Anna and the Kink
I am reading Anna Karenina right now with a group of friends from undergraduate years. One of my professors invited us to join him in reading and discussing it together. The first 127 pages have brought me considerable pleasure and some token enlightenment as well.
However, there are complications which attend the reading of AK just now. First of all, it is the Oprah Winfrey Book Club of the Sensitive Selection of the Present. This invites cheeky comments from strangers who see you reading it. "No," I tell them time and again, "I am reading this book because my professor and friend Cliff suggested that I read it. Oprah is not my friend."
And speaking of cheeky, the other difficulty is with the book cover. It features a rather fuzzy photograph of a woman's knees, with lilacs (?) tucked between. Due to its general fuzziness and the fact that the title starts halfway down the knees - "ANNA" - it manages to look an awful lot like either T or A. The thing about T & A is that they invite stares and/or comment. "The woman on that book has purple flowers stuffed up her butt," the furrowed brows of Lincoln seem to say. "That guy reading it - what a perv."
Oh well, if we are not ready to suffer for art, to be misunderstood by the benighted masses, what are we?
posted by Christopher | 10:41 AM
8 Comments:
Oh, if you would like to see the cover in question, be my guest: http://a1204.g.akamai.net/7/1204/1401/04110515011/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/8480000/8488918.jpg
Tis true...idle knees are the lilac's greenhouse. lol (ok I'm pretty sure that didn't make any sense. It's supposed to sound like the phrase "Idle hands are a devil's workshop" but now that I think about it I don't even think I got that phrase right. ha) oh well.....
Christopher, I couldn't have said it better myself! The mention of T & A had me laughing out loud! It is exactly what I have imagined others to be thinking while reading the book on the train...and so, I have shielded the book with my hands.
Well, Christopher, maybe you could make a brown paper jacket for the book.
Mel, drop me an email sometime and let me know what you're up to. I've not heard your news in ages.
by reading this book, is it possible that you have allowed the devil a foothold in your life by bringing innapropriate material into your home, you must rip off the cover, much better to read a defaced book than to burn in hell for all eternity because of the sin of lust.
Gasp! Only one person could so quickly cut to the heart of me - well, only three people: (1) Vishnu the All-Destroyer; (2) Bill Gothard; (3) The X-ATI-GUY. My bet is (3), as this prose smacks of the strength of youth: the strength of a youth, I hardly need say, given over wholly to the Lord's service. Can it be that this holy one has come so near as to leave a comment? I am all atremble. The numinous surrounds me. I faint! I die!
That was one of the funniest things I've read in a while.
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