Bookworm Adventures: Family Drama and Its Antidote

Mark Haddon's A Spot of Bother appeals to me because it's surprisingly easy to read. I snatched it from my uncle's book shelf a few weeks ago along with Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake, Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and Don DeLillo's Falling Man. I expected greatness from Mark Haddon, with all his fame from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (which I have yet to read, depending on the infinitesimal growth of my bank account contents); A Spot of Bother is pleasant, nonetheless.

And so it became a buffer during my feats with literary greatness, alongside Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True. After reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol and the fifth installation of Kikomachine Komix, my book devouring was placed on a hiatus and I was able to read leisurely.

Despite being light, Mark Haddon's fiction spoke at a wavelength that my subconscious was able to pick up. His words were elementary, but once in a while I would find myself taking deep breaths.

He didn't want much. Companionship. Shared interests. A bit of space.
The problem was that no one else knew what they wanted.

***

The music was raucous and tuneless, but as the drink began to do its work, he realised how young people, possibly drunk themselves, or under the influence of mind-altering drugs, could find it entertaining. The driving rhythm, the simple melody. Like watching a lightning storm from the safety of one's living room. The idea that there was something even more violent happening outside one's head.

***

It seemed so violent, suicide. But here, now, up close, it seemed different, more a case of doing violence to the body that kept you shackled to an unlivable life. Cutting it loose and being free.

 It came to the point that mixing all that subconscious talk with the infectious frustrations in I Know This Much is True resulted in my psychology's pleads for a halt, a change of scenery. Being surrounded by family drama both in the literary and actual realms could be taxing.

Hanna came to the rescue by suggesting that Anton Chekhov's short stories might help. The Witch and other stories seems interesting; let's see if it will be a buffer or something to devour.