U2

Summer in the City? No, Summer with a Kitty

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My feline self sprawled next to Elizabeth von Arnim’s The Enchanted April, which I will not discuss today because I haven’t finished reading it yet. The first letters of that novel’s title spell “tea,” which I don’t drink. Thank you for your attention to these two matters. (Photo by Dave.)

Misty the suburban cat here with my every-two-month blog post. My previous guest piece was in June, this one is in August, and the next one will be in October. Except that U2’s October album was released in 1981, so I’m not sure how my next blog post will be in…October. There IS a song on that album called “Stranger in a Strange Land,” which is about me at the vet for my yearly check-up.

Anyway, my adult humans Dave and Laurel saw the Superman movie this month, and enjoyed its thrills, acting, and empathy. But I, Misty, was not allowed in the theater because of being a cat. I was actually kind of relieved, because sitting through 25 minutes of ads and previews would have had me yowling loud enough to be heard on Mars — which billionaire bozo Elon Musk, aka the Tesla dude, wants to not only colonize but have The Martian Chronicles author Ray Bradbury write a 2025 sequel called The SpaceX Chronicles. Given that Bradbury died in 2012, he…missed the pleasure of seeing the catastrophic flop of Musk’s stupid Cybertruck.

The Superman film reminds me and other kitties of Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, the 2000 novel partly based on the real-life Jerry Siegel/Joe Shuster duo who created the Superman character for comic books in 1938 — the year the iPhone minus-69 was released.

More generally, the 2025 movie starring the “Man of Steel” also reminds my meowing self of fictional characters possessing abilities beyond the capacity of most mortals. One is the Lee Child-created Jack Reacher — who’s not a superhero but displays unusual strength, incredible fighting abilities, great intellect, and other attributes in the 29-book series that began in 1997. Exactly a century after Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897), which stars a vampire who acts out in all kinds of ways after Frankenstein defeats him in pickleball. A tip of the hat to Mary Shelley.

Another character who combines exceptional brains with exceptional physical abilities is the prehistoric protagonist Ayla of Jean M. Auel’s The Clan of the Cave Bear and its sequels. Ayla’s many accomplishments included inventing things and being the only person able to ride Baby the lion (a feline like me!), although she never played pickleball with her horse Whinney.

Some fictional people even rise in the air or fly — in magic-realism novels and other books. Among them are Remedios in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude, Margarita in Mikhael Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, and the title character of J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan — which was first a play, then a novel, then an animated movie, then a live TV film, and finally a jar of peanut butter which also flew when Dave tossed it out the window to compare its hang time with a jar of Skippy peanut butter. Denying me the opportunity to swat both brands off the counter with my cat paws.

There are also characters who might not be extraordinarily adept in a brute physical way but are really, really smart. Hermione Granger of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books, Sherlock Holmes of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective fiction, Hercule Poirot of Agatha Christie’s mysteries, Lisbeth Salander of Stieg Larsson’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels, etc. Lisbeth sadly did not have a cat tattoo, but I forgive her because she’s Swedish and thus might toss some Swedish meatballs my way.

Dave will reply to comments so that I have time to eat the aforementioned meatballs. Rest assured that I maintain a balanced diet — one meatball in each side of my mouth.

I, Misty the cat, say: “After years of study, I’m finally qualified to inspect Belgian blocks.”

My and Dave’s comedic 2024 book — the part-factual/part-fictional/not-a-children’s-work Misty the Cat…Unleashed — is described and can be purchased on Amazon in paperback or on Kindle. It’s feline-narrated! (And Misty says Amazon reviews are welcome. 🙂 )

This 90-second promo video for the book features a talking cat: 🙂

Dave is also the author of a 2017 literary-trivia book…

…and a 2012 memoir that focuses on cartooning and more.

In addition to this weekly blog, Dave writes the 2003-started/award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column every Thursday for Montclair Local. The latest piece — about my school district’s huge, recently discovered deficit — is here.

‘No Book Panic Syndrome’ Is a Novel Problem

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Do you occasionally suffer from NBPS? Yes, I’m talking about No Book Panic Syndrome.

Let me explain. You’re a literature lover, and you’ve finished all the not-read novels in your home. You need to go to the library or bookstore, but you can’t get there quite yet — maybe the next day. Or you’ve ordered a title or two online, and it won’t be arriving in the mail until, say, the weekend. And (this is important!) you read books the old-fashioned way, not on a Kindle.

What to do? You can of course click on some free short stories online, and read them there. But you crave print.

I suffered from NBPS this past week. On Tuesday, I finished Louise Penny’s excellent mystery How the Light Gets In — mostly set in a small Canadian town filled with memorable characters. Two other library books I borrowed in August — Octavia Butler’s sci-fi novel Parable of the Sower and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher adventure Night School — had already been read, admired, and put aside. But I couldn’t get to the library until Thursday because of chores and car availability.

(Yes, Car Availability would make a great name for a rock band.)

Why not go a couple days without reading, I asked myself? Yeah, right, I answered — ain’t happening.

