resonant: Ray Kowalski (Due South) (Default)
resonant ([personal profile] resonant) wrote2004-01-06 08:10 pm
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Why we read

"The recycling bins have to go out tonight," I say to the spouse as he prepares to go back to work after dinner.

We've got a windchill of twenty below here, and on the ground there's about two inches of snow with a half-inch of ice on top. There's no actual sidewalk down to the alley where our recycling gets picked up; you have to slither down a small hill carrying a box the size of a coffin cut in half the short way, which has been laden with old newspapers, and then come back for an identical box filled with plastic, glass, and metal..

"Well," I say to him, "you can pretend that you're in a Siberian work camp."

His eyes light up! He flings his scarf over one shoulder with a theatrical flair and says, in what I assume is meant to be a Russian accent, "Ivan, I do not believe in God, but I shall suffer and perhaps then I shall understand!" And then he staggers off into the snow with two weeks' worth of newspapers and empty milk jugs.

Remember that when someone asks you, "What's the practical use of reading literature?"

A day in the life of Ivan Loquitervich...

[identity profile] kulfold.livejournal.com 2004-01-08 01:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm afraid my other half's favourite comment on books (all be it too annoy me) is "I don't need to read it, if it's any good they'll make it into a film..."

[identity profile] resonant8.livejournal.com 2004-01-09 08:57 am (UTC)(link)
My best friend is like that. Earlier this year she said to me, "So I was thinking about reading a book. Which one do you think I should read?" (I believe she decided on Holes, but she hasn't finished it yet. It's amazing that the two of us can communicate with one another at all.)

[identity profile] kulfold.livejournal.com 2004-01-09 12:16 pm (UTC)(link)
Someone asked me the other day "so whats your favourite book then?" was it bizzare of me to consider this question to be in the same unanswerable category as "well which one of your kids do you love best?"?