In The Lake Of The Woods Wrap-Up And New Book

Well, fellow book clubbers, it's been a crazy, hectic summer. Forgive me for such a dearth of posts. It definitely was not for lack of fascinating discussion for Tim O'Brien's In The Lake Of The Woods. I found O'Brien's meditation on trauma, memory, truth, and relationships to be searing, almost to the point of pain sometimes. Living through something traumatic, so painful that you relive moments of the event at random times in perfect detail, down to the smells of medication, the fuzzy feel of cotton swabs, the reflections of light off of an oxygen tank, is something I'm very familiar with. O'Brien, in my opinion, perfectly captures how that trauma affects every part of your life and how you interact with everyone around you. Wade, his fascination with magic and smoke and mirrors, all are told to us after the fact. It all seems like a great and wearying magical act to really disguise the pain and suffering beneath everything. I'm not doing the book justice, and several book clubbers may have more to say about the lack of characterization or poor dialogue (neither of which I agree with).  

Peggy picked quite the challenging next read for us. David Foster Wallace's final, unfinished, novel, The Pale King. Not exactly summer reading, you might think, what with it being 500+ pages and a story about the intricacies of the IRS and boredom. Give it a try though -- Wallace is one of the premier voices of my generation, a voice that was cut off too soon. We'll be meeting at the Shack at 530 on Monday, August 13. Happy reading!