Summer reading done Aug 29, 2007 6:48PM PST

Now I just gotta do the annotations and whatnot beore tommorrow. But not before I bore you all with My family always hated Arrested Development and would ask me (tell really) to change the channel when I had it on The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemmingway Some friends go between France and Spain to dine, get drunk and watch bull fights. A bunch of guys are infatuated with a chick that "falls in love" at least 3 different times and the main character regretfully remains just friends. It wasn't exactly entertaining but there was no point I wanted to blow my eyes out and some parts were kind of funny ("tell him bulls have no balls"). It was bearable though and luckily pretty short. I liked the descriptions of a man getting gored but I wasn't enough of an "aficianado" to care about the high art descriptive context the bull fights were described in. I didn't like the female lead having known real-life versions of her and damnit yes, sometimes you feel like a bitch because you ARE one. And yet it's sort of hypnotically enjoyable because it's all believable and most of the characters have agreeable qualities. All in all just a breeze. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh Don't let the first chapters fool you: it sucks. See the prologue made me like it because it described a duysfunctional army camp that I found charming in a M*A*S*H sort of way. Then the first chapter describes a character named Sebastian, a college student with a teddy bear named Aloysis that he spanks with a colm when he's naughty. I laughed out loud at some of these parts and then: whammo! Sebastian is a drunk that the Catholic family has to attempt to get well while evryone's life starts revolving around him. That part ends and now the main character goes on and on about his fucking painting exhibitions. Then everyone starts going through marriages and the text just makes all this feel like everyone's totally numb to the goings on and the lack of passion with all the "nonsense-sounding words make me feel smarter" English charm of an Aloysisless toothpick makes it just as boring as all the characters referred to Sebastian's drunk state as being. "Oh really Charles, he's so boring" says Julia. Lady, you have no fucking clue. I honestly thouht my friend Micah would be wrong and I'd be the opposite of her and like this and not TSAR but as it turns out after the first bit of charm it's a complete chore... which actually may be just what the author was going for because that's pretty much exactly what his main character goes through but it's about the reader and the reader will be bored to death as soon as Sebatian hits the bottle. Recurring themes in these Post WWI "Lost Generation" bovels Everyone spends and drinks too much There's a burdensome friend (Sebastian's a drunk, Lady Brett Ashley in TSAR is a slut) Religion is starting to be more heavily questioned and acknowledged as a hobby more than a life choice. Etc. EDIT: for those about to criticize stupid crap like "bovels", I'm busy shut up.