HOUSEKEEPING VS. THE DIRT (PLUS THE HIGH WINDOW, SORT OF)

In contrast to my slow, sedate march through Mansfield Park, I gulped down Nick Hornby’s latest collection of essays from The Believer, Housekeeping vs. The Dirt, in which he simply describes what he’s been reading every month. As my affection for his recent fiction wanes (I love High Fidelity and About a Boy, but do not recommend How to Be Good or Long Way Down whatsoever), my love for his recent nonfiction (Songbook, The Polysyllabic Spree) has increased to the point that I think I would enjoy seeing him write on any topic, no matter how mundane. If he started a blog describing what he ate for breakfast every day, I would read it. Luckily, though, he writes about books, which are plenty interesting.

The second book of my Reading Project, after Mansfield Park, was originally listed as Raymond Chandler’s The High Window. After all Austen’s talk of balls and barouches, I was excited to read something in which hardened cynics seduce and shoot at each other, but when I sat down to start The High Window yesterday, I realized…I’ve already read it! I’m not sure how this oversight was made, but at least now that I’ve typed up all my annual “Books read” lists in a searchable Word file, you can be assured it shouldn’t happen again (ha! my dorkitude has a practical application!). On the one hand, I was relieved to be able to remove a book from my too-long list, but on the other hand, I was a little disappointed. I love the Chandler I’ve read (The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely, Pulp Stories, and, it turns out, The High Window) and had been looking forward to reading another one. Of course, I realize I could just go ahead and reread The High Window, especially considering I don’t really remember what happens in it, but—there’ll be time for that another year, though probably not before I finally get around to reading the rest of Chandler’s oeuvre. In the meantime, I’ll just be pleased that I got to revisit all the funny cracks at the beginning of the book about how hot it is in Pasadena, which I wouldn’t have found as funny the first time I read them, in 2001, before I lived here. Also, it is impossible not to enjoy great lines like this:

She laughed suddenly and then she belched. It was a nice light belch, nothing showy, and performed with easy unconcern. “My asthma,” she said carelessly. “I drink this wine as medicine. That’s why I'm not offering you any.” I swung a leg over my knee. I hoped that wouldn’t hurt her asthma.