Monty Bodkin

It's hard to imagine what association of ideas brought P.G. Wodehouse to my mind while writing the last post. I just love that expression "wheels within wheels." I just love those Blandings Castle books. Heavy Weather, Summer Lightning, Uncle Fred in Springtime . . . oh ha ha ha! I never could get into the Jeeves books so much, but the Blandings Castle crew are just unbelievably funny. Even their names crack me up: Monty Bodkin???? P. Frobisher Pilbeam???? Pongo Twistleton????

Speaking of books, I'm about halfway through The Known World, our next book club book. The first hundred pages were hard going. There are frequent shifts between flashbacks, the book's "present," and the future. Even very minor characters get the "he didn't know it, but twenty years later he would blah blah blah" treatment. Normally, I like an omniscient narrator, and I love it at the end of a movie when you're told what happens to the characters later in life. In this case, though, it felt like too much, and too abrupt. But it's going more smoothly now, and I'm enjoying it. Well, perhaps "enjoying" isn't the proper word. This is a book about slaves, and black slave owners. I have this constant feeling of dread while I'm reading. But it's fascinating.