I have been a reading fiend lately and I love it! Now that the kiddos are getting older and entertaining themselves more, not only am I able to read more while they're playing, but I am less intoxicated exhausted after they go to bed and therefore can stay up just a little bit longer. The last book I read from my top 150ish list was John Cheever's Falconer.
What could possibly be worse than reading about Farragut's pointless journey to anticlimactic freedom? All the prison sex. Yeah, and I'm not talking about rape. Because men have needs and god forbid they don't achieve release because that would lead to anarchy and riots, so the guards turn a blind eye and ear to all the "relationships" and a special room in the basement where the men go for communal jacking off. I am not joking. And I just love hearing all the details about that. Really this was one long jack off of a book. I seriously cannot believe this is a top novel of all time. I don't feel like a better person, and I certaintly don't think I learned anything of value except that a brilliant prison escape imagined by Alexandre Dumas can be stolen rewritten in modern times. I am so happy to be done with this book, but John Cheever owes me for all the time I wasted reading it.
Maybe there was something I missed? Maybe I'm not smart enough to have enjoyed the irony, the case study of our American judicial system, what it truly means to be a man? No, I got that. I just didn't care. And this book got so many positive reviews! One person even said that if you don't like this book, you don't like American literature.
Well, call me unpatriotic.
Next, please.
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