Read two somewhat depressing books over the weekend.

First: "The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip" by George Saunders. It's a fable that basically seems to take a dim view of humanity and community. There are these things called gappers, okay, that love goats. And there is this "town" (three houses does not a town make in the real world) called Frip, that depends on goats for their livelihood. The gappers glom onto the goats and make the goats stop giving milk. So kids spend a miserable existence stripping gappers off of goats.
Until one gapper figures out one of the three houses is a little bit closer. So all the gappers go to the one house's goats.

Then the inhabitants of the other houses (one, a WASPy couple, the other a fat Italianate opera singer) thank God for their good fortune and refuse to help the inhabitants of the third house because, hey, they must be worse than us because look at all their gappers. And when the person in the third house gets the chance to be a little spiteful, hey, she takes it.

And then they all wind up subsisting on fish instead of goat milk.
I don't know. It just seemed to present a very sour view of humanity to me.

Second: "Augusta, Gone" by Martha Tod Dudman. This is one of those "troubled-teen" stories. I don't know what to think - I really was a remarkably square teenager, I guess. I never really got into fights with my parents. I never snuck out. I never smoked pot or tobacco. I never stole stuff.

But when I was reading this book, I wanted to scream at the author: Why didn't you get more involved with your kids lives?!?! Why did you let it get so bad?!?! Why, when you saw your daughter doing the same things that you did as a teenager (and that screwed up your life), didn't you stop her?!?!

I don't know. It's one of those "people are more messed up than you can possibly imagine" type of stories. If I had said "the s-word" or "the f-word" to my mom, I know exactly where I would have been - sent to my room, without dinner, without allowance for months, with added-on onerous chores like scrubbing all the tile in the house and weeding all the gardens, and not allowed to see my friends, take calls from my friends, or go anywhere except school and church.

I don't know. Losing priveliges (or, more likely, the mere threat thereof) worked pretty well on me but then I was basically a good kid who didn't want to displease the grown-ups (mainly because the grown-ups were the only people who seemed to value me when I was between the ages of about 10 and 14). I also liked school.

That was another thing that bugged me about the book: Augusta always said school was "dumb" and the author agreed with her. I'm sorry. There are just some un-fun things you have to do and sometimes school is one of them.

I don't know. I guess I get irritated by anyone who seems to think they are too special or too precious for the everyday slogging through life that we all have to put up with. And I resent the implication, so common in these cases, that people who hate school = brilliant but unconventional, and people who like school and do well = unimaginative sheep.

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?

I'm going to go and read "The Chymical Wedding" now. I'm liking that a lot better than either of these.