Texts I Have Encountered Today: A Literary Review
1. A terrible documentary about global sex trafficking. Oh, man, was it bad. Unrealized metaphors. Choppy narratives. Told by a female voiceover who also seemed to be a robot... for no reason. It's not easy to create an hour-long account of the geopolitical causes and horrifying effects of coercing young women into prostitution that DOESN'T make me cry, but "Remote Sensing" passed that test with flying colors. Dude, I thought to myself after the screening in my ten a.m. Gender Studies class, am I seriously NOT upset about global sex trafficking right now? No? Chill, guess I'll heat up some macaroni.
2. Tom Cat in Love by Tim O'Brien. Also unsatisfying; giving up on it. Mr. O'Brien's prose, as per always, is effortless. But as per unlike most of his gems- Going after Cacciato- July, July- The Things They Carried- I'm just not reading much truth in it. Unless the truth is that being married makes you crazy, vengeful, and completely unsympathetic as a subject. If this is the case, I would beg my married readership not to tell me yet. Please?
3. Cosmopolitan May 2010- Red Hot Read- "Sky High Seduction" by Susan Lyons. Mostly discusses the logistical difficulties of hooking up in an airplane. Dialogue, therefore, more instructional than affectionate. And I hate texts (literature and film) in which characters are about to be caught in a place they don't belong. Like the beach house scene in "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind". Hate it. If I had been Jim Carrey, I would have left Kate Winslet in that house and not felt a pinch of guilt about it. Being that I am not, it is all I can do to rate this Red Hot Read a One on the widely accepted Fist of Five scale.
4. Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neal Hurston. ...Okay, this one is actually pretty good.