Perusing the back of cereal boxes was not a tempting option, and I had already read too much about Hurricane Irma and What a Pain Donald Trump in the print and online New York Times. So, although I’ve promised myself the past few years not to reread books I own (too many never-tried novels and authors out there), I was desperate enough to start scanning my living-room shelves. There I spotted Ray Bradbury’s R Is For Rocket, a yellowing paperback collection of 17 short stories I hadn’t read since I was a teen. Just 184 pages — the perfect length for a bridge to that Thursday library visit.

And what evocative, exquisitely written tales — about kids (as well as adults) longing to travel in space, and the occasional pitfalls of doing so; about a huge, ancient sea creature falling in love with a lighthouse and foghorn; and the classic “A Sound of Thunder” that depicts how the killing of a tiny butterfly during a trip back in time revises the present the travelers return to just enough to have a nightmarish result.

After Bradbury filled that two-day gap, I found reinforcements on Thursday when my library visit got me Fannie Flagg’s The Whole Town’s Talking, Isak Dinesen’s Seven Gothic Tales, Larry McMurtry’s The Last Kind Words Saloon, and John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. I’ll undoubtedly mention all those fictional works in future posts.

What do you do when you temporarily have no book you want to read? Do you reread something? Do extra non-reading things? Sob uncontrollably?  🙂

Or maybe the crying will happen when I get to the above-mentioned John Green novel…

I’ll end today’s post with this video of a 2017 U2 song called “The Little Things That Give You Away.” Such as suffering from No Book Panic Syndrome…  🙂

My 2017 literary-trivia book is described and can be purchased here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com. The latest weekly piece, about a way-way-too-big project that became way too big, is here.

You Too (U2) Can Enjoy Irish Literature!

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On June 28, I and perhaps 60,000 other people saw a great U2 concert in New Jersey. The world-famous rock band is of course from Ireland, so I naturally thought of writing a blog post about Irish or Irish-born authors.  🙂 That means if you ever said “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for,” and what you were looking for was a piece about Irish literature, look no more.  🙂

Is there some underlying theme or “feel” to Irish literature? I’m not expert enough to say, so I thought I’d just discuss some of the fictional works I’ve read with an authorial connection to Ireland.

When one thinks of Irish literature, James Joyce is often the first writer who comes to mind. I haven’t read a lot of Joyce’s work; for instance, I’ve yet to tackle Ulysses or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. But I did read the Dubliners collection that ends with the iconic short story “The Dead.” That haunting, almost-novella-length tale features a woman who hears a song that triggers a melancholy memory of her youth — and also triggers a sort of stunned reaction from her husband.

Another legendary Irish writer (some think of him as English) is Oscar Wilde — who’s known for short stories such as the hilarious “The Canterville Ghost” and the striking novel The Picture of Dorian Gray but is most remembered for his witty plays such as The Importance of Being Earnest.

Speaking of theater, other notable Irish or Irish-born playwrights have included George Bernard Shaw, Samuel Beckett, and Oliver Goldsmith.

Going back even further in the 18th-century than Goldsmith, we have Jonathan Swift — author of the amazing novel Gulliver’s Travels.

Speaking of amazing novelists, Dracula writer Bram Stoker was Irish. Which reminds me that the title of U2’s song “Sunday Bloody Sunday” omits six days of vampire feasting each week…

C.S. Lewis of The Chronicles of Narnia fame was born in Ireland, too. As was Brian O’Nolan (pen name: Flann O’Brien), who, in the James Joyce tradition, wrote extremely enigmatic novels such as The Third Policeman.

A more straightforward wordsmith is Colm Toibin, who has perfected a blend of literary and popular fiction with such novels as The Master (about Henry James) and Brooklyn (about a young Irish woman who comes to America — and which was turned into a 2015 major motion picture of the same name).

Then there’s John Banville, who, under the pen name Benjamin Black, has written absorbing crime novels starring Dublin pathologist Quirke. Some of that fiction has a very jaded view of the corruption and child abuse of which some Catholic Church leaders have been guilty.

Among other past and present Irish or Irish-born writers of note: Brendan Behan, Maeve Binchy, Elizabeth Bowen, Clare Boylan, Maeve Brennan, Frank Delaney, Roddy Doyle, Maria Edgeworth, Anne Enright, Molly Keane, Claire Keegan, Marian Keyes, Brian Moore, Iris Murdoch, Edna O’Brien, Frank O’Connor, and William Trevor.

I can’t end this blog post without noting that there have of course been great Irish or Irish-born poets (such as William Butler Yeats) and nonfiction writers (such as Frank McCourt of Angela’s Ashes fame). Also, the father of literary icons Anne, Charlotte, and Emily Bronte was born in Ireland as Patrick Brunty.

Who/what are your favorite Irish authors and fictional works?

Here’s a song performed at the U2 concert I attended. Nope, not “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” but “Where the Streets Have No Name.”

I’ll be away much of this week — with less time (and perhaps less WiFi access) to quickly reply to comments. But I’ll answer when I can!

My 2017 literary-trivia book is described and can be bought here: Fascinating Facts About Famous Fiction Authors and the Greatest Novels of All Time.

In addition to this weekly blog, I write the award-winning “Montclairvoyant” topical-humor column for Baristanet.com. The latest weekly piece is here.