Searing Parables of the Digitally Condensed

A noble hunger, long unsatisfied, met at last its proper food, and almost instantly the food was snatched away.-- CS Lewis

Why I lagged behind on the reading of some of my early 2010 e-text purchases? One reason was, surely, the mere logistics of the kindle reader I was using: I have written prior to this entry that I am fond of electronic devices as they age, if I am comfortable with them, though this is not the case with the eighth generation kindle I forlornly upgraded at a now defunct off-campus shoppe called Joe’s Coffee  -- too much money spent on a heavy glazed fritter regardless of the coffee swilled needlessly, not the least of which because while Amazon was remotely salvaging this slightly thicker eighth generation model, my behemoth common law husband Frank was dying of kidney failure (he and I were having serious issues and he didn’t want me to attend hospice with him) but I exhaled his last with him, that last weighted draw of bated breath in his olive-pitted, diseased skin, sucking on my own encroaching fiftieth year vinegar: I couldn’t persuade Frank to undergo dialysis to have more be with his family. I have always felt I should have been able to persuade him, for the sake of his grandchildren, who loved him, for the sake of his younger brother, and especially for the sake of his son. This is why satirists like Marc Haig and his off balanced Radleys got the short straw to a degree; Alison Strobel I had simply forgotten I had, and The Weight of Shadows is just good enough, my perineum convulsing mildly with her narrative, to keep me interested in her younger generation. Herman Koch is another matter with his turn of the decade novel. There are a number of movies about The Dinner, and they deterred me from reaching completion, there are also trace echoes of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy in Koch’s charming didactic lesson, but, ultimately, Paul Lohman’s pre-crisis triggers come off like the contrivance of a marionettist, and the final chapter disappointed me, perhaps even because of his brusque geocidal rattling of his students. The talent of Herman Koch is immense, and should be read, but he isn’t quite ready to dock the yacht. A grain of salt should be secured at the table.