Cormac — Martha — Russell — Maud

1. Yesterday I saw a newish looking paperback of Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men on the sidewalk. It was near a trash can, in the tarry-or-worse penumbral region of pavement. No. This is not something one picks up. Still, I stared at it, wondering why it was there, whether I should claim it...before realizing, I already have this book. And I still haven't read it.

2. But maybe I could have sent it to Martha Stewart, who is reading CMcC's The Road. She could enjoy No Country while listening to faves Leonard Cohen—or Eminem! (Via Critical Mass.) Is it just me, or would Martha's Book Club be more interesting than Oprah's?

3. In the spirit of my Anthony Powell discovery yesterday, here's a found-via–Site Meter (copy editors, please note my meticulous use of the en dash) review of Russell H. Greenan's It Happened in Boston?, an old Dizzies favorite. It's from an obscure "zine" called Time, way back in 1969. (I believe it was a competitor of The East Village Eye.)

"What kind of tale can possibly evolve from such a gallimaufry of trivia? A dreamer on a park bench, a dim-witted bird fancier, a dead cat, an eight-year-old boy, a picture dealer, a handful of pigeons and an insurance agent—hardly the cast of War and Peace, I must agree." So speaks the witty but slightly (?) deranged narrator, park-bench dreamer, master painter and hero (?) of this fantastical and compelling first novel. The unlikely tale that does evolve draws the unwitting narrator into a plot to palm off one of his works as a Leonardo da Vinci. Somewhat later he proceeds to poison no fewer than seven people in a visionary effort to meet and kill God.

4. And Maud awesomely links to Carla's Lowell-Yaddo piece...

(Boston? image from here.)