The Italian Job

These days I can't write a post without referring to work in some manner. Lucky for you my work is boring and tedious, so I will never bore you with the details. The only thing you'll read, like last Sunday's post, is a rant or a gripe about slovenliness. But that extends beyond work, right? What can I say? I work 5 days a week at two jobs, day and night (from 9:30 am to 9:00 pm) more or less at Chapters and a manufacturer of lights and switches, called Atron Electro. Perhaps working at a bookstore seems exciting, which it can be, but when you work in the magazine department it's not. I get all the idiots, slobs and freeloaders. But enough about work.

On the reading scene, a few days ago I put down McCarthy's Blood Meridian to get back to Pulci's Morgante. No doubt McCarthy is a literary genius, and an excellent writer but I had to put it down because I realized I was forever digressing, never finishing a book. You need fortitude to read McCarthy, otherwise it will crush your spirit, like reading Dostoevsky when you're depressed. Pulci, on the other hand, is hilarious (if you've read enough medieval romances or liked Don Quixote). He's a witty satirist, whose clever humour reminds me of Loony Tunes cartoons. No wonder he is treated as the black sheep, or odd man out with respects to the Renaissance Epic Romance writers like Tasso, Ariosto and Boiardo. But enough chat, I have so little time to read.