Which Brings Me to You - Steve Almond and Julianna Baggot

I'm not sure what to do with this one. This falls into the category of something I never would have picked up on my own but since Leila suggested it, I'd give it a try. The premise sounded interesting, two sort of fringe people meet up at a wedding and in lieu of a sexual encounter in the coat closet they decide to step back, and write each other letters (real writing on paper) of personal truths. It was not going to be a courtship through correspondences, it was going to be an exercise in confessions. Ok, still with it.

So what I expected was truths: silly beliefs, philosophies, what shapes a person, and how they came to them. Instead, what I got was a catologue of failed relationships. The first teen age relationships are cute and touching and those always fail and you feel for the characters. But when these same characters are in there late 20's and the relationships are still failing because of personal sabotages, poor descisions, and general ennui with life, it goes from funny to tedious, and just a little pathetic. Was I suppose to feel this? I'm really not sure.

Now saying all that, the writing was fantastic. The authors fall away and you do believe in the reality of Jane and John. Enmeshed into the, what I felt, sad storyline were these fantastic bits of imagery or descriptions that make me want to go read more of both these authors books, as long as they have nothing to do with relationships.

On the Violent Femmes:

I became an insufferable fan. I must have listened to the first album a thousand times, those dark, catchy anthems of the yodeling unlaid, the gospel music of the anguished suburban white boy.

On self knowledge:

Sometimes I would hold onto a simple object-a salt shaker, and aspirin bottle-and I'd envy how it knew its place, its role, its function. It's unbearable now to think how impressed I could be by the pleasurable self-knowledge of a light switch.

I loved the crafting of the language and the descriptions. I just could not take the failed relationship after failed realtionship and the self-absorbed psychoanalysis of the characters throughout each one. So I don't know what to do with this one. I couldn't stand the story, but I post-noted up huge amounts of the books because I loved the language.