only for a really good pal ...

would I do a meme, because I'm a horrible blog snob and he damn well knows it. So Zeno, here's another lumen for my halo: I'm propogating this for your sake, sweetie.

1. What book would I like to be?
This is an impossible question. Is it what book am I?, or is the assumption that I would want to be other than I am? The book that comes to mind is Out of sheer rage: wrestling with D.H. Lawrence, by Geoff Dyer, and that's funny because I'm not fond of Lawrence. But I have a crush on Dyer. He's gangly and sex-obsessed and wry and his autobiographical persona is so tangled up in himself that he can't get anything done (except writing brilliant hilarious award-winning prose apparently) ... anyway: I still love this book, the Lawrence part notwithstanding.

2. Have I ever had a crush on a fictional character?
Duh.
Not all the Austen heroes, but some of them: Knightly, Darcy, but especially Captain Wentworth.

3. What is the last book I bought?
A chapbook of poetry by James Haug.

4. What is the last book I read?
I read the chapbook in its entirety in two fairly brief sittings ...

5. What book am I currently reading?
I'm reading a number of books, but the one that is foremost on my mind is Women, fire and dangerous things by George Lakoff.

6. What five books would I take with me if I was stranded on a desert island?
I'll start by cheating and say:

• The complete works of Jane Austen
  
  and continue more honestly ...
  
• Webster's 3rd unabridged
  
• Ulysses
  
• A collection of dharma scriptures and commentaries and
  
• something hard and interesting and nonfictional that I'd never read before, preferably in cultural history. Something akin to Bakhtin's Rabelais and his world or Love and theft by Eric Lott or Canguilhem's The normal and the pathological, except I've sort of read some or most of all of those, but you get the idea.

Note that these aren't my favorites; I just had to think of what would offer a balanced repertory of things you can do with books. Except I left out porn, because really, could there be any one pornographic book that could amuse someone indefinitely? If so, you know, my birthday is coming up.

7. tag, you're it: amber, scott (who I know will be especially brill with this), and sheryl ... will be checking on you ...

Comments

[zeno]

You do realise that Webster's has incorrect spelling and pronunciation?

[Amber]

Oh great! Gee thanks...

[A J]

Captain Wentworth

Yummy yum yum!!

I can't even TELL you how many scenarios that man has been in in my head.

Somehow I don't think Jane would be all that scandalized. Uh, okay, maybe by a few.

[Sheryl]

Alrighty, I'll put my thinking cap on.