one first. We shall see.
Until then, happy reading to everyone. And if you’re a writer, get those words in.
Joaquin