Reading While Traveling

We've been traveling for the last two weeks--went to Buffalo (NY) for my brother-in-law's funeral service.  Any celebration of Lou's life would have to have been full of laughter as well as tears.  After my sister died, at the age of 46, Lou found himself another lovely lady and got gastric bypass surgery.  He lost 200+ pounds, started playing golf every day, and kept the weight off.  Later he retired and moved to Ft. Lauderdale, FL.  I hadn't realized it, but there he found several people who had been childhood friends of his growing up in the projects in NYC, and had a great retirement.  Did he die too young--yes.  69 is way too young, but I think he bought himself 15 extra and good years.  He got to see his son graduate from college, get married, have a daughter, and move to Houston with a great job.  None of that did Meg (my sister) get to see.  My family refused to let him go and he refused to leave us.  He has been included in every family get-together through this one, and will be thought of warmly in every one to come.  He was a good man, well loved.

While driving up, I finished Phantom Evil by Heather Graham.  (Well, not actually while driving--we stopped at about 6 each evening, had supper, and then read.)  In a conversation with TR and Jimmy Colburn (TR's step-son), we were discussing why I hate Stephen King (and why they love him.)  I have no idea what made Christine evil or what caused the people who died at that resort in The Shining to hang around and haunt the place.  I also don't know what there was about Jack to make him easily seduced by the madness there when the other people in the book were not.  I'll never forgive Stephen King for telling me the basement of the place was full of articles about what had happened at that resort and told me that Jack spent lots of time down there reading without telling me what was in a single one of them!  TR and Jimmy told me there are lots of things happening in life that you never get to know the background and "why" of.  I said, "I know.  And it is frustrating.  When I read, I want to know the answers.  I want to know why.  Perfectly good writers should have the ability to be less cryptic than random life."

I explained that I'd just finished reading a book set in a haunted house.  By the end of the book, I understood how all the ghosts had died, why some were good and another very evil.  I know all about the characters in the book both living and dead...all multi-faceted characters with mostly understandable motivations.  (Does evil ever have an understandable motivation?  But I knew that what drove it in life also drove it in death.)  Satisfying.  Which is why I have decided to make Heather Graham one of my regular authors.

I then started Le Morte dArtur by Sir Thomas Malory.  Because the book is so long and is, basically, a collection of short stories and novellas, I decided to divide it into three parts which I will read at different times.  Malory divided the material into seven sections.  The first four took up 200 pages, so that is what I have considered the first part.  Part One is "The Coming of Arthur and the Round Table."  Much of the foundation of the story that we are all familiar with is included in this section.  Part Two is "Arthur's War Against the Emperor Lucius."  Did you know that Arthur went to Rome to battle the Roman Emperor who was trying to extract taxes from Arthur and his people?  I sure didn't.  The third part is "Sir Lancelot du Lake."  All of the stories I had heretofore read have left Lancelot's origin something of a mystery.  Here I learned that Lancelot was the son of King Ban, a French king who was one of Arthur's earliest and most important allies.  The fourth part is "Sir Gareth of Orkney."  I had heard of Sir Gareth, but here I learned that he is as great a knight as Sir Lancelot and is proclaimed by Lancelot as his equal.  He was knighted by Lancelot.  Gareth is Arthur's nephew, youngest son of Morgaise, Arthur's half sister--daughter of Igraine.  Part Five is 300 pages long, and I will treat it as a book unto itself when I get back to this "to read" pile.  That pile also includes my Clan of the Cave Bear books.

Now I have started Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher.  It is very funny and I find myself chuckling my way through it.  I've seen her special on HBO of the same title and was afraid the book would be redundant.  Some of it is, but it is still funny.  I'm on page 48, approximately 1/3 of the way through.