Trying to keep up my reading these days and closed out three works in the past month and a half, all in different genres and of different qualities.
Double Star by Robert Heinlein: Less a sci-fi novel than a “caper” it is still a fun read. In a very innocent, 50’s sort of way this is a light work with a down on his luck actor “everyman” being selected for his physical likeness to one of the most important men in the solar system. His job? To impersonate said important man while that individual is out of commission and cement the alignment of the native inhabitants of Mars with humanity and bring equality to all. Of course various pitfalls are encountered along the way including assassination attempts, betrayals, love interests, and so on. If I use the phrase “a rollicking good tale” that would describe it nicely. Nothing you are going to pull your hair out philosophizing over but a great little book to be entertained by.
Casting Into the Light by Janet Messineo: This ended up on a number of outdoor publications’ lists of notable works and I’ve certainly been interested in various fishing and ocean endeavors. It was unfortunate then that it was such a bore. Janet is a surfcaster focused on bluefish. She recounts her youth, introduction to surfcasting and years honing her craft on Martha’s Vineyard. The book is more or less simply a collection of personal anecdotes and remembrances of her past 40 years of surfcasting. Most of them not particularly interesting in nature or on the written page. There is no thread of continuity in the book other than simply the passage of time. No true theme that drives the recounting of events from one period to another. I might have more interest than most simply because of my geographic familiarity with the region and its aquatic life. Others will likely feel it to be more of a slog than I did in getting through it.
Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy: The third in McCarthy’s “Border Trilogy” after All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing this work follows the two protagonists who were the solo focus (individually) of the prior works, now together working on a southern New Mexico ranch. COTP is actually an extension of The Crossing more than anything. As its central character in Billy Parnham states [paraphrase here] “I’ve gone down there three times and never once came back with what I went down to get”. By “down there” Parnham means Mexico. In COTP it is his fourth and final trip there to assist his friend in John Grady Cole that is the pinnacle of the three books. If you’ve read McCarthy’s books, by this point you know things are going to end badly when Cole falls for a Mexican whore but it doesn’t make the journey to that finale any less wonderful. It is again McCarthy’s ability to draw out descriptions of the deep southwest culture and geography that are so fantastic. Edward Abbey would be pressed to do a better job of desert, rock, sand, dust, coyote, horse and blood descriptions. McCarthy writes like someone who has lived these lives he describes. COTP does read like an extra long chapter of The Crossing and feels slightly overweight compared to the prior two in the series but still an great closer to a classic modern Western triptych.