Overly predictable
In unsurprising news, I adored My Invented Country. In surprising news, I’m switching it up. Next book, I’m back to Erdrich. But this first, a thing about Isabel Allende that makes me smile wildly when I think about her: she’s funny and makes me think about the States with weird new eyeballs.
“The North Americans’ sense of time is very special. They are short on patience. Everything must be quick, including food and sex, which the rest of the world treats ceremoniously. Gringos invented two terms that are untranslatable into most languages: “snack” and “quickie,” to refer to eating standing up and loving on the run…that, too, sometimes standing up. The most popular books are manuals: how to become a millionaire in ten easy lessons, how to lose fifteen pounds a week, how to recover from your divorce, and so on. People always go around looking for shortcuts and ways to escape anything they consider unpleasant: ugliness, old age, weight, illness, poverty, and failure in any of its aspects.” (pg 188)