Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Pure Drivel

The local Schnuck's (one of those grocery stores which I just looove to visit), has just enticed me to visit them a little less grudgingly.  They have set up a used book table:  paperbacks $.50 each and hardcovers $1 each.  I splurged and spent a whopping $3 on my first perusual.  Few greater joys exist in life than finding that super-sweet bargain on a used book table.  Yes, I am a nerd.  However, the nature of the bargain also means that I will purchase something I would never have considered paying "good" money for. 

I found a treasure - a  "like new" hardcover edition of Willa Cather's My Antonia - and I found a "buy-it-because-it's-only-$.50" bargain - Pure Drivel by Steve Martin.

As you might expect, Martin's book is both amusing in a bizarre sort of way, and risque.  One of his most comical "essays" is on writing.

Writing is one of the most easy, pain-free, and happy ways to pass the time in all the arts.  For example, right now I am sitting in my rose garden and typing on my new computer.  Each rose represents a story, so I'm never at a loss for what to write.  I just look deep into the heart of the rose and read its story and write it down through typing, which I enjoy anyway.  Sometimes, it is true, agony visits the head of a writer.  At these moments I stop writing and relax with a coffee at my favorite restaurant, knowing that words can be changed, rethought, fiddled with, and, of course, ultimately denied.  Painters don't have that luxury.  If they go to a coffee shop, their paint dries into a hard mass.

I would recommend to writers that they live in California, because here they can look up at the blue sky in between those moments of looking into the heart of a rose.  I feel sorry for writers - and there are some pretty famous ones - who live in places like South America and Czecholslovakia, where I imagine it gets pretty dreary.  These writers are easy to spot.  Their books are often depressing and filled with disease and negativity.  If you're going to write about disease, I would suggest that California is the place to do it.  Dwarfism is never funny, but look at the result when it was dealt with out here in California.  Seven happy dwarfs.  Can you imagine dwarfs in Czecholslovakia?  You would get seven melancholic dwarfs at best...seven melancholic dwarfs with no handicapped parking spaces.

I can't say I exactly recommend the book, but the laughs were worth the $.50, and the couple hours I spent on its 104 pages.   

5 comments:

Angie B. said...

My favorites from Pure Drivel were "Hissy Fit" (didn't end up at all where I thought it was going) and "Dear Amanda."

jennifer h said...

My Antonia is a real FAV of mine. The first WC book that drew me in and made me read almost everything she wrote. I haven't read the SM book, but I did read Shop Girl by him, and I enjoyed it. So I would likely enjoy Pure Drivel. I haven't read much in a long time, though.

Lori Waggoner said...

Angie...I never dreamed that anyone I know would have read this book! I too thought "Dear Amanda" was a hoot!

Lori Waggoner said...

Jennifer...I thought of you when I bought it, because I remember that you loved that story. What was your second FAV? I've only read "My Antonia" and "Death Comes..." which is my favorite of the two.

Never read Shop Girl either. Maybe I'll give it a go...

jennifer h said...

I really like O Pioneers! by Cather. Honestly, I have never finished Death Comes to the Archbishop. Every time I start it, something else gets in the way (ie, another book). I also read a biography of Willa Cather when I was in my Cather phase. It was one I found at some used book sale . . . or maybe my MIL gave it to me. The brain is foggy, but I enjoyed reading it and learning more about her. She was a strong woman, and I guess that's why her protagonists are also strong women.