The Worst Book(s) in the World

If Thursday’s Grandma Next had to read the ten most boring books on earth before she could die, perhaps I’ve been sentenced to reading the ten worst books. I’d better take it easy, however, because this week alone I’ve already read two of them, and when combined with my junior high school English classes (“Farewell to Manzanar,” “The House on Mango Street,” and “The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson” all come to mind), I must be halfway to dying.

Crazy Jane and Articulate Joe each have a chapter book that I read with them at night. With Crazy Jane it’s usually a Ramona Quimby book or something from the Ivy and Bean collection. With Articulate Joe it’s a book about animals or trucks. Persephone recommended a book about gerbils she remembered from her childhood, “Bubble and Squeak,” by Philippa Pearce.

I hated this book. It was the most unpleasant reading experience I’ve ever had (and remember that I’ve TWICE had to read “I’m breaking up with you” letters from Persephone). This book was horrible because of one character: Mrs. Sparrow. She’s not just crazy, but completely believably crazy, in a way that makes me want to help her children run away. This isn’t a case of Cruella DeVille comic craziness that livens up a children’s story; this is wife-from-“Spanglish” painful craziness that makes you want to gouge out your eyes. Maybe it’s because it hits a little too close to home, but I don’t think crazy mothers are ever a source of entertainment.

I spent the entire time calling this book “the worst book in the world,” but Articulate Joe would not be dissuaded. He liked the gerbils and so we had to continue. When we finally finished I was looking forward to a long break before having to read another such awful book. And then I realized just how much God hates me when I happened to start reading “The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios,” by Yann Martel.

I’ve only read the first of the four stories, but I imagine reading all four stories is something like going on a snipe hunt: no one really expects you to do it, because it can’t actually be done. At least “Bubble and Squeak” was well-written. Everything about Martel’s book screams “hack,” from the “Ain’t it cute?” title to the uninterrupted navel gazing of the actual text itself. The narrator is so ego-centric as to assume that the terminal illness of a recent acquaintance somehow revolves around him. He invents a game that “is the only thing that matters” in the acquaintance’s life. Excuse me? “The only thing that matters”? This guy is 19 and going to die, and you think you and your idea is so important that it’s somehow going to give meaning to his remaining existence? The game turns out to be telling each other stories, but THE STORY WE’RE READING DOESN’T TELL US THE STORIES THEY TOLD EACH OTHER. We’re reading the fact that stories were told, not the actual stories. Again with the navel gazing. The story is that a story exists.

I’ll be honest with you: I don’t really feel like putting a lot of time into this post. I’ve got a lot of work I have to do, on top of the stuff I would normally be doing at work (making maps of Philadelphia and Chicago, researching the student recreation facilities at George Mason University, and finding a cheap place to live in Fairfax, Virginia). Let me just finish by saying “The Facts About the Blah Blah Blah” proves that, just because an author can write one really good book doesn’t mean to expect to like anything else he commits to paper.