Mama and I are having a lot of trouble with book reviewers. We both love to read and we read and read and read, sometimes a little too long into the wee hours and then both of us wake up a bit bleary and red-eyed and wonder why we didn’t sleep well (maybe those images of Achilles’ battles or Commissario Montalbano’s famous killers or simply the poignancy of The Age of Miracles works their way into our dreams and we find ourselves twitching and turning with the intensity of their effects during our slumber).
Several times this week, I found my little kitty self leaping like a Calaveras frog from my normally sweet dreams, straight off the couch and onto the floor, wondering what the heck had just happened! It was all mama and papa could do to get me settled again and feeling safe.
Yes, kitties have dreams and mama tells me that often I moan or make myows in my sleep as if I were conversing with other kitties. Maybe I need a sleep shrink.
HOW DID I GET HERE? I was just on the bed!
But I’m off the subject; my point in all of this is that I LOVE to read over mama’s shoulder (bad dreams or not) and too often lately she tells me, “I just can’t find a good book, because all the reviewers tell me the whole plot in their analyses of new books and I’ll just have to stop reading the paper! But I read reviewers to see if the book made a good impression on the reviewer and that’s all I want to know—NOT THE PLOT!” We have started reading only the last paragraph of a review, and even then, one can be duped!
Mama says it’s the same with movie reviews, which she stopped reading several years ago. Then, again, some people like surprises and some don’t. Some people like to know ahead of time how it’s all going to turn out and some close up their ears when the plot of movie they haven’t seen or a book they haven’t read is being discussed around the dinner table.
Mama like surprises and discovery and plots that unfold slowly and seductively and make her turn the pages and movies that make her cry and laugh and want to talk about them afterward.
(The only thing mama wishes she knew for sure is that planes will take off and land safely.)
As for me, sure, I like to know where my next Purina whitefish en gelée is coming from, but that’s about it.
You try to tell me how Puss n’ Boots is going to turn out and you’re TOAST!!
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