AN ARGUMENT ABOUT LITERACY

San Franciscans have their frilly panties in a bunch because someone said his ex-wife Danielle Steel was our number one celebrity. And many are now voting on the site of the local newspaper, saying yea or nay to nearly three dozen famous people. Nope, ain't gonna catch my vote.

My reaction to the whole thing?

Good lord, is that crappy novelist still among us?!?

Honestly, I thought she had disappeared years ago. Been dissolved when someone threw a bucket of water over her.
Or perhaps auto-combusted.
Whatever.


CHARACTERS IN CRISIS

"...often involving rich families facing a crisis, threatened by dark elements such as jail, fraud, blackmail and suicide..."

[Source: Wikipedia.]


I suppose that kind of stuff IS better than science fiction. Arguably also better than, or at least on par with, the Lord of the Rings stuff. But not as good, or as thrilling, as a decent cookbook.

Years ago one of my more "innocent" coworkers questioned me about a book I had on the shelf. Headhunting in the Solomon Islands (by Caroline Mytinger, of which I own two copies). It's about two women who travel in distant Pacific territories among ethnicities barely ever contacted, in the years before WWII. Mosquitoes, filthy or brackish drinking water, infections, and miserable food. With illustrations.
It's a fascinating book, although somewhat dated. Certainly far more interesting than crappy overly verbose fiction.
Killer title, in any case.

I told him it was self-help.
An in-depth how-to.

Two days later I asked him for his hat-size.

He avoided me for the last half year that he worked there. Which goes to show that books and literacy are valuable. They give those of us who have never stopped reading a toolbox against the troglodytes who barely read beyond Modern Bride Magazine, Monster Truck Monthly, or Sports Illustrated. And then only to pick up keltoid fairy-tale garbage, science fiction, and Danielle Steele.
Worst come to worst, we can always clobber them with a hardcover.
Soft craniums are no match for cloth-bound cardboard.
It's like batting a sponge around the sink.


I'm still catching up on my reading. One of these days I'll reread The Assassination of Lumumba, by Ludo De Witte. As well as both Stella and Thalassa, by Jan De Hartog.

Who knows, I might find someone who also wants to read such things.

In between clubbing sponge-brains over the head with hardcovers.




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